(March 22):….it is not conducive to maintaining an overall neutrality in the Palestine uprisings to show any pictures of the American peacenik that was run over by the Israeli army bulldozer. This is only to be mentioned as a “tragic accident” for which the IDF “is truly saddened.”

(Feb 10)….It is not permitted at this point to use or refer to any film clips, stills or articles emanating from any French source whatsoever.

(Feb 26)    It is expected that coverage of the forthcoming Iraqi campaign will be identical with the coverage used during Desert Storm. Shots of GIs must show a mixed racial combination….any interviews must reflect the youthful and idealistic, not the cynical point of view…the liberation of happy, enthusiastic Iraqis can be best shown by filming crowds of cheering citizens waving American flags. Also indicated would be pictures of photogenic GIs fraternizing with Iraqi children and handing them food or other non-controversial presents…of course, pictures of dead US military personnel are not to be shown and pictures of dead Iraqi soldiers should not show examples of violent death…also indicated would be brief interviews with English-speaking Iraqi citizens praising American liberation efforts…all such interviews must be vetted by either the White House or Pentagon before public airing.

(March 12) At this point in time, reference to North Korean military threats must be played down entirely. The Iraqi Freedom campaign has to be concluded in the public mind before proceeding with the next assault on the Evil Axis….

(March 26) US alliances with the Turkish/Iraqi Kurdish tribes should be played down. This is considered a very sensitive issue with the Turks and American arming and support of the Kurds could create a severe backlash in Ankara….Kurds should be depicted as ‘Iraqi Freedom Fighters” and not identified as Kurds…

(March 2) further references to the religious views of the President are to be deleted…

(March 15) photo opportunities of the President and members of his cabinet, especially Secretary Rumsfeld, with enthusiastic GIs….

(March 19) No mention, repeat, no mention, of Palestinian suicide bombers during the Iraqi operation….

(March 25) …no mention of either Wolfowitz or Pearle should be made at the present time.

(March 10)….pro-Government rallies are to be given the fullest coverage…if anti-Government demonstrations are shown, it is desired to stress either a very small number of “eccentrics” or shots of social misfits; i.e., with beards, tattoos, physical deformities, etc. Pro-Government supporters should be seen as clean cut with as many well-groomed subjects as possible….subjects should stress complete support for the President’s programs and especially support for American military units en route to combat…also interviews with photogenic family members of participating GIs stressing loyalty and affection…American flags are always a good prop in the background…

(March 30) Friction between Secretary Rumsfeld and senior military field commanders in Iraq are to be strictly minimalized and used only when impossible to avoid….the Secretary’s point of view on all military matters is to be stressed….important to bring out his reputation as a “man who shakes things up” and a brilliant innovator.

(March 31) ….no discussion of high-level rumors about pre-emptive tactical nuclear strikes against North Korean missile, “hard” artillery positions opposite Seoul or key North Korean leadership or military commands is to be mentioned. It must be stressed that the North Korean situation is viewed as “serious but not critical” by unnamed “senior U.S. military leaders.”

(March 31) ….no mention of PRC strong objections to US pre-emptive actions against North Korea….a short summary of the President’s refusal to “enter into any kind of negotiations” with the North Korean government….background report on the irrational and anti-democratic forces in North Korea…the desire of South Korea’s officials to maintain a close relationship with their American military protectors….no discussion of anti-US demonstrations in Seoul. These can be routinely dismissed as “radical students who are not supported by the new liberal and strongly pro-American President.”

April 4) …sharply rising unemployment numbers, this should be countered with official interviews stressing that the unemployment situation is now stabilizing and expected to fall soon.

(March 30) Because of the seriousness of the spread of SARS, actual figures of either the infected or of any deaths from local medical facilities must be carefully vetted via the CDC press information office in Atlanta. From the highest level, it is imperative that the American public not panic over the very rapid spread of this disease. Speculations of the actual nature of SARS is not under any circumstances to be permitted. Keep in mind the currently in- place rules following the outbreak of “Legionnaires Disease.”

(April 4) …a discussion of French desecrations of American and British war graves in France are to receive specific notice. Also, damage to the 9/11 memorial in Paris is to be included. No pictures of swastikas or other defamatory and anti-Administration graffiti are to be shown. French official apologies are permitted…..no comments equating the President with Hitler will be made….and the invasion of Iraq may not be compared with Hitler’s invasion of Poland, and such allegations now being made extensively in offshore media coverage are not to receive any attention. The Iraqi campaign is officially a campaign by a democratic United States against ruthless cruelty and oppression.

(April 5)…. comments appearing in the left-wing British Guardian about the occupation and administration of a conquered Iraq by American military personnel are to be ignored. Pacification, liberation, freedom and gratitude towards US forces, and the President are to be stressed.

(March 29) The President’s goal, to achieve oil autarchy by the United States, is suggested as a future series. Congressional denial of drilling in various environmentally “sensitive” areas may be derided as foolish misunderstanding of America’s vital oil needs. The interdiction of oil shipments to the United States from Venezuela and Nigeria are not to be commented upon. The attitude of Chavez towards the United States is also considered a non-topic. He was removed from power once and it can happen a second time. File footage of large crowds of distressed and unhappy Venezuelans should be prepared against the time he is removed from power again…

(April 4) If possible, pictures of the President with a book or, better, actually reading, are suggested. Commentary about his extensive reading habits…stress important historical and economic works…

(April 5) Presidential visits to military units in the United States are to receive full coverage and to extend past the usual slot time…spots of especially warm receptions are considered very important…

(April 7)    Please arrange for photo ops of President visiting wounded GIs….Use photogenic subjects w/good racial mix. Also try for pix of First Lady handing wounded subject a gift…President decorating wounded (in hospital bed) w medal(s) Make sure subject smiles at P. Warm handshakes (if possible.)

(April 7  ) …no shots of GIs looting in Baghdad. Iraqi looters should be described as “joyful” at being liberated by US. Looting to be described as a “deprived people getting food for families”…all pictures from forbidden French press sources  of a US  General’s staff car being filled with paintings and carpets to be blacklisted at Pentagon request. If such pixs show up on other networks, comment be made that General is “rescuing art treasures to preserve them for the Iraqi people.” Also Iraqi rioters could be shown waving in friendly way to GIs.

( April 4 ) Alliance casualties to be played down. The massive Iraqi civilian casualties also played down. Use the phrase, “most civilian casualties caused by vindictive Saddam supporters.” Again, no pixs of dead women and children.

(April 6 ) Artillery targeting of several mosques to be deleted…..

(April 2) … prepare a piece on the withdrawal of all US troops from S. Korea. Main theme: US pulling out to prevent N. Korea from attacking. Stress the pro-US stance of Noh and his firm support of the President and his goal of preventing N. Korean military adventurism…no mention of ongoing S. Korean anti-US riots. They are to be called “radical student demonstrations” but do not show clips unless it can be determined that the numbers shown are very small.

(Jan 21, 2002 )… in any article on Enron collapse, it is not considered advisable to discuss role of K. Lay. Charges against lesser Enron executives to be stressed. Lay’s extensive gifts to President to be limited to “small campaign contributions” and shift emphasis to large gifts to Ashcroft for his presidential campaign. Mention A’s recusal from Enron investigations…

(April 9 ) …play down the Moscow meetings w. Schroeder, Putin and French. Please, no mention of NATO problems…

(April 9 ) …concerning Moscow meetings, say Russia, Germany and France are willing to forgive their huge Iraqi debts at the direct request of President. Stress the need for Iraq to rebuild after years of repression and need to keep her funds “to help her people.”

(April 8 ) …develop possible linkage between Iraqi mobs and US need to police the country  for a “brief time” to prevent any attempt to stifle emerging democracy. Do not mention probability of continued large US military presence. Stress the words “restoring law and order” and “helping to make the transition to true democracy.”

(April 11)  US attack on Russian Ambassador’s convoy either to be ignored or blamed on “unknown Arab terrorists” who support Hussein. Considered expedient that if mention is made of attack, not to identify the country involved. This incident, officially termed a misunderstanding, is being cleared up with Russia now.

 ( April 7)… attacks on foreign media, often unfriendly to US,  to be explained as a “tragic error” and use the rationale of “pro-Saddam last ditch fanatics sniping at liberating US troops.” from areas attacked by US armor.

(April 13 ) SARS is now officially “under control” in the US. Air travel, in the US, has been cleared by CDC and other groups as “entirely safe.” Officially, there are no deaths from SARS in the United States. Use feed clips from CBC on “complete control” of disease in Canada… also mention lack of responsible reporting on subject by China.

(April 9 ) …in coverage of rebuilding of Iraq’s infrastructure, mention that American firms have expressed willingness to ”assist Iraq people to build a new, democratic nation.” No mention, by name, of Halliburton or Bechtel.

(April 10 ) show mention of restoration of Moscow statue of KGB founder…(linkage here) mention Putin’s former membership in KGB and very brief discussion of “growing pro-Stalinist” feelings in Russia. Consider this background for future series on same subject.

(April 16) ….a pending lawsuit against the FBI concerning its ‘no fly list’ should be treated as a ‘lack of comprehension’ by the American public. Negative comments are that this new regulation is designed to prevent elements hostile to the Administration from involvement in so-called “Peace” meetings, rallies and protests. Official view, to be stressed, is that this new regulation is to prevent suspected terrorists  or persons having possibly dangerous views, i.e., militant Muslims etc. from using another commercial aircraft as in the 9/11 terrorist strike. We are advised that the list will be maintained as before….

(April 18) The President’s generous and statesmanlike offer to North Korea to open “substantive” negotiations should be linked with commentary about the “absolute support” in the PRC for the President’s peace moves and their willingness to help reign in a terrorist and communistic leadership needs special attention….

(April 19) Regarding North Korea, it is urgently requested by the White House that any reference to the President’s determination to remove the existing leadership of that country by downplayed. It should be mentioned as an “option” rather than the intention of the President.

(April 19) …in liberated Iraq, the apparent rejection by “dissident elements” of the country to continued US military and business presence is to be shown to be “against the will of the newly-liberated Iraqi people...” The on-going killings of pro-US Iraqis and occasional US military personal are to be downplayed and attributed to “rogue, pro-Saddam” persons. It is to be stressed, with photos and feature articles, that the Iraqi people “warmly greet their American liberators…”  …any discussion about the CIA connections of US-sponsored new Iraqi leadership cadres is to be curtailed.

