In a career stretching back nearly three decades, documentary filmmaker Errol Morris has trained a cool but compassionate eye on such disparate subjects as a pet cemetery, cosmology, the legal system, and the waffling confessions of Robert S. McNamara. His films are always arguments of a kind, designed to tamper with the status quo. The Fog of War (2004) may have won him an Oscar, after all, but one suspects that Morris is even prouder of The Thin Blue Line (1988), which got an innocent man off death row. Yet he is too fascinated by human ambiguity to divide his dramatis personae into freeze-dried heroes and villains. In almost everybody, he sees the potential for both--which is what gives his latest production its somewhat creepy power. A visual meditation on the Abu Ghraib photographs, Standard Operating Procedure is an elegant movie about profoundly ugly behavior. During a recent swing through Manhattan, the director sat down with Propeller to talk about the photos, the film, and his responsibilities as (to use his own phrase) an "investigative vacuum cleaner, hoovering up stuff as I go along."

Propeller (submitted by not2needy): What was your own reaction when you first saw the pictures?

Morris: I had a feeling of shame, actually. At the same time, the photographs struck me as utterly bizarre--there was something insane about them. They're unique. They're very different from war photographs. They're not taken by journalists or war photographers, but by soldiers themselves. And because they're taken by soldiers themselves, the question arises: are these pictures of policy, or of some aberrant behavior? It's one of the central stories of our time, I think, and I remain as fascinated now as I was when I first heard about it.


Propeller: You mentioned earlier that you've collaborated on a book about the Abu Ghraib photographs with Philip Gourevitch. How will that differ from the film?

Morris: When Philip and I started working together, he saw the transcripts of the interviews that I had done up to that point, and they represented over one and a half million words. So there's a lot of material, and the movie is just one small part of it. I interviewed probably twice the number of people that I used in the movie.

Propeller: How did you decide which people to use in the movie?

Morris: I kept going back to the photographs. If the center of the story is the photographs, then it was important to feature those people who were directly involved in taking them. It was as simple as that.

Propeller: Is there a voyeuristic element to dwelling on the photographs? Are we in some way prolonging the humiliation of the victims by doing so?

Morris: One of the things that's so fascinating about this story is that people were blamed for taking pictures--not so much for what is depicted in the pictures. People were blamed for embarrassing America, for embarrassing the administration, for embarrassing the military. But this loses sight of a fundamental thing: the crime here is not photography. The crime here is what is depicted in the photographs, and as such, the photographs represent very significant evidence, not to be hidden, suppressed, redacted. They should be shown and discussed.

Propeller: Why didn't you interview Joseph Darby, who first turned over the Abu Ghraib images to the U.S. military command?

Morris: I did interview him, at length--I have a six- or seven-hour interview with Joseph Darby. I chose not to use the interview for a whole number of reasons. Darby is really not part of the story that I wanted to tell. First of all, most of those photographs were widely known, I believe, before Joseph Darby turned them in to CID [Criminal Investigation Command]. I also believe that CID is implicated in many ways in some of the things that happened at Abu Ghraib.

Propeller: And how did you decide which photographs to use in the film?

Morris: In a certain way, I did something very simple and crude: I tried to put the pieces in chronological order. Always ill-advised, because chronology never follows the dictates of drama. I picked the photographs that were the most infamous. I mean, there's Gus with Lynndie (left) holding the leash. There's the night of the human pyramids, when everything seemed to go nuts. Then there are the Al-Jamadi photographs, because this was the story of an actual murder that had nothing to do with these guys, with these "bad apples." If they were responsible for anything, they were responsible for uncovering it.

Propeller (submitted by Spadecaller): Can one truthfully assert that the photographs depict a series of isolated events caused by a small group of misguided soldiers--by, as you just said, "bad apples"?

Morris: Everybody loves to imagine what these stories are. You see something really, really, really bad--and I would put Abu Ghraib in that category--and the natural human tendency is to imagine that these people are beyond the pale, they're not like you and me, they're in some deep sense subhuman. And on the flip side, there are the real heroes, who stood up and said, "I won't allow this to happen." Now, I'm not saying that there aren't people who are beyond the pale, and that there aren't real heroes. I just think that the story is far, far more complex.

For both the Left and Right, the bad apples are these odd constructions. Everybody has an investment in seeing them as bad. Part of what the movie is trying to do--and I think it's a risky thing to do--is to show people struggling with a kind of nightmare.

Propeller: The nightmare of Abu Ghraib itself?

Morris: Yes. I mean, the place was crazy. They put a prison in the middle of the Sunni Triangle! One of the standards of the Geneva Convention is that you do not put prisoners in a war zone, where they can be killed. You put them behind your own lines. Abu Ghraib, setting aside all its associations with Saddam's regime, was in a place that was just dangerous. There were two military intelligence officers who lost their lives that September during a mortar attack. Prisoners were killed, too. It was a dangerous place, ill-supplied, understaffed, with people pouring in from random sweeps. People coming into the place were unable to get out, due to endless bureaucratic rigmarole. For all intents and purposes, we were running a concentration camp in the middle of the Sunni Triangle. Congratulations!

Propeller: So does the nightmarish location essentially give these soldiers a free pass? That, plus the idea that they were just following orders?

Morris: First of all: it's the military. Of course they follow orders! They're privates, and specialists, and sergeants! What do you think happens in the military? Philip and I have been talking about writing an essay for the Times on the whole concept of following orders--what it really means in the post-World-War-II period. Obviously it's not an excuse for everything and anything. But this is how armies operate.

Propeller: But sometimes there are people who refuse to follow orders. And Darby did eventually turn in those photographs.

Morris: Take my word for it, I could not in good conscience include Darby. Nobody knows the full story.

