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Nation of GodWill Howard Dean's secular candidacy hurt him in the polls?

By Josh Levin
Updated Friday, Dec. 19, 2003, at 4:52 PM ET
New Republic

New Republic, Dec. 29-Jan 12
Franklin Foer says Howard Dean's secular candidacy could topple him at the polls. Both sniping at "fundamentalist preachers" and a bizarre, aspiritual conversion story—he left the Episcopal church for the more liberal Congregationalists because the former wouldn't cede land to create a Vermont bike path—are easy targets for Karl Rove. "The Republican Party can write the direct mail in their sleep," says conservative activist Gary Bauer. … Spencer Ackerman says Saddam's capture won't repair the rift between the CIA and the Oval Office. The agency now bases reports on what's politically expedient—e.g., amping up the threat of Syria's nuclear capabilities—while hoping that the Bush administration is gone in 2004. … "It would cost money, and lives, and cause a huge outcry in Islamabad and elsewhere," but TRB's Peter Beinart suggests that Dems should make their cause the sussing out of Osama Bin Laden with "substantial ground troops."

Economist

Economist, Dec. 20
Just in time for the holidays, the cover story offers "history's foremost Jewish mother" as a link between Christians and Muslims. In Mary, both religions find "there is no limit to the holiness, or proximity to God, that any human, whether male or female, can attain." … That no unifying figure has emerged in Iraq is evidence of the ethnically amalgamated nation's untidy roots and Saddam Hussein's brutal efficiency at killing those who could "mobilise the support of Iraqis as a whole." … As the Taliban's 2001 ouster approached, government officials tried to abscond with Afghanistan's Bactrian gold, an ancient store of coins, crowns, and statuary uncovered in 1978-79. Attempts to pick the lock at the bank vault where the treasure is stored were unsuccessful, though, and when the vault was finally opened a few months ago, the bounty was intact, in "cheap trunks you use for clothes."

Sports Illustrated

Sports Illustrated, Dec. 22
Alexander Wolff offers a survey course in the history of the retro-jersey fashion craze. In 2001, Philly native Reuben "Big Rube" Harley offered to help jersey-maker Mitchell & Ness market to the African-American community. After a few months, retro Wes Unselds and Hal Greers were de rigueur for hip-hop artists, athletes, and every other kind of consumer—the company's revenues increased from $3 million a year to a projected $40 million in 2003. The inevitable backlash: On The Black Album, Jay-Z announces, "I don't wear jerseys I'm 30 plus," and Claude Johnson, who markets his own line of jerseys celebrating pre-integration teams like the Washington 12th Streeters, says most retros offer a shallow look at history. "My jerseys are an excuse for a father to have a conversation with his son, as opposed to an argument over why anyone would spend $350 on a friggin' Nolan Ryan jersey."

New York Times Magazine

New York Times Magazine, Dec. 21
Jonathan Dee's cover story on video games unconvincingly anoints Atari CEO Bruno Bonnell as the future titan of the industry. Bonnell, a wacky quote machine who tells his company's story by starting from the time of the caveman, is more sizzle than steak, and lamely rejects a game pitched by an unidentified major hip-hop artist because it "lacks an ethical dimension." The piece also suffers from an absence of insights from real gamers. … Stephen Mihm advises to put a padlock on your wastebasket. Low-tech identity thief Kenneth Massey, who bilked credit card holders out of millions by sifting through thrown out tax forms, is now on the lam. Interesting tidbit: Massey employed an army of meth addicts to rifle through sheets of paper because they found the mundane task "oddly enthralling."

Weekly Standard

Weekly Standard, Dec. 22
David Tell hitches a ride with Dick Gephardt as part of his continuing quest to find a candidate who can beat Howard Dean in Iowa. The Missouri congressman's traditionally Democratic views on trade and labor should bring more party-liners into the fold, and Gephardt has started to seal the deal with increasingly livid stump speeches. Despite his anti-Bush fury, Gephardt's still a "genial, decent man," as opposed to Dean and his supporters, who display "incontinent hostility" toward the unconverted. … Reuel Marc Gerecht says Shiite leaders like Ayatollah Ali Sistani are the key to rebuilding a sovereign Iraq. So far, Sistani and his followers have been sensitive to Sunni fears that Shiites, 60 percent of all Iraqis, will dominate the post-Saddam government. That could change, though, if Shiite representation in the country's transitional government doesn't reflect the group's majority status.

The New Yorker

The New Yorker, Dec. 22 and 29
The winter fiction issue includes a short story by Edward P. Jones. Jones, whose novel The Known World appears on most lists of the best books of 2003, skillfully weaves three traumatic episodes into a lived-in narrative that creeps through the streets of 1950s Washington, D.C. … A memoir by Donald Antrim unspools the writer's personal Da Vinci Code—a strangely moving tale of an alcoholic mother, her alcoholic boyfriend, and the painting he thinks is a Leonardo. … Elizabeth Kolbert follows the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory, a private organization working without government funding to identify thousands of bodies left behind in unmarked graves after the purges of the Spanish Civil War. The mass disinterment may lead to the discovery of the body of poet Federico García Lorca, whose 1936 murder remains mysterious.

Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report

Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 22
Down the spider hole: Time and Newsweek feature nearly identical covers and hastily prepared, photo-heavy packages on the capture of Saddam Hussein. (In an ironic twist, Time's originally planned cover, in a limited printing, featured Anthony van Dyck's The Savior of the World—the same painting on the front of this week's U.S. News. A "Capturing Saddam" edition of U.S. News will hit newsstands Wednesday.) Newsweek reports that in the weeks before Saddam was uncovered, 60 percent of the 1,000 men in his boyhood home of Awja were arrested and questioned. Time says Adnan Pachachi, acting president of the Iraqi Governing Council, was so intent on hectoring the deposed dictator face to face that he put a congratulatory phone call from President Bush on hold. In a Web-only item, Time reports that when offered a drink by his captors, Saddam responded, "If I drink water I will have to go to the bathroom and how can I use the bathroom when my people are in bondage?"

The culture wars: According to Newsweek, the ouster of Saddam has been a major boon to sex-crazed Iraqis. Prostitutes are cheap and plentiful in Baghdad, and an all-day ticket to a porno theater costs 70 cents. Not everyone is in line: Disapproving Muslims tossed a grenade into one blue movie house. … Time says faulty intelligence led to the deaths of 15 children in Afghanistan in the past 10 days. Nine children playing with marbles were killed in one attack, based on signals from a satellite phone thought to be owned by a Taliban commander.

Out of sight, not out of mind: A U.S. News investigation finds that the Bush administration classified 44.5 million documents in its first two years, the same amount kept under wraps in President Clinton's last four years. Other evidence of the administration's cone of silence, which began expanding before 9/11: Tire safety information provided by manufacturers after the Firestone scandal has been kept under lock and key, and the secretary of agriculture can now classify information as secret.

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Josh Levin is a Slate associate editor. You can e-mail him at .
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