  (April 19)…the portions of the Administration’s plan to lift Iraqi sanctions that deal with the humanitarian aspect of the rebuilding of Iraq are to be stressed. Subsequent US de facto control of the oil there, if mentioned, will concentrate on the fact that oil revenues from liberated Iraq will initially be utilized to pay for the costs of the campaign and later to support the military and administrative systems now being implemented.

(April 20) …the new Budget should be summarized as a plan to revitalize the economy, which began its decline as the result of certain actions within the previous administration, and the tax cuts are not designed to assist the wealthy but the entire American public.

(April 21) There needs to be a cohesive attitude towards SARS. We cannot hide that this disease is now rampant throughout Asia and has a growing death toll. It is considered very important not to mention the spread of the disease in the US or to acknowledge any fatalities. The latter are now ascribed as due to pneumonia…if the spread of SARS continues as predicted, mass quarantine is considered by the CDC and the Surgeon General’s office as almost mandatory….Canadian officials, very concerned with the high concentration of SARS-infected persons in Toronto are informing US officials that a general quarantine in that country may be mandatory. This should be a subject for comment, mentioning that Canadian health officials see mass quarantining as the “best and easiest” solution to the rapid spread of the disease…’We are working on a new vaccine that will stop this Asian (stress this here) disease and protect the American public.’ No mention of the fact that such a vaccine is months away if it happens at all….and it is considered imperative that no, repeat no, panic develop in the US. In sum, this is an Asian disease that mostly affects Asians.

(April 21) Stories planted in the South Korean press about North Korean ‘missile parts’ found in Alaska are not to be repeated in the media unless and until it is considered necessary as groundwork for projected military action….

(April 22) …the lower gas prices at the pump should be ascribed to an “overproduction” by our Middle Eastern allies. When the controls are lifted, the resulting rise is to be attributed to “lack of cooperation” by possibly hostile Arab oil producing nations that the President is seriously concerned about.

(April 22) Please continue the present blackout on Israeli military activity on the Iraqi borders…Iranian activity with the Sunni elements in Iraq are to be highlighted as “unwarranted interference” in the American plans for the reconstruction of a new and democratic Iraq. Possible US military and security  countermeasures are to be highlighted as “anti-militant Islamic” in nature.

(April 23) Russian attitudes about repayments of past Iraqi oil debts are on blackout…

(April 27) …ongoing wave of failures, or projected failures, of major US corporations should be played down and covered only if the corporation in question actually files for bankruptcy. The expressed fear is that a constant drumfire of woeful economic news will hardly encourage a badly needed recovery. The usual practice is to prosecute minor level employees involved in various fiscal manipulations while ignoring the very top people. The Enron case is an example….

(April 29) The SARS problem should again be stressed as an Asian problem and the actual death rates (now believed to be approaching 20%) are not to be publicized. It is certain that political pressure from both the Canadian and American governments will result in the Toronto case being officially downgraded.

(May 1) …and concerning the serious SARS epidemic, plans are now in train to test all incoming travelers from infected areas and quarantine anyone even remotely suspected of being ill with symptoms that even remotely resemble the disease. It is the privately stated intention of the highest authority to use physical force to enforce the quarantine if it proves necessary…

(May 3) US Treasury officials are now investigating the enormous amounts of US currency uncovered in Iraq. Mention of this can be made and it is considered expedient to state that this is part of Saddam Hussein’s personal booty. Under no circumstances, it has to be stressed, should any mention of amounts in excess of the publically stated $600 million be made. And absolutely no mention of the possibility of these $100 bills being counterfeit

(May 6) VP Dick Cheney will announce in a few days that he will be on the Presidential ticket in 2004. Stress that his contributions to the President’s energy plans have made him indispensable. Please limit mention of Cheney’s connections with Halliburton and the problems with the inflated stock…

(May 6) …at the present time, it is anticipated that proof of Iraqs possession of WMD will be uncovered by US specialists. This proof is necessary to offset the growing criticism that Iraq had no such weapons and that the Administration had fabricated reports that it did to justify the invasion. Still photos and film clips will be supplied…

(May 7) …it now appears that the President’s religious charities bill will not be passed in the current session. There is considerable concern in Congress over this and the religious issues here are obvious. It is felt that the President has overreached himself and in light of the rising public opposition to some of his more extreme religious views, this bill will be reintroduced later but in a different form…remarks by Rev. Graham about Islam are causing the White House considerable discomfiture not only in US Muslim circles but in Arab countries (especially Saudi Arabia) as well. Graham has been instructed to issue a statement to the effect that his words were “taken out of context” and that he has great respect for all faiths…

(May 8) Although the dollar’s continuing drop against the euro can be seen on most financial pages, this is to be addressed as “temporary” and articles from economists can be quoted to the effect that the victory in Iraq will soon result in a surging dollar on the international marketplace.

(May 9) It is obviously going to be a long time before peace and civil order is restored in Iraq…there are serious religious issues involved here. The Administration’s intentions of allowing specific Christian missionaries into Iraq to effect widespread conversions of the Muslim population is now on hold. DOS claims that this might set off major rioting…White House officials, speaking off the record, say that this missionary activity is “close to the President’s heart” but will be put on temporary hold “until we have a stronger military presence” in Iraq. Prepare some backup material on this…

(May 10) Play down the story on the mobile germ labs. This is generating too much heat in the foreign press and with the left wing hippie elements in the US. We are assured that “major discoveries” will be made that will “fully support” the mobile labs.

(May 12) …discovery of counterfeit US bills worldwide is to be offset with stories about entirely new, colored bills now in preparation stages. These bills will be more difficult to counterfeit…flood of counterfeit $20 bills in the US…the $100 bills will not be reworked at the present time. Loss of confidence in this bill could result in its rejection by the world currency markets and this would have a disastrous effect on the economy…be sure to stress this in coverage…

(May 13) …a series of presentations about why the decline of the dollar against the euro, the Canadian and Mexican currency, is actually a good thing for American business. Stress that US production can now increase because American goods are cheaper, and stress, more easily available to the foreign markets.

(May 15) Kill the projected stories on the privatization of the Social Security programs. A test run on this indicates that AARP will fight it. Also, kill further comments about denying “extraordinary life-saving” regimens to the very elderly. This will be viewed as state-sponsored euthanasia…work up something on the escalating costs of long term hospitalization to the public sector…

(May 16) Suggested that the treatment of economics keeps away from the dropping dollar. We need to get a reputable and recognized authority to give a bite on how the current lower value of the dollar overseas is actually a benefit to US economy because it stimulates American productivity…

(May 16) Chaos in Iraq is given as the reason why a massive continued US military presence in that country is to be anticipated. Stories in foreign media about GIs shooting young children for throwing rocks are not to be repeated. No pictures…

(May 17) The President’s new tax plan should be shown as being beneficial to most American households. Democratic criticism is to be minimized and trivialized. The Laci Peterson case and the bad weather in the mid-west (tornados) are good subjects for diversion from less than helpful political partisanship.

(May 19) SARS out of control in China and now Taiwan. Press releases from official sources stressing the “drying up” of SARS are to be given a run. Mention that the Toronto infections are now “fully cured” and make a note of the lifting of the WHO quarantine…

(May 21) The White House is releasing working drawings of the mobile WMD trailers in Iraq. Commentary by approved network specialists about the death-dealing  capacity of these trailers is to be presented. Stress the “apparent failure” of the UN inspection teams to locate these deadly labs… The UN is needed in Iraq to feed the population but not, the White House stresses, to interfere in the internal control of either Iraq or the oil production.

(May 22) For Memorial Day, prepare pieces on heroic GIs around the world. The President will make a speech on the contribution of the military services to the freedom of the world. Give this good coverage…Play down the anger with the French. “They are coming around now” is the best theme to take.

(May 24) The mad-cow problem in Canada is causing serious economic problems in both the US and Canada. It is considered very important to stress that none of the contaminated beef ever was sent to the US. Only one cow and a few calves, all of whom have been destroyed…. If this gets any credence, it could wreak havoc with the US cattle industry, not to mention the fast food and restaurant business. Mad-cow has been in the US before and kept very quiet. Let’s see if we can’t repeat this now.

(May 25) The decision to proceed against Iran has been taken…..using file footage about the Embassy hostage crisis…brutality of the anti-Shah takeover…a series of articles about the presence of alAquida units “being trained” in Iraq. Shiites are to be depicted as “ruthless fanatics” and, most especially, as “haters of the Great Satan…the United States.” Also something on a Sunday program about Iranian support of the Taliban and the suggestion that they might be giving refuge to Taliban leaders….for the time being, no reference here to overt Pakistani support of fundamentalism. If the current head of Pakistan is removed and replaced by a fundamentalist government, support will be given to India to remove Pakistan from the playing field…atomic threats on the part of the Pakis a probability…

(May 26) SARS outbreak in Toronto…there is no way to hide this one so keep it brief and keep it simple. Vital to avoid any talk of SARS in the US. A puff piece on development of a SARS vaccine…stress very soon. Get the usual medical people and give them the usual script…Remember, SARS is stressed as an Asian disease that is “coming under control.

(May 26) comment that the raging war between Powell and Rumsfeld is “complete nonsense.” We will try to get brief interviews with both men denying these rumors and saying that “all America is now united against international terrorism.” This is the watchword from the White House. Putin wants a free hand with his Muslim terrorists and after the conference, may have it. He will then have to support US drives against the Philippine muslims projected for July. Projected heavy loss of life there is to be offset with stories of torture and killing of Christian tourists and missionaries…

(May 27) Prepare a human interest story about Christian “educators” going to Iraq to “assist the population in its desire for religious and cultural diversity.” A number of Pentecostal people are refusing to go to Iraq because they are afraid they will be killed by militant Muslims. Discuss how they will be protected by friendly American troops

(May 29) “It’s the economy, stupid!” and let’s keep in mind that drumfire about bad economy is not good kids, for all of us. Do a nice bit on how the market is now rising (slowly) and full recovery is projected to be around the corner. Get the usual bites from our economists. The deflation word is not to be used and keep strictly away from the rising euro. If this gets over $1.20, talk about the “great benefits” to US home productions. “Who needs fancy, overpriced French luxury goods when we can make it better and cheaper right at home?”