Propeller: Do you think there's any chance that somebody like George W. Bush or Donald Rumsfeld will someday submit to an extensive interview for you, the way Robert McNamara did in The Fog of War?

Morris: I don't know. I'd be happy to interview Rumsfeld anytime. I'd do it tomorrow--I'd cancel a lot of these press interviews if necessary! But meanwhile, it amazes me that people will say, "How come you didn't interview Cheney? Why didn't you interview Rumsfeld? Why do I have to listen to fucking privates talking about this?" There's a very simple answer. You have to listen to them because they are right there at the center of it all. To me, the story is about the people who took the photographs. It's not a story of seven bad apples who got caught because they were so stupid. It's a different kind of story. And I like to think that I'm trying to tell it in a way that it's never been told before.

Propeller: Did you interview any Abu Ghraib prisoners?

Morris: I didn't want to talk to prisoners at random, I wanted to talk to the prisoners in these iconic photographs: Gus and Gilligan. I could find neither of them. And it's not because I didn't try.

Propeller: Did the military ever get any usable intelligence out of Abu Ghraib?

Morris: That depends on who you talk to. If you talk to Janis Karpinski (right), the answer is no. I'm sure that they got some intel out of the place. But the great irony is that the main reason for Abu Ghraib's existence was to find Saddam. And there was no intelligence from Abu Ghraib that led to his capture.

Propeller: Your film includes interviews, photos, and stylized reenactments of specific incidents. How are viewers supposed to treat those differing levels of reality?

Morris: Here was my thinking. I was trying to tell a story about photographs. How do you do that? You show the photographs, you put white borders on them to show that they haven't been adulterated--yes, it's anachronistic to put the white borders on, but that's how I think the pictures are read. I then have retrospective accounts, which are themselves a kind of reenactment: they're people speaking two or three years after the fact, about why they took the photograph. They're all retrospective accounts: verbal reenactments, if you like.

I hear what the people say to me. Inevitably there are lines that suggest images, which would allow me to bring their retrospective accounts to life. It could be somebody throwing a Nerf football, it could be somebody talking about how they forced these three prisoners to "low crawl." The images are there, usually in ultra-slow motion, to bring you into that moment when the photograph was taken.

Propeller: But is there some danger of blurring the line between what is authentic and what is not?

Morris: The word authentic worries me. The reenactments are not authentic, and they're not intended to be in that sense. I've probably created the problem myself, by referring to them as reenactments. They're attempts to imagine, or reimagine, what might have taken place. Not because you're reconstructing reality perfectly--you can never do that. But because you want the audience to join with you in thinking about what transpired.

Propeller: A certain kind of postmodernist might say that we're beyond the truth, it doesn't really matter anymore.

Morris: That makes me sick.

Propeller: Yes, well, at what point is exposing the truth not enough?

Morris: If exposing the truth means adjudicating the final details, that's not enough--I would agree. You can uncover useless, irrelevant truths with respect to certain issues. I like to think (in a self-serving way) that some of the things I've uncovered are relevant to the war.


Propeller: Did the making of this film transform your own feelings about the war in any significant way?

Morris: My own two cents--and I shouldn't really interpret my own movie, I should just make it and shut the fuck up--is that we're dealing with some crazy war of humiliation. The idea was to show Iraq and Saddam Hussein who was boss.

Propeller: You see that in the actual conduct of the war itself, or elsewhere in the culture?

Morris: It's taken various kinds of expression. I think it was half a year ago, I was at the MPAA [Motion Picture Association of America] in Los Angeles, arguing for an R rating for the movie. At the same time, I was telling people that I did not want to redact the photos. I didn't like the idea of blurring them out, I wanted them to appear as they were. Otherwise it seemed to spoil the whole underlying idea that these were the real photographs.

Anyway, I started to tell the head of the MPAA my feelings about this being a war of humiliation. And the head of the agency, who has to watch everything, said to me: The horror movies that have been coming in since the war started are different. Now you don't kill people. You humiliate them first, then kill them--the killing is an afterthought. And I think there is some truth to it.

Propeller: Do you think the administration knowingly pursued this scenario of humiliation at Abu Ghraib?

Morris: Maybe the administration didn't order up all these things from some kind of luncheonette menu. I don't think that they did. But what is clear is that they created a setting where things could just devolve into insanity. Whether it's relaxations of what constitutes torture, or abrogating certain conventions, treaties, international agreements, or sending an ill-equipped army to an area where bad things are inevitably going to happen. There's no single element that you can point to. It's a myriad of different things. But the combination of them produces a disaster.

Propeller (submitted by SonOfTheMask): You've spoken about journalism as being a process of recovering reality. What reality do you think your film has recovered for us, and how might that change the national dialogue about Abu Ghraib?

Morris: I remain firmly convinced that Abu Ghraib teaches us something, perhaps something deeply unpleasant, about ourselves. It is a kind of State of the Union address in its most perverse form. It tells us more than what we want to hear and what we want to know.

Propeller (submitted by Spadecaller): Is the seeming indifference by the media and the public a defense against a frightening reality: that our leaders have made it more inviting to look the other way?

Morris: The US government and the military would have loved to suppress all of these photographs. And the photographs rendered an enormous public service, an ironic one: they opened the curtain and gave us a glimpse into Abu Ghraib. But then we stopped--as if somehow, the photographs shouldn't lead us deeper into the place and what it was about.

Propeller (submitted by gamahuche): Exactly. We can have an almost Pavlovian reaction to such photographs, where they seem to prevent us from thinking.

