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Joe the ManThe New Republic backs Lieberman for prez.

By Josh Levin
Updated Friday, Jan. 9, 2004, at 5:14 PM ET
New Republic

New Republic, Jan. 19
In a "special endorsement issue," the magazine backs Joe Lieberman. While Howard Dean has fomented a "mood of self-righteous delusion" within the Democratic Party, Lieberman stands alone with his "different, better vision of what it means to be a Democrat." That vision, largely, consists of his hawkish take on national security: While many Dems strangely ignored the issue in the 2002 midterm elections, then gave lip service to the need for peace in Iraq, "only Lieberman has put that goal above his political special-interest" by continually arguing that more troops must be deployed. Along with the bouquets thrown at the Connecticut senator, four writers chime in with dissents: Michelle Cottle stumps for the wonky, charismatic John Edwards; J. Peter Scoblic for the war-tested Wesley Clark; Michael Crowley for the savvy Dick Gephardt; and Jonathan Cohn for the straight-talking, young-people-inspiring Howard Dean.

Economist

Economist, Jan. 10
A report on suicide bombing suggests fundamentalism isn't entirely responsible for the phenomenon—the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, for one, are "inspired more by cultish devotion" to their leader than religious belief. Although useful for propaganda, suicide attacks are also efficient ways to kill, causing on average 13 times more deaths than non-suicide strikes. … Many in the international community are questioning why the U.S. paranoia about international flights is just now starting, two years post-9/11. One sign of the times: Three government contracts were recently awarded to study airplane-mounted laser systems that could fire back at shoulder-armed missiles. … Though still illegal, private bodyguard services are increasingly popular in China. While companies "try to deflect official attention by choosing names for their companies that avoid explicit reference to their true function," the head of Wolfman Commercial Investigations and Security Consultancy says he's been able to advertise freely.

New York Times Magazine

New York Times Magazine, Jan. 11
Peter Maass profiles Maj. John Nagl, a student of counterinsurgency who finds that, just like he wrote in his 2002 doctoral thesis, unconventional warfare really is as difficult as "learning to eat soup with a knife." After Nagl spends months building trust as part of a tank battalion in Khaldiya, Iraq, 24 policemen are killed by a car bomb, and rumors swirl that an American missile caused the damage. … Emily Nussbaum chronicles teen bloggers, "juvenile Marcel Prousts gone wild." Some observations, especially on the uneasy juxtaposition of public and private space, seem apropos, but much—scanned pictures of monkeys and robots are popular, for instance—feels too general. … Russell Shorto talks up the Farmers Diner, a Vermont restaurant supplied by local farms that was also featured in the December Harper's. The food tastes good, and owner Tod Murphy wants to franchise the idea, but his "rural Rube Goldberg" chain of suppliers might not be easy to replicate.

Sports Illustrated

Sports Illustrated, Jan. 12
In excerpts from Pete Rose's My Prison Without Bars, baseball's all-time hits leader confesses to betting on the Cincinnati Reds while he managed the team. Rose, who says he started betting on baseball because of post-hits-record depression, doggedly attempts to play up the competitiveness—"If I was on a cold streak with the bookmaker, I didn't bitch and moan about my losses"—and loyalty—"I bet the Phillies, my other former team, to win even when they were huge underdogs"—evinced by huge gambling losses. Some more fun facts: Rose learned to bet on the ponies from Don Zimmer's dad, brags that he bet the Fridge would score a touchdown in Super Bowl XX, and says that if Ted Williams "gets thawed out and comes back to play baseball, I'm coming back to get one more hit than Ted."

Weekly Standard, Jan. 12
In the cover story, Thomas F. Powers argues that the Bush administration should ditch the secrecy of Guantanomo Bay, where more than 600 "enemy combatants" from the war on terror are being detained without access to lawyers, for the consistency and transparency of a federal terrorism court. The creation of a special court might well "be denounced as an authoritarian excess," but if properly managed, such judicial reform "could become the centerpiece of a Bush administration civil liberties offensive." … At a Dean house party, Matthew Continetti watches a biographical DVD on which the silver-spoon-fed candidate remarks that he spent much of his youth outside, as "we grew up in a place, eastern Long Island, that didn't have any television." Continetti retorts, "The Dean country house in Easthampton did have running water."

The New Yorker, Jan. 12
Mark Singer's profile of Howard Dean offers a thinkier look at the same facts and framing devices presented in this week's newsmagazine stories. While there "remains something unsettling about his improvisatory, reactive decision-making style," Dean's pragmatism may cause less damaging errors than a more doctrinaire policy approach. … Malcolm Gladwell says "learned helplessness" sells SUVs—consumers think car accidents are inevitable, and they don't want to be the ones getting flattened. But while the girth of an Explorer or Tahoe could help you survive a smash-up, a nimbler vehicle would likely help avoid it. … Atul Gawande reports from rural India, where swarms of health care workers vaccinate 4 million children in three days as part of the worldwide effort to wipe out polio. While eradicating the disease would be a tremendous accomplishment, Gawande wonders if money would be better spent on "building proper sewage systems or improving basic health services."

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

Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report, Jan. 12
Double double: For the second time in five months, Howard Dean graces the covers of Newsweek and Time simultaneously. The news isn't all happy, though, as both magazines surmise that his loose tongue and brusque manner may cost Dean in the polls. The candidate tells Time that he sometimes fails to get his message across because of a tendency to use shorthand, an unshakable habit from his doctor days. His Zen explanation: "I eliminate possibilities unconsciously, before they get to my consciousness." In the Newsweek Q and A, Dean names Job as his favorite biblical tale and says that, as the Dem front-runner, he's been "feeling a little more Job-like recently."

Udder confusion: Newsweek says the Washington-state cow found to have bovine spongiform encephalopathy is the most irksome bovine since Mrs. O'Leary's. Along with potential health risks, the whole mad cow episode has "a yuck factor that's off the charts," notes U.S. News, which fulfills its prophecy with a couple of detailed passages on cattle rendering. Time says that while one major U.S. packing company has started retinal tracking of cattle, American exports are "pretty much dead meat" for the short term. Australia, the biggest meat-providing nation yet to have a mad cow, could stand to benefit most. (Read Slate's take on mad cow.)

Boomer sooner: In its cover story, U.S. News says tax cuts, increased government spending, and low interest rates mean that productivity is on the rise and American consumers are buying more. And not only is the economy on the upswing, but it may soon eclipse the heady days of five years ago because many of the "excesses have been wrung out" since the dot-com boom. The only potential snafu: the declining value of the dollar, which could lead to decreases in foreign investment and "sudden, violent downturns."

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