(May 30) You will be getting two packets of info on the St.Petersburg business. One is to be used if we score big but the second if we have problems. Putin will be our new “best friend” instead of Blair (who has about shot his bolt at home and will soon be toast) as long as he supports official US policy about Iran and…agrees to lighten up on the Iraqi debts…

(June 1) Pacification in Iraq is proving more difficult that had been anticipated by the Pentagon. The President’s advisors are debating whether or not to lay this one off on the military or simply ignore it. Massive countermeasures are now being planned against anyone daring to either directly attack US units or even in unlawful assemblage, especially in mosques…

(June 2) Some elements of the media are beginning to bring up certain religious issues, mostly via letters to the editors of unreliable papers. We must be careful to counteract these attacks with puff pieces on the rising tide of Christian fundamentalist support of the President and especially human interest stories about ad hoc Christian groups operating in the US in support of the President.

(June 3) The President is privately expressing annoyance with Sharon over his refusal to accept the Roadmap for Peace. Some concessions on the part of the Israelis will have to be made. Arafat will absolutely have to go…if these programs are to succeed. The President needs peace in Palestine, especially as the election planning goes forward.

(June 5) …the economy is still stagnant and it is important to put a good and positive face on its recovery. Prepare a series of stories about the rising market trends and the return of the small investor…

(June 7)… the Martha Stewart business has to be presented in the light of dedicated prosecution by Justice of even the most prominent offenders. Better that the smaller fry get cooked than the really important ones. Campaign funding? Hah, hah!

(June 10)…growing unrest, even in the media, over the lack of WMD in Iraq. The President’s people want it stressed that both the CIA and military intelligence gave him faulty information. It is felt that this will run its course, especially in light of the “new revelations” The public’s interest is short-lived on such things and a good, lasting distraction with plenty of commentary will keep them excited until the issue fades away. The Demos are too timid to make much use of this anyway….

(June 11) It will not do anyone good to go on about the Iraq uranium business. The issue served well to introduce the need for immediate action and it should be stressed over and over again that Saddam was evil and so what if a few “inaccuracies” crept in? Our leaders are shown to be ever vigilant in their goals of making America safe from terrorists..

(June 12) Rumsfeld’s stern warning to both NATO and Belgium should get a good play. It needs to be seen that the US punishes those who oppose it and rewards those who support it. Give the Polacks a good press.

(June 12) It seems that guerrilla warfare is a real thing. Too much looting, assaulting Iraqi women, too much Muslim-bashing. No discipline in the US forces and the commanders have a hard time in controlling their men. Protestors are to be shown to be “die-hard Baathist supporters of the evil Saddam” and show pictures of a “commando” camp with pictures of Saddam and anti-US slogans. And don’t show these in Arabic. English is the language of our viewers, don’t forget… There is a blackout on guerrilla attacks in Afghanistan. The fear is that these are part of a coordinated movement in the Arab world. Do an investigative bite on “Arab fanatics” going to Iraq (for the time being, cool it with Afghanistan) going to Iraq to help kill Americans. This can lay the background for additional “anti-guerrilla” actions against other Arab states that do not cooperate. In Iran, student agitations against the religious leaders is to be given prominent space. There will be more of this in the future. It is believed to be a much safer course to topple the Iranian leadership by local groups rather than by US military and economic direct action. Large numbers of students in the streets costs money but not as much as a military action. The public will grow restive if there are too many US dead…

(June 13) The Administration has gotten burnt by attacking Sharon. It won’t happen again. Human interest stories about Israeli families mourning their dead is always a good thing. The Hamas people are slated for utter destruction by a possible joint US/IDF action in the near future so point out repeatedly how they are sabotaging the sincere efforts of both the President and Sharon to achieve a real and lasting peace….

(June 10)The ongoing flap about WMD will eventually fade away. If it weren’t for the peaceniks in America and the envious foreign press, this non-issue would soon evaporate. In support of this, we need more material out on the mass graves in Iraq…

(June 11) …and in Iran, the leaders there have been sending Shiite guerrillas into southern  Iraq to foment revolution. The CIA has begun to stir up the Iranian students and it is hoped by the White House that the Iranian government will topple without the necessity of American military intervention…this has been placed on hold awaiting the outcome of the revolutionary movement now activated in Tehran and other cities…

(June 11) In California, the recall against Gov. Davis is getting up quite a head of steam. The Republicans want him out…too liberal and there…and a good conservative in his place. Iron Arnold has panache but is not reliable. If he gets in when Davis is put out, he could be a loose cannon. The White House is hand-picking their own candidate and in the meantime, the President is publically objecting to the recall while privately rejoicing…The idea here is to keep Kenneth Lay and Enron out of the news on the California mess…

(June 12) Hillary Clinton is flexing her muscle again after a long silence. She wants to use her new book as a springboard to the White House next year. It is time now to go after her. Sarcasm is the best weapon here…keep away from the feminist angle…it could backfire.

(June 13) North Korea is a back issue for now. We are pulling troops away from the DMZ in case we have to nuke Pyongyang…

(June 14) SARS is officially dead. Monkeypox is replacing it. We have beaten SARS to death so it is best to keep the file footage for when it comes back with a bang this winter. With no vaccine in sight, buy masks, kids! If SARS combines with something else, watch out on this one…

(June 15) The market is up again but just equal to last year. Not good but make a strong case for serious recovery under the President’s new tax refunds. Unemployment is soaring but let’s keep this minor key unless some trouble breaks out over it. Justice has evidence of serious labor unrest, especially among ghetto minorities. They never had a crack at the brass ring before and now, none at all. This in seen as potential disaster by the AG and his people…Job corps are out of the question. Subject of a universal draft for all 18 year olds on the drawing board. Keep them out of trouble before the election and boosts up the military “just in case”  there is more military action.

(June 15) We are going to be running into serious problems with the growing resistance movements in Iraq. GIs are being killed and wounded, convoys ambushed and worst of all scenarios are coming true: The Iraqi oil is being interdicted before it can be shipped out of the country. Casualties cannot be concealed but can be minimized. No clips of dead or injured US personnel…pipeline fires can be shown but voice over should stress that technicians (from Haliburton, of course) are putting out these as quickly as possible. Damage is to be minimal…the nature of the attackers…these are a handful of diehard Saddam supporters…who are being successfully tracked down and neutralized by ever-vigilant and prepared US troops. Show pictures of captured (not dead) Iraqis. Be careful to vet the shots so as not to include any captives that appear to have been beaten…

(June 16) …Pentagon sources now claim that it will be impossible to bring law and order to Iraq within a year and heavy US military presence must be in place to do this. An order is being prepared to exclude all foreign media, especially British and French, from guerrilla areas. The reason given is that they might be kidnapped but in reality, foreign press might take pictures that are not advisable to be seen in the US. …the most severe methods of interdiction are currently being indicated including setting up detention camps, curfews, the issuance of ID cards, the closing of mosques, the detention of religious leaders and the sealing of the borders with Syria and Iran…

(June 18) Now it appears that the faked (call them ‘inaccurate’) reports about Saddam’s purchase of enriched uranium will not go away. The White House hopes that Muslim terrorists will commit some atrocity, preferably in the United States, so as to deflect rising negative attitudes on the part of the electorate…although no one has said it, such an attack(s) would not be surprising.

(June 19) ..and it now appears that SARS is taking a breather. There are still pockets of it, especially in the Pacific rim areas, but the Canadian outbreaks seem to be pretty much under control now…The CDC is very concerned about a renewed outbreak concomitant with the usual flu season this winter. If SARS combines with certain forms of pneumonia, the results could be a major epidemic. Use discretion in any mention of SARS and we have been advised to drop the entire subject.

(June 20) Continue with positive reports about the market upswings…no comment on the 10% unemployment rates. Work up a treatment that stresses the problems newly-graduated high school students have in finding work. Thus, the higher rates.

(June 21) The reaction of Congress, pushed by public opinion, to rescind the FCC rulings about multiple ownership of media entities will certainly not be welcome in the trade. The President says he will veto anything like this but Beltway sources on the inside say this will be veto-proof. Rupert will not be a happy camper!

(June 22) Keep up with the legislation about partial-birth abortion but stay neutral in reporting. This is a very volatile issue, especially with the women. No one wants armies of screaming women parading up and down in front of the White House or the Capitol…

(June 23) …withdrawal of US troops from the Korean DMZ is to be presented as an attempt to keep GIs out of harms way and, stress this, not as a prelude of a US attack (atomic or conventional) on Pyongyang. This is a hyper-sensitive area. We are all assured that North Korea will not attack unless attacked and the media has to play this aspect down. In short, the less said the better. Iran is the new target, not North Korea. Keep that strictly in mind on coverage..

(June 16) …and for a decade, the establishment has taken a very dim view of the internet. It is seen as a method used by dissident elements to propagandize the public and publish material that might cause great disruption in the public mind. A new program launched by a major computer company is designed to permit easy access by investigative agencies to computers and computer files of suspect persons. The rationale given is to protect copyrighted material such as popular music and video material. The actual purpose is to build into all new computers a chip ostensibly to “protect” the user from intrusion but in reality supplying a trapdoor to facilitate observation. In all probability, this program will not succeed because younger users will not want controls over their systems…all of this brings up the subject of ‘Internet II’ which was a DOJ project to control access to and permit close supervision of emails…this failed but the new project is to be put forward as a boon to computer users who are afraid that their systems will be illegally entered…

(June 18) The Pentagon is concerned and the White House is furious that Russian military intelligence has not only been breaking our secret military coded messages but worse, putting the contents up for all to see. The Russians have also published the exact means by which others can break US codes. New codes and systems are being rushed through in order to shut these disastrous leaks down…

(June 21) The left is circulating rumors, sparked initially by a long paper by a Moody Bible Institute (of Chicago) instructor that puts forward the argument that President Bush is actually the Antichrist! The writer makes compelling parallels but for obvious reasons, this topic is not one to be covered…