Morris: The photographs became iconic for a reason. They seem to express something, yet it's not really clear what they express. Having spent years thinking about them, I can't say that I understand them fully. They're these weird tableaux vivants--Cindy Sherman from Hell, things created for the camera--yet they captured something about the zeitgeist, something very disturbing.

Propeller (submitted by Radiofreeeuropa): Do you see yourself more as an artist or a journalist? Or to put it another way, what is your responsibility, and what is ours as the audience?

Morris: I think we all have a responsibility to think about this stuff. Why this country is so apathetic about the war, I can't answer. It very quickly devolved into a Battle of the Blogs--the Right and Left could take their positions, and people could get really tired of listening to it. But I truly believe that before you decide what something is, you have to know something about it: you have to investigate it. And the photographs, which horrified me and made me ashamed... well, I needed to know what they were and how they were produced and what they were about.

When a bomb went off in Times Square in the early morning hours of March 6, David Karnes, an entertainment lawyer from Los Angeles, became one of the first suspects. Due to a set of circumstances that made him, in the words of one investigator, the "unluckiest person" in the world, he was immediately tried and found guilty by the media. Almost every newspaper account of the bombing referenced Karnes as a possible suspect.

Why was Karnes even mentioned? Shortly before the bombing, he had sent multiple documents, including a photo of himself in front of the Times Square recruiting station, to Democratic members of Congress. The written material expressed the young lawyer's opposition to the Iraq war. And the caption underneath the photo read: "We Did It!" According to Karnes, the photo was part of a holiday card sent to family friends after the 2006 election, now being recycled to congratulate Democratic lawmakers on regaining a congressional majority. Within a couple of days (and after an FBI interrogation), Karnes was cleared of any wrongdoing.

Karnes was hardly the first person to be unjustly smeared by the media. Not everyone, however, gets the chance to air his or her grievances in the editorial pages of a major newspaper. Karnes penned an article in the Los Angeles Times on March 16, recounting his how quickly the media had piled on. He chronicled the rush to judgment he saw in print and on television, and the sarcastic response to his protestations of innocence. (As the Weekly Standard put it: "There's only one way we can know for sure. Waterboard him!")

According to Karnes, what upset him most was that nobody ever got a chance to anyone to read his writings. But in addition to publishing his editorial, the Los Angeles Times--one of the few papers that didn't reference his name in the first place--linked to PDF files of several of his essays. Readers could sample "Memorandum to Democratic Members of Congress," "Common Ground: Rebuilding the Democracy for the New Millennium," and "Elections 2008: Summary of Key Premises."

According to Nicholas Goldberg, editor of the Times' Op-Ed pages, the paper wanted to give readers the chance to study the documents. He also notes that while his department often commissions articles, it was Karnes who approached the paper in this case. "We didn't solicit the piece," explains Goldberg. " But we looked into it and thought it was an interesting story."

For some, the story may bring to mind the tale of Richard Jewell, a security guard who was an initial "person of interest" after the Olympic bombing in Atlanta in 1996. For Propeller user bruhaha, who submitted the story, it was the "bad luck coincidence of the whole thing" that made it worthy of attention. Yet bruhaha also saw a broader theme: "This caught my attention because it showed another case of the media jumping on a story, without the facts. When the story turns out to not be true, and [the media] are forced to admit that they were wrong, they oftentimes bury it where no one sees it. So many of the people who saw the original report still think it was true.... Also, what made this more interesting to me is that it was just some 'Regular Joe' doing what more of us should do: being a part of the political system, being active."

Overlooked Story: Utah Students Hide Guns, Head to Class
Submitted By: Pamcak3

Last week, Joshua Molina, a senior at Utah's Brigham Young University and a campus correspondent for CNN, interviewed students at the University of Utah for a story on campuses and gun control. Utah is currently the only state that allows students and professors to carry guns on a public campus, but legislation that could allow concealed handguns on campuses is pending in about 14 states, according to the Washington, D.C-based Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Those in favor of such statutes argue that a would-be killer may be less likely to attack on a campus if both students and teachers are armed. Opponents insist that guns don't belong in the drinking-heavy college environment. For his story, Molina hung out with a student who carried a concealed weapon. Propeller's Dakota Smith caught up with him by phone on Monday.

Propeller: What's been the reaction from people since the story came out?

Joshua Molina: I've gotten a lot of emails from people who know me, saying congratulations on the article, along with a ton of messages on Facebook from people I don't know. I also heard from one of the Virginia Tech victims, who wrote, "Thanks for showing this side of the story, most of the time the media only shows one side of the story."

Propeller: When you talked to students at the University of Utah, what was the general reaction to having guns in the school?

Molina: I thought most people would be against it. I still think the majority of people are. But I was surprised at the number of students who don't mind [guns on campuses], or actually want them in school. Of course, you have to consider the demographic. You're in the western part of the country. I am from New Jersey, and where I grew up, you just don't have guns. But it's a different culture here.

Propeller: When you were with the student who had the gun, did other students know that he was armed?

Molina: The student said that most of his friends figured out who he was after the article came out. But no, you wouldn't know he carries a gun. He prefers it that way, that's why it's a concealed weapon.

Propeller: Would somebody like this student carry the gun everywhere, or just on campus?

Molina: The students that I talked to that carry guns on campus already carried guns in other public places. For a while students couldn't carry guns on the University of Utah campus because of a school rule, but the Utah Supreme Court overturned that rule in 2006. Since then, and especially since the Virginia Tech shootings, students have chosen to carry their concealed guns to school as well. They wanted to feel protected if another shooting occurred.

Propeller: Did the students or professors that you spoke to discuss other methods of preventing Virginia Tech-like incidents?

Molina: I don't think there is a dialogue about it all. People liked my article because it opened up a conversation on the topic, but no, they haven't offered alternative suggestions.

