Economist, July 17 The magazine dissects the recent reports from the U.S. and British governments that criticize the lack of truth-telling in the run-up to the Iraq war. The Americans look worse, as the intelligence gatherers under CIA director George Tenet were judged “gullible and incompetent.” At least Britain had five agents inside Iraq, even though “they seem hardly to have improved its intelligence.”… A chart of worldwide oil reserves lists Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait as each having enough supply to last them more than 100 years. The United States has only enough for 11 years, while Britain is last on the list, with five more years of oil.… Another piece quotes the world’s leading maze designer as saying half the world’s mazes have been built in just the past decade. No word, though, on if there’s any correlation between maze building and the number of missing persons worldwide.—J.L.
New Republic, July 26 The cover story calls the Bush administration “the least democratic in the modern history of the presidency.” The evidence cited includes the president’s unwillingness to give press conferences, his repeated stonewalling of the 9/11 commission, and the deliberate low-ball estimate—$400 billion rather than $534 billion—provided to House members for the cost of the administration’s prescription drug bill. … A report from Athens says the cost of the Summer Olympics is approaching $12 billion. The piece argues that the games are growing economically unsustainable because of rising, unrecoverable security costs and a ballooning number of events that require costly additional venues.… Another article claims President Bush’s hard-line policies have left John Kerry an opening with Florida’s growing number of “New Cubans,” who are less anti-Castro than their elders. Even a small shift among GOP-leaning Cuban voters could mean victory for the Democrats in November.—J.L.
New York Times Magazine, July 18 The cover story investigates the difficulties of ADD sufferers in the workplace. While employers often feel guilty about laying off an employee with a physical disability, it “doesn’t feel wrong to dismiss someone for disorganization, or laziness, or a brusque manner”—some of the hallmarks of attention deficit disorder. The piece also lists ideal occupations for those with ADD: sales and hairdressing, which involve “chatting and moving around,” or the adrenaline rush of stock trading and emergency medicine.… A photo essay of Israeli and Palestinian civilians who have been horribly injured during the yearslong conflict gruesomely drives home the point that it’s “easy to romanticize death and almost impossible to make an ideological fable out of having one’s legs blown off or one’s face burned.”—J.L.
New York, July 19
An independent journalist describes his life in Baghdad during the waning days of the occupation: Pool parties at the al-Hamra Hotel took the edge off rumors of imminent attacks.… Could George Pataki be the Republican nominee in 2008? Sept. 11 may have given his nemesis from downstate, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a higher profile, but the governor’s leadership during the attacks and their aftermath has increased his political cachet as well. A successful fund-raiser, Pataki is rumored to be looking beyond his re-election campaign in 2006 toward a run for the White House. … Heading to NYC for the GOP convention next month? Get off the beaten path with a Republican walking tour of the city. … Slate’s Clive Thompson explores retro video games’ invasion of pop culture and high art. The games are appealing, he concludes, because they offer a kind of “Jungian map of our digital lives.”— A.B.D.
Weekly Standard, July 19 The magazine frets that John Kerry is positioned to capture the presidency—something that “isn’t supposed to be happening.” The Democrats are succeeding in turning the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq into a “character issue” for President Bush.… Another article plays the journalistic parlor game of finding conflicting statements the presidential running mates made before they realized they would be on the same ticket. Although the piece offers some good examples of Kerry and Edwards contradicting each other, it fails to prove its claim that this year’s examples are any more notable than those from years past.… A former CIA employee makes the case that the agency’s covert operations are woefully inadequate. Departed Director George Tenet’s enthusiasm for such operations convinced the press that the agency was succeeding in its clandestine work. But Tenet did little to build up the agency’s capabilities in the field.— A.B.D.
Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report, July 19 Torture chambers: U.S. News has what may be the most comprehensive story on Iraqi-prisoner abuse to date. The magazine obtained all 106 annexes to Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba’s report about Abu Ghraib prison. The documents, which run to several thousand pages, reveal that the violence at Abu Ghraib was the result of an unclear chain of command, poorly provisioned guards, unprepared commanders, and rogue intelligence officers, the magazine writes. Just as important, however, was the military’s failure to prosecute earlier cases of abuse at Camp Bucca, a detention center in southern Iraq.… Newsweek reviewed the case files of 26 abused prisoners and found that half were common criminals, not terrorists. The hooded prisoner in the infamous “Statue of Liberty” picture was arrested for being a car thief, not an insurgent.… Time reports that a former Green Beret who set up his own private prison in Afghanistan apparently tortured his Afghan captives.
Terror and intelligence:Newsweek has an exclusive scoop about proposals to postpone November’s election in case of a terrorist attack. The frustratingly short article emphasizes that the effort is still under review. In light of last week’s warnings about potentially imminent al-Qaida strikes, however, such a contingency plan may be closer to reality than acknowledged. … U.S. News reviews the Senate intelligence committee’s report on faulty prewar data on Iraq. The magazine notes that committee Republicans helped Bush dodge a potential bullet by postponing a review of the administration’s use of intelligence until after the election. …Time also writes about the committee and the prospects for true intelligence reform. A Democratic campaign official told the magazine that a President Kerry would name a defense secretary willing to give up the Pentagon’s control of the intelligence budget to allow the CIA more independence.
That’s the ticket: John Kerry’s perfectly choreographed announcement of John Edwards as his running mate won him the covers of all three newsweeklies. Time catches them in some playful banter. (What did Kerry learn about Edwards last week? “This man drinks a lot of Diet Coke.”) The story mostly rehashes the conventional wisdom about the duo and their partnership but adds an interesting detail sure to irk Bush-Cheney campaign officials: A new Time poll shows Edwards’ background as a trial lawyer is not hurting his standing with voters. …Newsweek’s interview and cover story adds little new information about the ticket. …U.S. News offers its own analysis of the pick, and looks back at the Kerry campaign so far.—A.B.D.
Economist, July 10; New Republic, July 19 John-John: John Kerry’s selection of North Carolina Sen. John Edwards as his running mate plays to positive reviews. The magazines agree that the pick shores up a glaring Kerry weakness—that, as the Economist puts it, he had “yet to articulate why he should be president.”TNR’s Campaign Journal says Kerry has already incorporated the “Edwardsian” idea of the “middle-class squeeze” by emphasizing credit-card debt and personal bankruptcy.… The mags also say the veep choice offers a preview of how Kerry would govern as president. TRB argues that the appropriation of Edwards’ message isn’t just “politically shrewd,” but shows Kerry is willing to listen to others’ ideas, unlike the immovable George W. Bush. And an Economist piece says the vetting process shows that President Kerry would first “thrash out issues to death,” then come to a last-minute decision that even his staffers aren’t clued in about.
Asia major: Anonymous sources in Pakistan tell TNR that top American officials are applying pressure on them to collar “high-value targets” like Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri before the November election. One source in the Pakistani intelligence service even says he was told that the Bushies hope to announce an “arrest or killing” during the first three days of the Democratic National Convention.… The Economist reports that Japan is becoming the “land of the rising gun.” Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has broad national support to jettison the country’s pacifist foreign policy for a more active stance, specifically toward North Korea. That’s good news for the Bush administration, which could use a powerful ally in the unstable Pacific.—J.L.