(June 22) The controversy swirling around the 2001 anthrax attacks is heating up, but fortunately behind closed doors. Parallels are being drawn between these attacks and the Legionnaires Disease attacks in Philly. The simple problem is that germ warfare was banned under Nixon but actually development never stopped at the Army’s Maryland facility. We know that mobile labs have been built here and were planned for use in Iraq until someone thought better of it. Now, the Pentagon is afraid that the selected “target” to blame the attacks on apparently knows more about the situation than they realized and that if he were charged, he would talk and the very big cat would get out of the bag. Nailing the people at the tabloid press in Florida was a shot across our bows…the media had best shut its mouth or look what can happen to you. There is no substantive control over the military and official Washington is terrified that they could pull another Northwoods game again…

(June 28) The situation in Iraq vis a vis the guerrilla war is now reaching critical proportions. It is very obvious not only to the Pentagon, whose business it is to combat it, or to the White House who basically instigated it, that the actions of Iraqis are not, repeat not, merely sporadic lootings and local vigilantly actions but a well-organized and fully functioning guerrilla movement. This has very ugly religious overtones and has the danger of causing serious and widespread trouble in the adjoining Muslim countries. The Administration has two choices facing it: Get on or get out. Our sources indicate that Bush’s temperament and personality will not permit him to retreat an inch. There is the oil question. We were supposed to secure all the Iraqi oil after kicking Hussein out and breaking his hold on the country. Bush was warned repeatedly by Pentagon experts that there was the strong probability of dangerous insurgent activity by he and his close advisors such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz discounted it. Since the President will not, and cannot, withdraw from a situation that is daily becoming more and more dangerous to American military units, his only remaining choice is to increase the number of troops in Iraq to both suppress any and all civil resistance to American occupation and , even more important, protect the oil fields and most especially the pumping stations and pipelines. Experts we have spoken with have said that this will be impossible without at least 200,000 troops in place. Pacification could take years, not weeks or months, and with elections coming up next year, inside White House sources have said the President and Rove are in a panic. Increasing damage to plant, increasing anti-US guerrilla activity and the resultant deaths of GIs is causing havoc with the planning for both the export of the vital oil and the prospects of another Vietnam to haunt the election. Options are varied but the best bet here is that Bush will replace the current commanders with someone who is known to be absolutely ruthless and will mandate the new commander to obliterate any and all opposition, especially Iranian-based Shiite religious leaders and former members of Saddam’s ruling class. We are told that we will have to pull out our reporters if and when this happens. It would be a PR disaster if we had a reprise of Nam with the shooting of civilians on the 6 o’clock news. And all foreign journalists will be ordered out because the US has no control over these and both the French, British and Russians will love to show Americans shooting small children or blowing up mosques full of worshippers. A news pool is slated to be set up like the first Bush did in Desert Storm with controlled news being parceled out to the various media.

(July 2) Frist’s outrage over the Supreme Court decision in the Texas sodomy case is giving the White House more problems. Frist, another devoted Christian, wants a special Constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages. Both the President and the AG are fully in agreement with the thrust of this, no pun here boys, but sees trouble if the gay community (who have clout and money) sees Bush as a gay-hater. (Which we know he is) Right now, the plan is to let Frist have his way (and please, no reference here or at any time about his torture and killing of cats!) but without Presidential official approval. If Frist is successful (and it’s odds on he won’t get past first base with this) then Bush can smile and say that the will of the people has been done. If it flops, he can easily have plausible deniability.

(July 12) We forsee problems in some of our coverage of the Iraq business. Until fairly recently, the public support has been fairly strong for the President’s actions. Our own poll results showed that the President enjoyed a solid 52% national support (although the agreed figures were closer to 65%) Now, with the prolonged and escalating Iraqi resistance and growing questions about Bush’s State of the Union speech and the glaring errors contained in it, it is very evident that other media elements are beginning to raise questions. We have known for some time that Tenet would take the blame for the glaring forged documents the President used to whip up a panic and gain public support for his determination to attack and occupy Iraq. We have a copy of the December, 2002 memo from the White House to the DCI concerning documentation of Iraqi WMD. Quote: The President feels that it is vital to have supportive material concerning known Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. You are requested to search your files for anything that would support this important thesis endquote. It was well-known inside our circles and the Beltway that the reports of Nigerian uranium sales to Iraq were hopeless frauds. These faked reports were duly sent over to the White House with a cover letter, a copy of which we also have in our files, to the effect that this report was the only one that addressed the President’s request but also contained a specific warning that its authenticity was quote dubious at best and therefore could not be supported by other evidence endquote

As pressure on the President ratchets up over these faked papers, it is obvious that he is going to find a fall guy for his slipping reputation. Our sources indicate that Tenet (and others) will be reprimanded in public but praised in private. He will in all probability not be given the sack because, quite simply, George T knows where the bodies are buried. The best way to cover this is to be strictly neutral in comment and we must now maintain a completely neutral position in all of this. If Bush has the same problems Nixon did over Watergate, we cannot be seen by our viewers as being blindly partisan. We have to have  plausible deniability in this. The NYT is now beginning to crack the wall of silence surrounding the Presidency and as they are the bellweather, best to watch them closely.

(July 13) The figures given out about a 3 billion monthly bill for the Iraq occupation and “pacification” is going to blow up in the Administration’s face.(More like 5 billion a month!) The Democrats have been in disarray because they feel that by attacking the wartime President, they can be accused of disloyalty to the American people…The major disaster for the White House is that they cannot get oil out of Iraq. The plan always was to root out Saddam, occupy the country after securing the oil fields first and then put a CIA trained and controlled local governments into place. This puppet governments (let’s face it gentlemen, that is what it would be but we can call it Iraqi autonomy) would graciously grant to the US the right to protect their oil resources and assist them in recovering their pre-Desert Storm production levels. In fact, the Iraqis would get none of the proceeds of the oil sales…The President and his top men, including Rumsfeld, were fully warned by both the CIA and MI that there was a very strong probability that internal unrest in Iraq could tie the US up for years, not months but as we know, the White House has always listened to a different drummer…The Administration is over a barrel on this because if they try to make too many scapegoats, someone will let the cat out of the bag over who really knew what and what kind of specific warnings the White House had actually received…the same scenario as the 9-11 warnings….It’s strongly suspected that the Russians know exactly where Saddam is but will never tell us…Bush has refused to allow any Iraqi oil resources to flow into Russia and has also refused to pay off Saddam’s bills with Russia. The President hates Putin, calling him a quote KGB  thug endquote. The President is certainly a good hater!

(July 14) Happy talk at the Pentagon about a universal draft is fading away. No chance of this disaster even being broached and it should not be mentioned at all. It is doubtful that the White House will touch this one now…There is a growing fear in counter intelligence circles that if the resistance movement in Iraq is not stopped, the resulting very bad PR might cause an “incident” somewhere in the US just before election time to whip the voters up to vote for Bush as a “wartime leader” who can put a number of draconian laws and edicts in place to “protect the American people.” Someone in the FBI said to one of our people, entirely off the record, that quote it will probably be the Statue of Liberty endquote. There must be no speculation on this subject under any circumstances. If some rigged incident does happen and we comment on it in advance, new regulations could cause us serious problems …If this happens, it will be Rumsfeld who plans and executes it. This will give the President the usual deniability. It is more than likely that we will get some advance notice of such an action and then decisions can be made relative to going to the public. On one hand, it would be a magnificent media coup guaranteeing ratings off the chart and on the other, a death sentence…

(July 17) The White House is now moving into a bunker mentality, very much like Nixon during the end of the Watergate business. With mounting Iraqi opposition and facing a very capable guerrilla movement, supplied by Syria and Russia, the US has run into the stone wall we all predicted. His personality will not permit the President to withdraw in good order; the neocons and the oil people will simply not let him. Bush is stuck between the rock and the proverbial hard place…serious growing unrest in the troops coupled with very low morale, growing death tolls, lack of rotation, real fear of being fatally attacked are all leading to a situation that our Pentagon source informs us could actually erupt into open mutiny. Couple all of this with the terrible economy, the insistence of the Bush people on insane tax cuts (to help out corporate America), the obvious right wing political and religious fanatics supporting the President and we have the makings of serious, probably fatal, domestic problems. The fear is that a frantic Administration could connive at some kind of domestic terrorism if and when they perceive the President slumping badly in the polls. He already is and it looks like it might go like the economy. Today, a 65% favorite; tomorrow matching Davis’ 20%.

( July 20) We have to sit on stories of serious physical abuse of Iraqi citizens. Most sensitive (and we put the blackout on this subject) are the numerous rapes and sexual assaults against Iraqis. Interesting are the unreported but fully known homosexual rapes…the real problem here is that US GI minorities are mostly responsible for these and Bush needs these votes in November so on with the lid…we don’t think they can keep this shut up for too long…the Okinawa syndrome all over again.

(July 21) Blair may well fall from power as a result of the growing anger in the UK…as usual, Bush has blamed the CIA for the yellowcake nonsense and now that Tenent is fighting back with strategic leaks, he is blaming his only real ally, Britain…the same problem Bush has with everyone…promise everything, deliver nothing. Sound bites followed by forgetfulness. This is going to cause serious internal problems in Mexico when the PRI realizes that Fox won’t get support from Bush. The President does not realize that there is a ready-made war on our southern border…best part is that the troops won’t have so far to go this time….plans to activate the National Guards and send them off to Iraq to relieve the serious morale crisis in our troops there will certainly backfire. The weekend warriors are a military comic routine and would be sliced to pieces by grinning Iraqi guerrillas. When they start sending young convenience store managers home in rubber bags with their genitals cut off, there will be hell to pay in Middle America…

(July 19) SARS keeps popping up in pockets here and there but it is pretty well agreed that it has gone to ground and won’t crop up again until winter flu season…Reporting on this should be limited to CDC and WHO releases but without any comment and stick it back with the truss ads…