Propeller: At Brigham Young University, where you got to school, how do students feel about allowing weapons on campus?

Molina: You can't have guns on campus because it is a private institution, and they make the rules. But you can check guns at the dorm, you can leave them with someone at the front desk. I think most people feel safe here knowing that there are no guns, but I think that attitude is also changing.

Propeller: When these school shootings take place, what happens on your campus? Do students watch TV and talk about it, or have they become blasé?

Molina: I think we've been desensitized since Columbine. That was the first one, and I remember watching CNN and all the coverage. But since then, there have been so many other ones and so much media coverage. If it's not a local shooting, we don't spend that much time on it. Last year, there was a shooting at the Trolley Square Mall [in Salt Lake City], and people at our school sat around and watched TV and cried, but that's because it was local.

Propeller: When you are sitting in class, do you think about the possibility of a shooting?

Molina: It's crossed my mind. But even after interviewing these people, it's not in my forefront of my thoughts. Until it hits us closely and personally, it's hard to treat [security issues] as a priority.

Propeller: Now that you've done the story, what's your take on the issue?

Molina: I don't have a stance on this issue, but after researching the topic and interviewing people who are on either side of the issue, I'm coming to a more educated opinion about it.

8:43 PM EST: For the last few years, my polling station has been located at Saint Peter's Church in midtown Manhattan. This small house of worship is an ecumenical outpost of the massive Citicorp Center--a supposed terrorist target back in 2004. But the mood there this morning, as Super Tuesday got underway, was decidedly sleepy. I was the only voter on hand. I was issued a green registration card, which I surrendered to a patient-looking man in khakis next to the booth. Then I parted the curtains and stepped inside to play my infinitesimal part in the great democratic experiment. In most of this state, we still use mechanical lever machines--descendants of the Myers Automatic Booth, which made its debut in Lockport, New York, in 1892. The red lever and the little tabs for individual candidates are products of the Industrial Age, and will no doubt be supplanted by digital technology any minute now. But I'll miss the satisfying clank as you move the lever to the right, then back to the left. The mechanical sound indicates that you have accomplished something. Still, the polling station fell silent again as I exited. Super Tuesday was feeling rather anticlimactic in midtown.


Elsewhere, though, the excitement was mounting. By lunchtime, Mike Huckabee had won the West Virginia primary, aided by a procedural spat between the McCain and Romney camps. The next state to close its polls was Georgia, at 7:00 PM EST, and there Barack Obama sailed to a clear victory over Hillary Clinton, gaining substantial support from the state's black population. Seven additional states closed their polls at 8:00 PM, and by now, the results of what is essentially a national primary are coming in thick and fast. John McCain is looking to be the victor in New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut, and Illinois--not bad for a guy who was written off as a penniless joke just a few short months ago. Massachusetts gave its delegates to Mitt Romney, who either resuscitated the state or destroyed it during his tenure as governor (it all depends on who you ask). Hillary Clinton, who must have originally conceived of Super Tuesday as her political Sweet Sixteen party, has won in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. But the tug-of-war between her and Obama is still underway in a number of populous states, including Connecticut, New Jersey, and what is widely perceived as a Clinton stronghold, her electoral equivalent of Helm's Deep: that would be New York. Who will be the last man (or last woman) standing? Check in throughout the night, as we update this post. And in the meantime, take a look at this Super Tuesday photo gallery.

9:18 PM EST: Just 30 minutes ago, things were beginning to look a little grim for Hillary Clinton. Although she had cleaned up in a number of early contests, including Arkansas and Tennessee, Obama was nipping at her heels all over the Eastern Seaboard. Well, things have firmed up for her since then. First she took Massachusetts, where Obama, having obtained the endorsement of local icon Teddy Kennedy--and the slightly less iconic John Kerry--had real hopes of prevailing. No such luck. Clinton soon added New York to her tally: a loss in her home state would have been mortifying, but even the Obama camp recognized this as an unlikely outcome. And at 9:18, ABC News projected her as the winner in New Jersey.


A close contest between the Democratic contenders will surprise nobody. What's more intriguing is the strong showing made by Mike Huckabee throughout the South and West. In Alabama--which, according the ABC News, saw "the biggest evangelical vote ever"--he won with 48 percent, and he's currently leading in Missouri as well, with 37 percent to John McCain's 30 percent. And elsewhere, in Tennessee and Oklahoma, he's trailing McCain but leaving Mitt Romney in the dust. It may be that Romney's attempt to peel the conservative block away from McCain has worked all too well--but those voters are defecting to the former Arkansas governor instead of pulling the lever for the eerily telegenic Mitt. Could this boost Huckabee's chance of landing a vice-presidential berth? Probably. Meanwhile, Romney is pinning his hopes on California, where evangelicals are thinner on the ground and his high-tech credentials have a better chance of wooing the voters.

Like the average American, I'm getting my Super Tuesday results from the TV. George Stephanopoulos looks half his age. Diane Sawyer looks half her age--maybe half his age. But if you want something more futuristic, Google has obliged with an automatically updated chart and a map whose exact purpose I haven't figured out yet. Enjoy!

11:25 PM EST: At 10:13, Obama was declared the winner in North Dakota, and by 10:31, he won in Minnesota as well. Was the pendulum now swinging away from Hillary Clinton? Perhaps. But as one of the talking heads pointed out, the two Democratic candidates were still heading for a photo finish in terms of the popular vote. They had split the 6.4 million votes cast so far right down the middle, with less than 200,000 votes separating them. The outcome in California, where the polls are just about to close, will make all the difference.