(July 20) There is a big flap going on, well behind the scenes, between Bush’s top advisors and the CIA over the yellowcake issue. The issue, as far at the public is concerned at least, is whether the President had knowledge of the falsity of information that Iraq was attempting to buy uranium for use in a weapons program. His aides sent out requests to the DIA, the CIA, DoS and NSA to see if there were any usable reference materials in their files that would support such a contention. As always, there were reports and one was sent on by the CIA to White House staffers. It was noted in a cover letter that the report was quote dubious at best endquote. The Bush people put it into a speech the President was slated to deliver in Cincinatti in October of 2002. Tenent got wind of this and specifically informed the staff that the reference was badly flawed and to delete it. This was done. However, several months later, the President included it verbatim in his State of the Union address in January of 2003. It had the desired effect but backfired when leaks indicated that the report was a crude forgery. This put Bush in a very unenviable position and his staff began to find ways to deny it; to develop plausible deniability. Blair also got a copy of this and also was informed, by the CIA and British MI, that the report was a useless fake. Unfortunately, both men consulted and decided to use it. The truth of the matter is that they both were aware that the report was totally untrue. Later, when this became public knowledge, the Bush people began frantically attempting to shove the blame off on the lesser fish. Tenent bit the bullet but stated only that he had not read the President’s speeches (which he had). This was put out by the staff at the White House as an “admission” that the CIA had been at fault. Our reports indicate that the highest level CIA people are outraged at this treachery on the part of the President and have been leaking all kinds of unpleasantness about Cheney, Wolfowitz and recently, about the President himself. The White House has responded by “outing” a high level CIA agent, wife of a critic. This is a criminal act but the White House people do not care. They believe that the President was quote called by God to the Presidency endquote and anything he says, or does, is acceptable. There is also a growing feud between the Bush people and the intelligence, and now the military, communities. White House staffers are threatening to release a secret report on the deaths of John Paisley, once Deputy Director of the CIA’s Office of Strategic Research in September of 1978 and William Colby, formerly DCI in May of 1996. Both men had fallen afoul of senior CIA personnel and both “accidentally” were drowned under highly suspicious circumstances. Our sources indicate that Paisley had been dealing with the Soviet intelligence organs and Colby was singled out for assassination because of damning testimony he gave before a Congressional hearing that reflected badly on the Company. The CIA is certain to retaliate if these allegations of in-house “cleansing” are leaked. The odious bottom-feeder Drudge would be the most likely source for these leaks. We should be very careful about what we make public about all of this. Presidents come and Presidents go but the CIA abides and will be around long after Bush is only a memory…

(July 21) The guerrilla warfare rages on in Iraq with no end in sight. A report from Rand indicates that oil from Iraq is not likely to be shipped out in the near future and as the Administration has been counting on their sales of this oil to reduce the horrific US national debt, trouble looms. Rumsfeld and Cheney, the real powers in the Beltway, want the National Guards activated to replace the mutinous brigades now on duty in Iraq. The staffers at the Pentagon are not in favor of this because these Guardsmen are badly trained and it is felt that there would be casualty disasters without end if they were dumped into the middle of a fierce guerrilla Arab holy war. The emerging hallmark of White House strategy is a blind belief in the rightness of their actions and a mounting refusal to modify any of their actions…

(July 25) The House vote on the deregulation matter is a shot across the Administration’s bows. So many Republicans deserted that Bush is said to be boiling with rage and threatening a veto in addition to punishment of the rebels. Considering the public uproar over Powell’s FCC actions, this veto will be overridden. Reminds us of the time everyone voted against the crime bill during the Clinton years. The bill obviously was going to pass but this was Congress’s way of warning the White House that they had the power and he did not. Bush’s first challenge came from the courts and it has now been followed up by the House. The Senate is sure to follow. The importation of prescription drugs from overseas is another issue. It is too popular for Congress to ignore…AARP types are working overtime on this one…but both the Drug industry and certain of us in the media have filled the coffers of the GOP with baskets of gold and now expect to get what they paid for. We should come down on the side of the cheaper drugs but be strictly neutral on the media deregulation business.

(July 26) Note: This is an extract from a new source and is included here because it is contains information about important future activities.

“Two meetings held in Ortona on July 22-23 and Medina, July 24.....decision regarding counter measures against American invaders...continued support by Russian groups with logistical support including sanitized weapons with proper earlier datings....considering that vengeance attacks against prominent US military and civilian personnel in Iraq are difficult due to strong security, instead, it was suggested that attacks be made within the US proper and against religious leaders. The public deaths, preferably by explosives or by fire, of some prominent American religious fanatics now pressing to Christianize Muslim countries...suggested are Pat Robertson, Falwell, Reed, the younger Graham...not considered that any of these will have heavy security like the Vice President who hides his craven body in a steel bunker....Bush has refused in a secret report to pay any of Iraqi debts to Russia, France or Germany because they have openly thwarted his aggression at the UN and are viewed by him as putative enemies ...agreements have been made in principle with Russian and French spokesmen concerning the payments of the Iraqi debts...the shadow government has signed protocols agreeing to repay these debts ahead of all other debts when the Americans are chased out of Iraq...Germans have not yet been drawn into this because they are not considered 100% secure and many American spies have infiltrated the BND and Foreign Office in Pullach and Berlin and all would be reported immediately to the CIA regional headquarters at....several  American spies and traitors have been identified in the area under discussion and will be removed quietly."

(July 28) Growing morale problems among US forces in Iraq are causing serious misgivings in the Pentagon…the actual problem is how to rotate these men back to the US for retraining and reorientation and still garrison the increasingly dangerous guerrilla attacks…complaints from the White House that too much is appearing in the media about the morale issue…suggested that GIs be shown in positive depictions…reading mail from home, playing baseball, swimming and so on. Media outlets are warned about allowing their reporters to file negative stories by what are to be called “bored and homesick young soldiers, away from their wives and children.” The growing issue of suicide and a number of actual desertions is to be blacklisted until further notice.

(July 30) For diplomatic reasons, speculation about Hussein being in Russian Republic territory or even being in connection with these people is to be strictly ignored.

(Aug 1) Pentagon threats to bar any reporters, and other members of the US media, who report on growing morale problems among GIs in Iraq may become a possibility if this subject is not avoided in the future. Foreign journalists are being carefully forced out of Iraq (for their own safety according to the release) and the US reporters are going to be subject to full court censorship in the near future.

(Aug 3) Growing political chaos in California, seen as a key state by the White House people, is causing great concern in DC…Davis is seen as a weak, very unpopular governor and the President would frankly like to see him win the recall. The entrance of the Terminator into the lists is seen as a potential disaster. Privately, pundits agree that Bush has no personality, is viewed by a growing number of Americans as “strange” and “not truthful” so Arnold poses a threat to the President’s image. He is far too liberal on social issues the Administration has staked out as its own…anti-abortion, anti-feminist, anti-environmentalist and so on…and Arnold has the persona to completely overshadow the Administration and its deceptive planning. Look for the orders to hit the Terminator in the last weeks of the election in California. When the subject of Davis’ sexual problems has come up, it is felt in official circles that this will not damage him at all in California and that if he is kicked out, he can always become the mayor of San Francisco’s Castro District….

(Aug 8) A projected adjunct to the Patriot Act is under serious consideration both in DoJ and the Homeland Security people….It is being suggested that because of intel input concerning Arab terrorists striking inside the US, that all Moslem residents be categorized with an eye to expelling any and all that could be considered even the least suspect of either harboring terrorists or being terrorists themselves. This would extend even to present US citizens. If real property or bank accounts are garnished as a result of this expulsion program, the funds would be placed in the US Treasury…

(Aug 9) Serious rumors of strong military action against North Korea are circulating everywhere but we have all been advised that this is considered to be national security business and is under strict blackout. In the event of war with North Korea, we understand a press pool, similar to the Desert Storm one, will be set up by the Press and Information people on the other end…

Comment: One of the recurring themes we see from a small handful of readers is that our depiction of the American media as corrupt and controlled is entirely false and misleading. Writers constantly advise us that America relies on a free media for its news and that ratings are up as never before. The following article appeared in the New York Times that sings a different song. As a further note, the New York Times is probably the best paper of its kind in the United States today. Its well-researched and written articles on national and international matters are valuable in the extreme and supplies a firm base upon which to build knowledge of current events. Carping stories about a Times reporter who fabricated his stories have no real impact on the probity of the paper and it should be noted that only one reporter was involved, and this was an individual and not a corporate failing.

(August 17, 2003) …the recall campaign in California will be interesting. The White House is not pleased with the Terminator candidacy. Although a Republican, Arnold is seen as too dynamic in contrast to Bush…they will publically keep out of the recall.

(August 20) ..Pentagon “suggestions” about reactivating reservists should not be addressed. There is already too much of a major flap over the extended tours for the men now in Iraq to suggest that reservists will be activated in large numbers….the morale problems are very bad now…Third Infantry units are especially fractious…

(August 21) the media will be pushing Bustamente, the current California Lt. Gov. instead of Arnold. He (B) is seen as a weak Democrat…pleasing to the White House…easier to beat next year…the usual rigged polls will show B. ahead of Arnold…not that the public has much confidence in polls but believe it or not, there are still some out there that believe the figures…

(August 28) As of now, the situation in Iraq is reaching critical mass. Civil unrest, unhappy GIs (and their families at home) plus lack of Iraq oil and escalating daily costs in cash and manpower make it close to meltdown. If the military and Rumsfeld don’t get many more troops very soon, no one knows what will happen. Guerilla warfare is in earnest now….the Israelis are sweating blood …they wanted Saddam out because he posed a major threat, or so they said. Now he is gone, he is replaced with well-trained, well-equipped fanatic Muslims right on their eastern borders and they know if these guerrillas can keep the US and Britain pinned down in the cities, the next target will certainly be raids into Israel…this is not to be even hinted at…

(August 29) any discussion of the possibility of terrorist activity being responsible for the blackout is way off base. It’s enough that the system is on the verge of collapse without encouraging rumors. The Bush people played the terrorist card every time they wanted some legislation passed but they have called ‘wolf’ once too often. Let’s face it, we are very vulnerable and Ridge and his boys can not help…

(August 29) As of today, the situation with North Korea is critical. Pyongyang knows Bush can’t engage in land warfare with them; the Japs are scared shitless lest their nasty neighbors drop the Big One on them and they want out. Even Beijing is getting worried. Logic would dictate that NK would listen to reason but the US has managed to get everyone against them and if they see no real escape, they are more than liable to launch a preemptive…after all, that’s the Bush game so he can’t bitch too much when Tokyo starts to glow at night…they cooked this one up and now they have to eat it…we should start to move our people out of Japan within the next week. Okinawa is another prime target so ditto there…

(August 30, 2003) The media trends now are to adopt a more critical attitude towards the White House, especially concerning the Iraq disasters. The feeling in corporate is that Bush might well not get reelected if the downward trends continue…publication of less than favorable polls are indicated…

(September 1) Bolton is proving to be a major diplomatic disaster vis a vis N. Korea. Bush is being told to rein him in but we all know how he feels about being corrected…it is felt that if legitimate diplomacy, as opposed to far-right breast beating and threats, is not resorted to, the North might well feel it had no choice but to launch a pre-emptive strike…and the Japs are terrified but afraid to stand up to the Bush threats of economic sanctions…

(Sept. 3) …more coverage of US units feeding and caring for Iraqis. Suggested coverage also of GI engineers helping to rebuild a mosque (stress it was blown up by ‘crazed Saddam loyalists.’) Beltway rumor has it that the Powell forces in DoS are trying to undermine Rumsfeld’s goals….leaks about his German family connections, sure to enrage Jewish interests. See the comments about Rove elsewhere…Janklow might be forced to resign over his fatal accident…depict him as ‘grief stricken and remorseful’ and get some local color in the coverage. Show more supporters than detractors and stress his fine record as governor…

(Sept 5) give as much publicity as possible to the arrival and strong support by Polish contingents in Iraq…only more widows in Warsaw in the end…the Brits have lost too many troops to guerrillas and there is a strong movement in Britain to disengage. Blair is defending his political life and has to walk a real tightrope. If he goes and the Palestinians fall apart, the Administration is in real trouble…

(Sept 6) there is now far too much talk about the neocons and their goals. Kristol, Wolfowitz and others are being clearly identified as pro-Israel…if the White House keeps dropping in the polls, heads will roll and it will be the neocons and their people…this will lead to more anti-Semitic remarks and is not desirable…

(Sept 12, 2003) Units of the Third Infantry are returning to the US. We have been specifically asked by Pentagon PR people not, repeat not, to either interview these men or if we do, not to mention the “gripes” they are expected to air. The men have been instructed to keep quiet but there are always troublemakers.

(Sept 13) Very hush-hush reports about a new, deadly Muslim terrorist group are circulating around Washington. A resurrection, it seems of the old Assassins from the Crusade days…and some of their possible aims will be the assassination of prominent American citizens. US intelligence is at a loss (as usual) for details…

(Sept 18) We ought to consider a piece about the happy Iraqi multitudes demanding that US “protectors” remain behind “for another year” to “root out” the small, feeble remnants of Saddam loyalists. Reason? We can’t get the oil up and running and we need UN support. Bush will work that side of the street for a while but unless the frogs cave in, he will be SOL…there is no foreseeable end to this mess…

(Sept 20) …general PR problems about growing lack of recruits for the military. Now, a good percentage of the reserve men are opting out when they can. There will be a massive publicity campaign which will state that recruitment is “way up” and more men are joining out of patriotism “than ever before.” We will have to print this nonsense…

(Sept 21) Bush is tanking in the polls and the White House is getting wet pants. They are working on new magic for the President to pull out of his hat to dazzle and bewilder the public….best guess is a “terrorist attack” on some beloved domestic target…the AG is having a dog and pony show across the land trying to drum up support for an even more restrictive “Patriot Act” but this does not play well on either coast. Of course it does go over big in Iowa…

(September 21, 2003)  “… the seasons change and the political season is also changing, gentlemen. Corporate, not only ours but most of the other major entities, have decided, reluctantly it is admitted, that Bush has to go. Why reluctantly? Because of the money we have given him for his campaigns…the President’s actions have so unnerved corporate America, (and this includes Bush Sr.)! that the market will never rebound until the irritant of Bush Jr’s chronic stupidity is gone and forgotten. To date, the media has been either supportive or at the least, neutral, towards the Prez and his boys but the Rubicon has been passed and he now universally is seen as dangerous to the economy and worse, and is rousing the mass of the pubic…this is certainly not a good idea. Flagrant corporate corruption, outrageous cronyism (i.e. Halliburton et al), soldiers threatening mutiny, furious families of same, very dangerous behavior on the part of North Korea and on and on…Bush has the personality of a reformed drunk, narrow minded and so self-centered as to be poured into concrete…he is actually a stupid man (we met with him recently and frankly, I personally would never hire the man except to take out the trash on Friday nights) who is thoroughly controlled by his fanatical handlers….their current plans to implement a universal draft borders on the criminally stupid…in truth, Bush has done terrible damage to born-agains and the fierce ultra righters…by not going after Ken Lay, the Bush people are leaving themselves wide open to attack…then Kenny Boy knows too damn much about Bush’s simple-minded and greedy and thoroughly crooked stock manipulations, and if it wasn’t for good old Dad, Georgie would still be a booze-happy coke-snorting ageing frat rat. …The general aim now is to distance ourselves from the whole miserable crew…if we remain neutral in these attacks, we may suffer the accusations that we are pro-Bush and that will hit us in the ad revenue. The key to all of this, gentlemen, is to watch the New York Times editorial pages and be advised accordingly….”

(Sept 22) The rumors now growing inside the Beltway have it that in the event the Bush forces see themselves in danger of defeat in 2004, they will have to find a scapegoat. Both the Pentagon and the CIA have been ruled out. They can thoroughly sabotage the White House plans if they are pushed and note the CIA is now doing just this. Bush will have a hard time trying to put it over that US intelligence organs deceived him with false data because the same agencies will clearly show that the Bush people specified the type of information the President needed to make his points. When the latter were told that much of this information was either Israeli disinformation or the result of bad field work, they used it anyway. Bush cannot blame members of his inner circle because he would be nothing without them so they are looking around for some one or some group to take the heat. Once source said to us, under the usual conditions of anonymity, that Cheney was suggesting the Jews should be blamed! Rising anti-Semitism makes this an attractive idea but the results would be horrific. Unleashing a torrent of Jew-baiting in America would be a major social and economic disaster… Maybe they can blame Mexican immigrants instead! This is, obviously, a forbidden topic under any circumstances….

(Sept 22)… the Japs are wetting their shorts over the North Korean bomb building. No one knows for sure what the Koreans are going to do. Our brilliant intelligence boffs can only look at satellite pictures and guess with one finger stuck up in the air and the other up their asses…Bush cannot back up his anti-Axis-of-Evil Korea bluff because he is in deep kimchi with no troops to back up a military action across the DMZ. His problem is that he threatened Pyongyang and then couldn’t back it up. This permitted them time to frantically develop more bombs and improved delivery systems…we will pull all of our people out of Japan and probably Taiwan before the balloon goes up. Beijing and Tokyo are, according to our people on the scene, more terrified of Bush than Pyongyang. He is seen as a man who hasn’t a clue about what is going on and is only a hand puppet for a bunch of rabid fascists…

(Sept 23) …the recent court actions against lower level corporate types is a smokescreen designed to show that our Justice Department is really interested in prosecuting corporate corruption. Nail a few small fry while the bigger ones swim thorough the net and show real generosity when the Bush people pass the hat come November…

(Sept 25) Note that a purloined copy of a security report about assassination attempts and threats against the President is circulating. As nearly as we can discover, it is genuine but we have been told that any mention of this could fall under the Patriot Act and we do not want to join Wall Street heavies in perp walks. The summation is that to date, there have been more “viable” threats against Bush in one month than in the entire reign of Clinton I…beefed up anti-aircraft on the roof of the White House plus no one is allowed to get within shooting distance of the Prez when he ventures out to raise more money. What will he do when he leaves, or is ejected, from office? My God, they will have to assign the entire 101^st Airborne to guard him down in East Jesus Texas. There is a new bumper sticker that we wish known may not be put on any of our corporate vehicles nor on personal vehicles left in our parking lots. The one that says: “Somewhere in Texas there is a town without an idiot.” Funny but not funny.

(Sept 28) There is to be nothing said about the high levels of radiation in Iraq. Depleted uranium is the culprit but if it becomes too widespread, it is to be blamed on Saddam’s “hidden A-bomb arsenal”! Our man in the Pentagon was moaning that when GIs start losing their hair and fingers in a few years, there will be more lawsuits. As they say in the military, “not on my watch, Charlie!”

(Sept 28) …much bitching in Virginia about the continuing power outages and the refusal of insurance companies to pay up. Given their stated corporate policy of always paying out nothing or as little as possible, you sure are in bad hands with certain insurers. Bush said that he would be damned if he would allow a proposal for the government to underwrite hurricane damage even to be brought up. His rationale: the oceans are getting much warmer (and with the polar icecaps dwindling rapidly and rapidly rising sea levels threatening to swamp the valuable east coast real estate in the next ten years)  so seasonal hurricanes are known to be much bigger. The White House feels that if people are stupid enough to build in coastal areas, they ought to either pay high insurance damage premiums or shut up…compassionate conservatism in action. They can all move to Missouri and support the Reverend Ashcroft’s Leather Strap Academy…

(October 1) Poor Arnold…the dykes hate him as a chauvinist pig, Jews worry that he will put up Hitler pictures in public buildings and the Bush people are afraid he will make their boy look like a gutted chicken…Davis can’t hate A. too much because he is not hostile to gays…what a zoo! Wait until someone comes up with a picture of Rove in an SS uniform! Some cretin at the RNC was talking at the Cosmos Club yesterday about the possibility of running…God, don’t quote me on this one, please!…Neal Bush for office! He is stupider than his brother (if that’s possible!) and missed serious criminal charges on the savings and loan scandals only because of Dad’s influence…

(October 3) The NYT is starting in on the Bush Roast now. Before we commit ourselves too firmly, let’s see how it flies…story about Rumsfeld’s German sister…lives in Schleswig-Holstein…holding Party meetings in the White House beer cellar…of course the Prez can’t come. One drink and there goes the press conferences which are inarticulate enough as it is. I asked the Glorious Leader a very simple question once and he stared at me in horror. There was no one around to help him out so he stammered and split. Edgar Bergen would have had a wonderful time with this one…! And speaking of Edgar, please don’t keep referring to Zuckerman as Mortimer Snerd. This should be self-evident. We don’t piss in own beds, do we lads?

(October 4) We have just finished looking through a long official report that proves conclusively that the Iraqi oil bonanza touted both by the Prez and Cheney was , like WMD, a pack of lies. The system was shot to hell and the wonderful oil revenues that Bush pushed to justify the war to corporations, were as phony as the rest of his bs. And what’s even prettier, children, is that they all knew it long before they shoved it down our throats. There is no way this can be kept from the public and we are all agreed to give it full rein without the usual Rovespins. Bush’s goose is cooked and unless he is neutralized, he is only capable of more terrible mischief. We can all thank God that he can’t move troops out of Iraq or we would have had an atomic war with North Korea by now and all of Asia would glow at night. 