Over on CNN, Romney addressed his followers in Boston. In a dark suit, surrounded by a sea of bright red baseball mitts, he told the crowd he wasn't giving up. The good news: his former zip codes were kind to him. "There was a special feeling in my heart when I realized that the three places where Ann and I lived have all voted for us: Michigan, Massachusetts, and Utah!" Without a Romney victory, he prophesied, "America will emerge as a second-tier power." The only thing standing between us and mediocrity are "the values of Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush and Teddy Roosevelt." The absence of the current president from this pantheon was hard to miss; so too was Romney's pledge to stop illegal immigration, a dagger aimed quite clearly at John McCain's heart. Mitt, Mitt, Mitt, screamed the crowd, as he administered his final jab: "I think it's important to have a president who's actually had a job in the private sector!"

Back in the Situation Room, Wolf Blitzer was dwarfed by the giant wall of monitors, logos, graphics, and charts. He promenaded up and down the red-and-blue ramp--a pundit's Yellow Brick Road--and announced that McCain had won in Arizona. The good news: McCain didn't drop the ball in his own state. The bad news: the Arizona conservatives had deserted him for Romney, who picked up 47 percent of their votes. Might Mitt be bouncing back after all? (By 11:12, Romney would be declared the winner in Minnesota as well.)

At 10:50 Blitzer cut over to Hillary Clinton, addressing her own crowd in New York City. The senator, in a sharp yellow suit, found it hard to quiet the audience. Both Chelsea and Bill--apparently not banished to Antarctica after all--were briefly in evidence behind the podium. But now she began to speak: "Tonight, we are hearing the voices of people across America." Nutty cheers. "People of all ages, all colors, all faiths, and all walks of life." As usual, there was something mechanical about her delivery, plus she was hoarse, but this was clearly a delightful moment for her. "And it's not over yet--the polls are still open in California for a few more minutes!" The speech went on and on, but what caught my eye was the "Latinos for Hillary" sign prominently displayed over the candidate's left shoulder. In Arizona, Clinton picked up only 53 percent of the Latino vote to Obama's 44 percent, and that's the sort of margin she clearly wants to widen.

At 11:18, the first returns start to trickle in from California. With a picayune two percent of precincts reporting, Clinton is leading Obama 57 percent to 32 percent. Of course it's too early to tell, but if she sweeps California with these sort of numbers, she may actually land the knockout blow that has eluded her all night--and all fall and all winter.

12:30 AM EST: CNN just projected a Clinton win in California, by a wide margin. No doubt the champagne corks are popping in Chappaqua. But Obama's coast-to-coast performance tonight, and the stemwinder he delivered to a rapt crowd in Chicago, can't possibly be discounted. His resilience as a candidate--along with that of Mike Huckabee, who motivated evangelical voters across the South--is among the major lessons of Super Tuesday.

In his relatively brief political career, Barack Obama has already achieved miracles. Still, nobody expected the candidate to wake the dead--which is exactly what happened last night at San Francisco's Warfield Theater. After a four-year hiatus that easily could have been permanent, the Grateful Dead reunited to play a benefit concert for the presidential contender.

The four-hour concert, held on the eve of the California primary and attended by a crowd of 2,400, kicked off with a video clip of Obama, who thanked the members of the band for their endorsement. The candidate made only a single faux pas. "I want everyone to sit down and enjoy the music," he said, prompting a roar from the crowd. Sit down? No way.

The Dead, who officially broke up in 1995 after the death of guitarist Jerry Garcia, started in with "Playing In The Band," then took a typically circuitous route through such staples as "Sugaree," "Throwing Stones," "Deal," and "Iko Iko." Guitarist Bob Weir, drummer Mickey Hart, and bassist Phil Lesh, all original members of the band, were joined by Jackie Greene, John Molo, Steve Molitz, Mark Karan and Barry Sless. The late Garcia was also there and not just in spirit: A small, shaggy-haired Garcia doll rested on recording equipment on the right hand of the stage.

Between sets, band members shared their thoughts on the Illinois senator and his campaign. "I haven't seen something like this since Robert Kennedy in 1968," said Lesh, speaking of watching Obama at a rally last fall. "This is the real deal." In fact, Dead fans could thank Brian Lesh, the bassist's 18-year-old son, for the impromptu reunion. After spending the last summer working on Obama's campaign, he convinced his father and the rest of the band to do the show.

"Every few generations a guy like [Obama] comes along," drummer Hart told Reuters at a news conference held hours before the concert. "It seems like desperate times and we're desperate people."

Famously apolitical, the Dead have never before given their collective endorsement to a candidate. But band members have supported personal causes: Weir played at President Bill Clinton's inauguration festivities and publicly supported John Kerry in the last election, while Lesh is active in numerous issues in Marin County.

For Deadheads who'd already decided who to vote for, the band's imprimatur was sweet. "They just happen to be backing the guy I'm backing," said Mike Shoun, 37, a San Francisco resident who claims to have seen 75 Dead shows. "It's a nice coincidence." Other voters, such as Irenie Schlesinger, 49, were still undecided. "I was voting for Edwards, " shrugged Schlesinger, who added that she had spent the last 12 years following RatDog, Bob Weir's band, around the world.

Announced on the Dead's official web site last Friday, the concert sold out in less than an hour. On Craigslist, frantic fans offered at least $1,000 for a ticket. Crowds gathered outside the Market Street theater long before the show, with Deadheads hawking wooden pipes and light sticks. Overhead, a stereo system played the Dead (what else?) while hopeful fans trawled the crowd, looking for a spare ticket. Most simply held one finger aloft. Others were more direct. "I'll give you $600 for a ticket," yelled one young man, his arm upright, a fistful of bills in his hand.

Inside, a few local celebrities were spotted. Larry Brilliant, executive director of Google.org, the firm's charity, sat next to Sixties activist Wavy Gravy, while NBA star Bill Walton wandered the dance floor.