(October 6, 2003)  …and a thick stack of official directives from the Pentagon indicates that a more positive view of the attitudes of U.S. military personnel should be presented to the public…samples of obviously concocted stories are so ludicrous that it would not be wise to make them public…

(October 7) Arnold’s stunning victory in California borders on a true mandate…this is causing serious problems with the Administration….Arnold makes Bush look timid and weak by comparison…poor Arnold will have to deal with the State Legislature which is fanatically leftwing and grossly incompetent…best course would be to appeal to the public if beneficial programs were stifled..

(October 9) A recent CIA paper makes it painfully clear that we do not have a clue about the state of atomic weapons development in North Korea. This is a situation that does not need to be discussed… the Pentagon now claims that “negative publicity” by “certain irresponsible” sections of the American media…is causing serious public relations problems…death tolls have been toned down and suicides and desertions are a forbidden area…

(October 11) Behind the scenes but very intense lobbying by Jewish groups to have a so-called “National Day of Atonement” declared as an official holiday in the US has resulted in a flood of directives about trial balloons on the subject. Americans would then officially mourn the Holocaust and its millions of victims…

(October 12) Apparently, SARS is expected to return with the flu season. No vaccine available so any reporting on this is to be very circumspect. The key word here is “pneumonia” and not SARS…

(October 14) We expect an official release about “large shipments” of Iraqi oil in the near future. Ain’t happening men. Our vehicles can’t even get enough gas there and, believe it or not, their fuel has to be imported from the US!…the sad arrival of dead military personnel at Dover is a thing of the past. Strictly forbidden to comment on or attempt to photograph arriving aircraft with the dead…the higher death tolls are redacted for the time being (waiting for after the elections? Hum?)

(October 28, 2003) The White House advisors have been making discreet inquiries on the Hill about the Bush plan to reinstitute a universal draft in America…this in spite of the potentially deadly reactions that could blast the President out of the White House. Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld are pushing this in spite of repeated warnings, even from inside the Pentagon, that this would be political suicide. “We need this and we are going to get it” Wolfowitz said to one of our senior editors on Monday.

(October 29) …although statistics show an increase in spending, it appears that this is only a rush of pre-Christmas buying stimulated by retailers dropping prices. The White House is claiming that the economy is “roaring back” but it is not. Hedge bets on this one, however. We do not want to be seen putting a damper on a recovery but we do not want to be seen as a toady for White House cheerleaders either….

(November 1) One of our people in Baghdad was roughed up and had his camera and film confiscated by MPs yesterday because he dared to film two dead GIs. That is the new policy direct from the President…No, repeat, no, pictures of dead Iraqi civilians and most surely, no dead or wounded GIs. Two foreign reporters have been shot very dead for disobeying these orders. We are deciding about pulling our people out and letting the Pentagon supply its faked pictures in the future…

(November 1) Our private polls indicate that if the elections were held today, ‘Vietnam George’ would have his sorry ass kicked by Dr. Dean. Kerry has the Vietnam killings dragging him down, no one is going to support Lieberman because he can’t do business on Saturdays and the rest of the Demo pack are sorry losers…

(November 2) In spite of the resistance of the White House, we are going ahead with our plans to do human interest bits on the families of dead GIs. We have no choice on this because of pubic pressure. Look for cries of ‘filtering’ from the President. My God, statements like that about the press from him are rank hypocrisy. The current Administration will never tell the truth if a lie will suffice…

(November 5) A recent confidential report from the NSC sounds like something out of Alice in Wonderland! These rabid warmongers are obviously nutty as hell and the rest of us will have to suffer from it. November cannot come soon enough…

(November 6) Everyone is keeping their mouths officially shut over the Jessica Lynch/John Wayne film. Here were have a dumb hillbilly truck driver from East Jesus, Tennessee being put forward as a cross between Joan of Arc and John Wayne “shooting her way through battalions of terrified Iraqi Elite Guards” when in fact the poor bitch was smashed up in a truck crash and can’t remember a damned thing...surprising Bush doesn’t give her the Congressional Medal of Honor. Wasn’t he put up for one for his heroic sorties in the air over Vietnam? (By God, he shot down 60 MiGs in one afternoon while reading the Bible with one hand) Or was that for hiding in a roadhouse in Louisiana when he was supposed to be in Texas learning to be a flyboy like his dad? Did I say Alice in Wonderland yesterday? Something by L. Ron Hubbard would be more to the point…

(November 8) Now that they put the feeding tube back in the human turnip, let’s not have any more sob stories about unplugging the brain dead.

(November 9, 2003) The mutual funds scandals are growing but there is a frantic attempt to put the lid on. The public is not supposed to get it into its innocent heads that corporate America is nothing but a gaggle of money-grubbing crooks. The books of most banks and major corporations have been cooked for years, the market manipulated ruthlessly and everyone, including the “regulators” on the serious take….put your cash in the mattress, lads…

(Nov 10) Bush is being told by his crew that he had best get his sorry old ass out of Iraq before long or he will never get reelected. What a bunch of losers!…Now we are taking all of our troops out of S. Korea and shipping them, along with cadre from absolutely everywhere, to Iraq. It’s even up that when we leave, the North Koreans will launch an attack. They are nuts enough to do this but Bush can’t do a damned thing about it. They are shipping permanent party out of Okinawa to the relief of the locals who are tired of rapes, fatal traffic accidents caused by drunk or stoned GIs…

(Nov 15) Now the dorks are planning to pull out of our new Vietnam by June. When they leave, Saddam and his men will come back again and scores will be settled. Or, worse, the Iranians will take over the country, set up a Shiite religious dictatorship and we will still be sol. And no oil. Joke here: Bush encountered Lincoln’s ghost in the White House, recently. The Prez asked the spirit how he could make the American people better off. Lincoln said: “Why not go to a play?” From all of our sources, Bush is the most hated President in history but you are never to comment on that.

(Nov 16) ..we were hashing over coverage of the Imperial visits to the boobery. The crew picks some place safe, the SS goes out and covers the place like a blanket, Bush is not allowed to get anywhere near the public. He is so afraid of being shot that when he goes out, he has more guards around him than Cheney or Hitler….no one is allowed near the Imperial Presence except proofmarked loyalists, many of whom are bussed inform three states away,, handed pre-printed signs and told to cheer and wave on cue…disgusting theater. Doesn’t fool the camera crews but the Bible Belt laps it up…George W. Bush, the approved candidate of Jesus H. Christ!

(Nov 17) the Supreme Court is busting Bush’s balls now. They are going to take cases about the Gitmo gulag and the White House is shrieking with rage. I guess the Court doesn’t realize that Bush thinks he is the one to decide what is constitutional and not the Court. He has a rude surprise coming very soon as I understand…

(Nov 18) poor old Diebold and their rigged voting machines! They practically guaranateed to the RNC that Bush would be reelected if they had anything to do with it…and their system of computerized voting is so corrupt that the Russians ought to buy it! Or they could sell it to Chicago, Florida or Mexico all of whom are known for total election frauds. Vote early and vote often as the Daley people say…

(November 20, 2003) A major crisis is rapidly approaching in Iraq. Resistance there is mounting daily. Serious explosive outrages are drastically escalating both in occupied Iraq and elsewhere. Deadly bombings in Turkey and very strong intelligence that more and more bombings will transpire in any country friendly to the United States. We cannot simply ignore these events because members of the foreign media will certainly report them and news of this will eventually trickle into the States via the internet. In spite of all attempts on the part of the Administration to minimize the dangers, it is evident that as these attacks spread, the US can expect to see more and more terrorist incidents such as the 9/11 outrage. Previous banal and self-serving “warnings” from Ashcroft and Ridge that never materialized have created an illusion of government incompetence and quite frankly, a real warning based on hard evidence will simply go unnoticed. Also, it is painfully apparent that the so-called Homeland Security people are a pathetic farce. While the vaunted CIA now admits, almost in private, that they have no intelligence whatsoever about the nuclear capacities of North Korea, so the Homeland Security people, the FBI and the NSA haven’t a clue about terrorist cells or projected terrorist activities within the United States. The media is caught in a classical Catch-22 situation. If we continue to harp on the weakness and diminution of what is actually surging Arab resistance and exported terrorist, we run the risk of a very nasty pubic reaction when, for example, a Piper Apache loaded with explosives crashes into a meeting hall where the President is making a speech or some American icon like the Statue of Liberty or the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco receives the attentions of our enemies. There are persistent rumors, by the way, that some kind of a BW attack will be launched against Israel. No one knows if these stories are true but it would be fatal for everyone if they were ignored because it might upset the Bush reelection campaign, now beginning in earnest….we have to draw a fine line between causing panic and willfully ignoring serious dangers…

(November 21 2003 )Here we are again with the anniversary of the Kennedy assassination upon us. There will have to be the usual retrospectives. Of course, Oswald acted alone. Of course he did not but it has been established that he did to cover up what actually happened so we should interview his wife and others such as Gerald Posner and then forget the entire silly mess for another year. New book out that says LBJ was involved. Another one last year said the CIA did it. No publicity for either thesis.

(November 22) The Pentagon is getting nervous over the continuing, highly orchestrated and deadly, Iraqi resistance. Or as the White House says, “disorganized, minimal local bandits and criminals..” Our reporters are being threatened with unspecified “problems”  if they don’t toe the party line. That line? Everything is going to plan now (Question here: Whose plan? If the chaos in Baghdad is part of a plan, someone should be shot.) No negative comments about unhappy and  mutinous GIs. No pictures of GIs who have been killed by mobs and mutilated. Especially no pictures or stories about enraged soldiers slaughtering locals in revenge for commando raids. Wolfowitz had an accident with his bladder when rockets slammed into his hotel recently. They mopped up after him as he fled to the airport. These men can certainly dish it out..especially from the safety of a Pentagon bunker…but they can’t take it. Odds are there will be some kind of a “demonstration” or, to be blunt, a mutiny of the troops, around Christmas.