With a median age of 40-plus, there were fewer tie dyes, and more gray hairs spotted in the crowd. But whatever your political leanings, the event was a joyous celebration. Fans took cell phone pictures, strangers shared joints and friends reminisced about past shows. James Cottle and John Kantor, both who looked to be in their early 40s, had last seen the Dead play at Shoreline in 1995. "What's impressive is [the Dead's] fundraising skills," said Cottle, a self-professed independent. "They can still raise money for a good cause."

Jolie Wiggins, 48, had been to a "decade" worth of shows with longtime friend Danica Rehmy, 46. "We haven't been excited about anything in a long time," said Wiggins, referring to the country's political malaise. But, no, Wiggins hadn't decided on a candidate. Noting the sometimes fractious relationships between Dead members, Rehmy said it was significant that band was "doing something united" with tonight's concert. And looking around at the legions of potential voters, she wondered why no one had tapped these fans. "Has anyone ever thought of Deadheads as a voting block?" she asked rhetorically.

They did last night.

And via the band's official web site, Dead.net, the concert's set list:

I. Playing in the Band Brown-Eyed Women, Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo, New Minglewood Blues, Come Together

II. (Acoustic) Deep Elem Blues, Friend of the Devil, Deal, Ripple

III.China Cat Sunflower, The Wheel, The Other One, Sugaree, Eyes of the World, Throwin' Stones, Iko Iko, Playing reprise

Encore: U.S. Blues

MSNBC stars Tim Russert and Brian Williams

Overlooked story: CNN Beats Out Fox News and MSNBC in New Hampsire
Submitted by: TimALoftis

As recent media reports have pointed out, the presidential race isn't just between Hillary, Obama, and McCain, but the three big cable networks: CNN, MSNBC, and Fox. And if CNN has long trailed behind Fox in the ratings race, the network placed first during the recent New Hampshire primary. According to the New York Times, CNN had 3.3 million viewers, nearly double the number of viewers during the 2004 New Hampshire primary, while Fox had 3.06 million viewers and MSNBC, which claimed 1.64 million viewers.

"This was one of the first times that CNN overtook Fox in quite a while," says Steve Krakauer, associate editor at TV Newser. "So it came as a bit of a surprise." According to Krakauer, CNN first raised its profile last summer by broadcasting the YouTube debates. Since then, the network has aggressively marketed itself to viewers, adopting the "Best Political Team" tag line, while bringing in special guests such as Carl Bernstein and Bill Bennett to round out coverage by longtime anchors Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper. Additionally, this week CNN announced a new nightly show, CNN Election Center. According to the AP, the show will air opposite competitors Bill O'Reilly on Fox and Keith Olbermann on MSNBC.

Sharpening its election coverage, Fox has shuffled programming, having Greta Van Susteren and Shepard Smith report together in a pairing that's unique for the network since the two don't usually share air time, according to Krakauer. The network is also prominently featuring longtime duo Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes. For its part, MSNBC is using Tom Brokaw as a special correspondent, while continuing to plug longtime anchors Tim Russert and Brian Williams, as well as Olbermann and Chris Matthews of Hardball.

Increased eyeballs translate to increased advertising dollars for the cable networks, points out Anthony Crupi, senior editor at Mediaweek. And given the WGA strike, is there anything better to watch? According to Crupi, some of the cable networks are quietly pitching the election to advertisers as the "ultimate reality television" show. "The fact that these debates can be factious is helping ratings," says Crupi.

If MSNBC's Russert raised his profile by covering the elections in 2000, and the same gig helped to make Ashley Banfield a star in 2004, there haven't been any breakout stars spotted at the news desk this season, according to Crupi. "My guess is that the networks want to have more established newspeople," says Crupi. "It's such a wide open field, and they want a sense of gravitas."

Nevertheless, with February's Super Tuesday primary elections looming, expect the competition between the networks to heat up as even more viewers to tune in. "People are generally interested in this process," says Crupi.

With tonight's vox-pop-driven Democratic debate just hours away, it seemed like a good moment to ask a fundamental question: does our electoral system reward the most agile fudging, evasion, and outright fibbing? At the Milken Conference back in April, moderator Roger Ailes posed the question in somewhat different terms. "Can a presidential candidate advance serious and even unconventional ideas," he asked, "while unyieldingly telling the truth--and win the presidency?" In the video below, panelists Arianna Huffington and Ken Mehlman answer at length. Even more impressively, the high-profile progressive and the former RNC chairman come to similar conclusions about the role of honesty on the stump.

There's an interesting (or, depending on your perspective, idiotic) fight underway between Mark Goldberg, a Washington, D.C.-based political reporter, and Dave Mustaine, the lead singer of Megadeth. The spat started in June 2006, after Mustaine criticized the United Nations in Billboard. Citing the organization's "failure to perform" in crisis situations, he announced that the band's next album would be named United Abominations.

Goldberg, a writer for the UN Dispatch blog (which is supported by the United Nations Foundation but has no official editorial affiliation with the organization), quickly fired back at the singer, calling Mustaine an "aging rock star"--and worse, noting an allegiance to Metallica.

Fast forward to May 2007. Megadeth releases United Abominations on Roadrunner Records, which eventually peaks at number 8 on the Billboard Top 200. Goldberg didn't respond immediately, since he "forgot to pencil the [album's] release date into my calender." But on Tuesday he posted a lengthy reply to the Megadeth title track on UN Dispatch. "We listened so you don't have to," he writes, following up with a verse-by-verse response to the song. Among other things, Goldberg disputes Mustaine's assertion that the UN helped enable the 9/11 attacks, and that Kofi Annan's son, Kojo, was involved in an Oil-For-Food program scandal. He also states that the singer has confused Hamas with Hezbollah.

Yesterday, Mustaine issued an equally lengthy response on both his own personal site and the Roadrunner Records website. Apparently his comments are aimed at his supporters: "Whether my facts are right or wrong, and whether you agree with me or not, I know I have your support--most of the time and that is all that matters."

While praising Goldberg's writing, Mustaine accuses him of bias and contends that the two "won't be having tea" anytime soon. The singer also wonders about Goldberg's background. "One question would be, who is the writer that is complaining? Is he a real writer or some blogger? Does he do news, journalism, or tabloid reporting? Does he represent the UN or the American people or is he just an American like me, and is just venting? And why is he so intent on going after me? Why not use that energy constructively? He is obviously educated well (or has a thesaurus)."

NewsQuake can provide that information: Goldberg is a writer-in-residence at the United Nations Foundation and a senior correspondent for The American Prospect magazine.

UPDATE, 4:52 PST: It never ends. Goldberg has responded to Mustaine's post. Link is here.

Late last night, Jeanne Palfrey (below), dubbed the "D.C. Madam" by the media, released 13 years worth of phone records associated with her escort business. Shortly after the records became publicly available on her website, Sen. David Vitter (R-Louisiana) released a statement apologizing for "a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible." Needless to say, Vitter's phone number was among the thousands of entries associated with Palfrey's business.

This is hardly Vitter's first brush with scandal. In 2002, he was accused of having an affair with a prostitute, a charge he vehemently denied, suggesting that the radio host, who he had defeated in a congressional race, was out for "revenge." Later that year Vitter backed away from a run for governor, citing strains on his marriage, and entered marriage counseling. The current revelation, however, could have repercussions for Rudy Giuliani's presidential bid, given that Vitter is serving as the southern regional chair of Giuliani's campaign team.

Vitter isn't the first government official to have been "outed" as a former customer of the D.C. Madam. In April of this year, ABC News (working off a partial list of the phone records) discovered that Randall L. Tobias, the Deputy Secretary of State, was a frequent patron of the escort service. Tobias, a strong supporter of "abstinence-only" programs, denied that any sex ever took place. He resigned one day after confirming his involvement with the escort service.

And who else has made use of Palfrey's services? The vast majority of the phone records are associated with either cell phones, hotels, or unlisted numbers. However, our own informal search of a relatively small sample of the phone records last evening was still able to return names matching a wide range of officials--including a NASA program director and a writer from the arch-conservative American Spectator. Another trio of entries originating from Dale City, Virginia, on December 2, 2004, seems to point to an assistant district attorney for Washington, D.C. (Dale City is a suburb just outside the capital.)

For her part, Jeanne Palfrey has denied that her business ever engaged in any illegal prostitution, a charge she is currently fighting in court. Palfrey did also threaten to release the records earlier this year, and it was only five days ago when an injunction barring her from releasing the information was lifted.

With 13 years of telephone records purported to weigh in at over 40 pounds, it will be an arduous task to track down the escort service's significant customers. Indeed, Palfrey herself notes on her website that deciphering the raw data "will take a small army of people skilled in computer and phone technology, investigation as well as factual knowledge regarding the significance OR non-significance of identified persons."

At the same time, with all this information now freely available to anyone with a high-speed Internet connection, it shouldn't be long before more officials like Randall Tobias and David Vitter are publicly scolded for deeds they would much rather have kept private.

Back in April, Netscape sent a crew to the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles. Over the course of several days, Alexia Prichard and Dakota Smith covered an assortment of events, most of them featuring heavy hitters from the worlds of politics and culture. In this first video installment of their coverage, the topic is the impending Super Primary in February 2008, and the participants cover what we might call the ideological waterfront: Mort Zuckerman, Arianna Huffington, Ken Mehlman, Bill Frist, and Harold Ford Jr. The moderator is the ever frisky panjandrum of Fox News, Roger Ailes. Enjoy!

In his earlier books, William Langewiesche focused on large and fundamentally empty spaces: the Sahara desert and the sky (as transformed by the invention of flight). Recently, however, he has been drawn to more chaotic subjects. In American Ground he described the monumental ruin at Manhattan's Ground Zero, while The Outlaw Sea envisioned the ocean itself as a kind of watery Wild West. Now, in The Atomic Bazaar: The Rise of the Nuclear Poor, he take on the burgeoning threat of nuclear proliferation. Netscape's James Marcus began a conversation with the author by asking him about the genesis of his new book.

William Langewiesche: The real basis for this book came from sitting in Baghdad, where I've spent a lot of time since 2003, and observing the catastrophe that has resulted from demonizing a political opponent.

Netscape: You're talking about Saddam Hussein.

Langewiesche: Right. I was working for The Atlantic when I began this book. During the run-up to the 2003 invasion, we published a story with a cover illustration of Saddam Hussein--and it was an image of a demonic figure. I remember saying to my friends at the magazine, "We shouldn't be doing this. Let us not demonize this guy. It's a mistake."

Netscape: And why was it a mistake?

Langewiesche: If you believe that the very acquisition of a nuclear weapon by a Third World country is a sign of inherent evil, then you're in trouble. The fact is that nuclear weapons are extremely effective systems for achieving political power. And the decision to acquire them (though loaded with risk, of course, for the individual country) is actually a logical, rational move.

Netscape: And what if Saddam Hussein had actually possessed nuclear weapons?

Langewiesche: If you look at the specifics, at the tangible details on the ground, there's no evidence that Saddam Hussein would have been any more willing to use these weapons than we have been. Saddam Hussein was an extremely rational man. Sure, he was a bad guy, he killed lots of people. But it was all about consolidating his power. He was not going to use these weapons and see his country wiped out due to a nuclear response.

An image from Skid Row in Los Angeles

Japanese homeless youths sleeping in 24-hour Internet cafes. The latest in high-tech cardboard street "tents." A review of Yosemite International Airport's plan to donate toiletries--seized from travelers during security checks--to local shelters.

These are just a handful of the stories recently posted on LA's Homeless Blog. Founded in 2004 by Joel Roberts, the L.A.-based site was launched to "create a virtual dialogue on homelessness," he says.

"I wanted to talk about how communities deal with the issues," says Roberts, the CEO of PATH Partners, a local non-profit organization providing shelters and services. "Not only in Los Angeles, but everywhere."

His blog could easily just cover Los Angeles, which has the largest homeless population--45,000 people--in the country. But if local topics, such as the latest developments in Skid Row, a 50-block section of downtown Los Angeles where an estimated 8,000 homeless people gather every day, frequently appear on Roberts' blog, he also looks at the larger social, political and economic issues related to homelessness.

Roberts, 45, says the majority of his blogs' readers work on homelessness-related issues. He also receives email from readers like Michelle, a mother of two children living in a hotel in Santa Clarita, California.

"It is wonderful work that you do--and us homeless thank you so much," she writes. "If this city would open its eyes you would see all of the hotels /motels in this area are packed with families that have fallen on hard times... please tell me where I can go with my 2 daughters to live on an income of $720.00 a month?"

If nothing else, last night's Republican presidential debate will certainly narrow the field. Those who have no shot: Duncan Hunter, Jim Gilmore, Tommy Thompson, Sam Brownback, and Tom Tancredo. They represent the fringe of the fringe. Mitt Romney will probably last until The Final Three, but only because he's such great television.

Let's get more specific. Gilmore said nothing memorable the entire evening. Brownback made it clear that he would pardon Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Thompson, venturing into some private Twilight Zone, promised to employ George W. Bush as a "youth ambassador," sending him out "to lecture about honesty and integrity." And Hunter brought some unwelcome levity to his discussion of the Secure Fence Act: "If they get across my fence, we sign 'em up for the Olympics! Immediately!" In a heated segment on immigration reform, the punch line was perfectly timed, but nobody laughed. I think we were all a little unsure about whether or not we were supposed to. And that pretty much sums up the overall tone of the debate. All night the candidates lobbed soft ones, and nobody was there to catch them.

Tancredo's blooper was a little more complicated. During the discussion of English as America's "official language," he said: "We're testing whether or not we will actually survive as a nation. Whether we can actually hold together--and hold onto something called the English language. We are becoming a bilingual nation and that is not good." I can't decide if I'm more afraid because he's a segregationist, or because he's unaware that we are a nation of many languages, not just two.

As a Democratic observer of last night's debate, I find myself at much more of a loss than I could have imagined. There was some humor in the discussion, but there was also horror. Specifically: when moderator Wolf Blitzer asked the ten candidates whether they would authorize the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Iran, only one--Ron Paul--said no.

We're in the middle of a war that few Americans like or want to continue, and these guys can't take a drink of water without talking about getting us into another one. And a nuclear war at that! Think about what supporting one of these candidates would mean: you're pulling the lever for vaporization. Is that a viable choice?

Honestly, if I was a Republican, I'd vote for John McCain. You can't fake sincerity like his. And the senator from Arizona had a good night, even if his heart doesn't seem to be in it anymore, and even if he was browbeaten for his bipartisan immigration bill. To his credit, he rallied and came away with the most emotionally powerful moment of the evening. Regarding Spanish--my native language, and one much maligned by Rep. Tancredo--McCain said: "[This is] a language which has enriched my state. My friends, I want you, the next time you're down in Washington DC, to go to the Vietnam War Memorial and look at the names engraved in black granite. You'll find a whole lot of Hispanic names. If you go to Iraq today you'll see a lot of folks with Hispanic names. These are people who love this country so much they're willing to sacrifice for it. Let's, from time to time, remember that these are God's children."

What we got, then, were mostly variations on the same theme. Disagreements did erupt, of course. John Edwards, with his sagging poll numbers, was quick to deny the actual existence of the War on Terror. "It's a bumper sticker!" he insisted. "It's a political slogan. That's all it is, that's all it's ever been." Hillary Clinton was having none of this--which is to say that no senator from New York can afford such a rhetorical ploy. But even as the discussion about Iraq heated up, Joe Biden rushed in with a Band-Aid. "I don't want to judge them!" he remarked, when the schoolmarmish but efficient Wolf Blitzer asked him to condemn his colleagues for their votes on the latest round of war funding. "They worked hard! These are my friends!" And not too much later, Clinton added: "The differences among us are minor."

Ryszard Kapuscinski, who died in January of this year at age 74, was widely regarded as one of the great journalists and literary travelers of the modern era. Born in Pinsk, Poland (now part of Belarus) in 1942, he spent many decades working for the Polish Press Agency as its sole foreign correspondent. In this capacity he covered more than two dozen revolutions and coups, and produced such reportorial classics as The Emperor, Shah of Shahs, and Imperium. His was an art of poetry and precision, and it always seemed blissfully free of ideological blinders.


Now, however, comes a potential fly in the ointment. According to an article in the Guardian (which is piggybacking in turn on this dispatch), Kapuscinski may have paid a price for his vaunted independence: "Newsweek Poland put the late writer, reckoned to be the greatest east European journalist of his generation, on the cover of this week's issue, unveiling details of his communist-era secret police file and claiming that his global travels in the 1960s and 70s were due to a bargain he struck with the communist regime to collaborate with the secret police."