(November 23) The CIA has struck again, this time in Georgia. No, they have not blown up Atlanta but the former Soviet Republic has fallen securely into our hands. We want the area for an oil pipeline since the Taliban are restive again in Afghanistan and the projected Unocal pipeline to the sea is not possible at this point. This is also a shot across Putin’s bows warning him to be more cooperative with us or find us right on his doorstep…the next target will be the Ukraine. The Bush people are thinking about all the Ukrainians living in the US that might vote for George if he makes a show of “liberating” their people from the evil neo-Commie Putin.

(November 24) …hard wired phone companies are going the way of the dinosaur. Government loves this because it is so much easier to snoop on cell phones without bothering to get a warrant. And on this subject, look for a complete resurrection of the FBIs ‘70s anti war programs. These people will never learn. The repressive activities of these people toppled LBJ and will, if continued, topple Bush…He is threatening the Canadians with various trade sanctions if they don’t stop deserting GIs from taking refuge there…there is a sick joke about Bush having a picture of Hitler on one wall of his bedroom and another of Jesus on the other…Some joker put up a picture of Bush and the Saved Thanksgiving turkey. Caption was “This turkey was reprieved” and the addition was, “which turkey?” Not nice gentlemen. Someone might see this and drop a dime on all of us…

(November 28) Recent publication of an interview with General Franks brings up the institution of martial law by the Administration. There has been some muted but high-level discussions of this subject. Franks is a functioning idiot but the idea of Bush winning the ’04 election like he did the last one…by outright fraud…is a topic inside the Beltway. Plans have been drawn up for the eventuality that some kind of an attack, whether by groups in support of the President or actual foreign terrorists, will happen in the US and the lid can go on. The two groups that are Bush’s most devoted supporters are the Born Again lunatics and the very far right. The first group actually believes the bs that God mandated a Bush presidency and that to lose him to secular humanists must be prevented by any means possible. And for these twisted souls, anything that they feel God wants is OK with them. They are the type that hear little voices in their heads that they believe is God telling them to kill their wives or shoot into that nice yellow school bus full of little African Americans. (The Bush people, especially the AJ, detest blacks because the Jewish elite around him detest blacks.) The ultra right is quivering with joy at the thought of the rest of us praying in schools, goose-stepping up and down the streets like Hitler Youth while American troops occupy most of the world in a New Roman Empire. Of course this is loonie froth on a tankard of stale ale but keep an eye on the nut fringe. This does not mean that Bush and his people would order a “hit” but it does mean that they would be the very first to exploit it, and the American public, to the hilt. Don’t forget the Reichstag Fire in Germany and the ease with which Hitler passed his Enabling Act which clamped the iron collar on the neck of the public.

(November 23, 2003) We are now stressing the upsurge in public holiday spending. Although it is down from several years ago, something is better than nothing…employment moved up a little but not enough to make much of a difference. It is generally agreed that we will downplay violence in Iraq over the holidays.

(November 26) There has been some speculation about the number of wounded in Iraq. The Pentagon will not release figures but the NY Times let the cat out of the bag. Somewhere around 10k and rising. Most will not come back stateside because of the uproar it will cause. They can’t keep the poor bastards in Germany until after the elections but they will certainly try…

(November 26) the Diebold case will not go away. It appears anyone with a high school education can break into their voting machines and change elections. My, what a surprise! And they are such good supporters of the Prez after all! Too much heat coming up on this subject so we can begin to explore it. It was too simple a solution for Herr Rove and his friends so they might have to find other avenues for reelection. They should get old Jeb to run the election. Even the dead would vote early…and often.

(November 28) We are going to stress the AIDS situation in weeks to come. Poor Africa. Everyone dying there and not a penny from the Bushites. But if you believe the real WHO and CDC figures (not the pap served to the public) we are entering a brand new era of population control. Not only most of Central Africa but India, Bangladesh, PRC, about all of Mexico, Egypt and Russia are all doomed to lose at least half of their population. In Russia it’s drug use and in Africa, mass buggery but in the end (no pun here) they will all die just the same. Nothing can be done about it. Figures are rising in the US as well. The US is not going to pour tons of AIDS medicine to the sick of the world, even in spite of frantic lobbying on the part of the grossly fat drug industry to make even more money..

(December 15, 2003) Great rejoicing over the capture of Hussein but realists inside the Beltway know that it is purely symbolic. S. wasn’t doing anything but hiding in holes in the ground while others, many not even connected with or sympathetic to him are now running the resistance. He might even be viewed as a martyr because, if the truth is ever known, Saddam used to work for us and never attacked the United States. Well, the neocons had to have their empire and the Bush supporters had to have their oil so off for a nice, shock and awe war with lots of medals and big military rallies George W. could strut his stuff at. God what an unholy mess he dragged us into! The media now has to express its very own shock and awe over the superb brilliance over the capture. The SPCA could have done just as good a job. Now we all expect the Pentagon to fly in planeloads of WMD and “find” them where Saddam told us they were hidden. The question here is who will they get to unload and bury them? GIs are liable to spill the beans, the CIA is too stupid so that leaves George W. and his Bible Buddy Karl Rove to do the work. Another mysterious trip to Iraq, shovels out and here comes the election!

 (December 22, 2003) Victory in Iraq is our new watchword! The democracy-intoxicated Iraqi people are flocking to support their many American friends and the Iraqi Ruling Council…small children are to be shown smiling at happy, friendly GIs or clutching paper US flags and stuffed bunny rabbits donated by same…We must ignore the fact that pathetic Saddam was not running the Iraqi  resistance and that the latter are bigger and more aggressive than ever before. Tales from the Pentagon to the effect that new terrorist groups are planning on assassinating top US and British governmental, business and military leaders are better left unsaid… 

(December 23) My, here they go again. Tom Ridge, who looks like he was weaned on a pickle, is now telling all of us that the terrorists are going to do bad things any day now, probably at Bath Beach (which is packed with Russian Jews) or Kennebunkport. These dim-bulbs have cried ‘wolf’ so often that they are becoming objects of contempt and ridicule…They should save their bullshit for a month before the next Presidential elections. If the rigged voting machines don’t get Georgie in for another terrible four years, stampede voting by terrified Iowans might well do the job. Rupert the Magnificient is getting everything he wants from the FCC. The fix is in. Between ClearChannel and Rupert, the media is being strangled and we run the risk of having the more intelligent members of the public, not the trailer park bums that love CNN or Fox, dumping the tube and reading the stories on the net… 

Wednesday, December 24, 2003/ New York (printed in its entirety)

“Another Xmas and the corporate stockings are stuffed with the annual bonus checks. This has been quite a year all in all. An excellent year for news briefs with plenty of excitement, bombs exploding, daily episodes that were very often the result of Hollywood and not History.

The War in Iraq is a lot like driving over a cliff in your new car; thrilling until you stop at the bottom. Have we reached the bottom yet? No, but we are getting there faster than anyone wants.

Bush and his supporters have knocked over a serious hornet’s nest in the Middle East, and in Pakistan, North Korea, Afghanistan, and Europe. Their actions have initially caused some minor alarm that has rapidly developed into major panic.

The Arabs blew up the Trade Center because the U.S. gave blind support to Israel. The Arabs saw us as the financial supporter of their major enemy; an enemy that disposed them of their homes in 1948 (with the aid of the British and Americans) and also of many of their lives. Israel, backed unquestioningly by the US, has invaded their countries, their homes and done its best to destroy all the Arabs of Palestine. Discreetly at first and then with increasing boldness, the repression goes on.

With no sophisticated weaponry such as that possessed by America and Israel, the impoverished and embittered Arabs turned to suicide bombs and self-immolation, a certain sign of their end-game attitudes.

The duty of every national leader is to firstly concern himself with the well-being of his own country. The Bush people have not done this. Aside from some of the Bush cronies, the only entity that has profited from the turmoil; the destruction of Iraq and dispossession of Saddam Hussein, is the state of Israel.

We have removed one of their most dangerous enemies from their borders without a single IDF soldier being killed and at absolutely no expense to their treasury.

But now that Saddam is gone, the Israelis, and the Americans, have discovered that he has been replaced with a growing and very proficient Arab guerrilla movement. This movement, which shows no sign of abating, has taxed our troops to the limit with random and murderous attacks.

Gross ineptness on the part of the military command there has not won the hearts and minds of the Iraqi public but rather, by savage retribution against the civilian population has turned an entire country of millions of Arabs against our occupying troops.

Snipings, sabotage of the vital oil system, killing of Arabs that have cooperated with the U.S., to include revered religious leaders, random killings of GIs, destruction of the power infrastructure and a dozen other actions have created an intolerable strain not only in the U.S. military command but also inside Washington.

With the Neocon war party firmly in power, no suggestion of flexibility or compromise is possible. That the Neocons are all Jewish (and many of whom are actually Israeli citizens,) is becoming very clear to everyone, including, and very dangerously, the general public.

The role of the media, print and television, in this is mixed. On one level, the excitement of daily eruptions in Iran are good copy and produce fine ratings but the growing discontent, both among the ranks and also among the average citizens, is extremely dangerous in the long haul.

We in the media cannot be seen to attack the humble, brave and freedom-loving men in the field. The Bush Administration is just waiting for us to step over that line. On the other hand, it is no longer possible to simply ignore the growing storm and spend all of our time in lavishing praise on the Administration and parroting its memos. (Fox is by far and away the worst offender here. Murdoch gives sycophancy a very bad name indeed.

On the domestic scene, more and more is emerging about:

a.      Bush’s probably foreknowledge of the 9/11 attack;

b.      The growing problems not only in Iraq but possible eruptions and regime changes in a Pakistan that was bribed to support us;

c.       A growing suggestion that vote fraud via deliberately defective electronic voting machines will revisit the terrible Florida election frauds in the Presidential elections;

d.      The growing unhappiness, bordering on desperation, of the Administration about how it can put a lid on Iraq while at the same time preparing for probable other “shock and awe” attacks on the targets of the Neocon’s anger;

e.       The actual number of the dead and, especially, the badly wounded troops in Iraq;

f.        The growing “offshoring” of many hitherto “safe” middle class technical jobs to India, China and Singapore leaving tens of thousands of very apprehensive voters.

We are, I remind you, a business entity, not a charity or a blind supporter of lost causes. In light of this, I and many of my co-workers realize more and more that we will soon reach a point where we can no longer sit on the fence. We cannot run with the hares and hunt with the hounds at the same time and for myself, I would rather be a live hound than a dead rabbit!

The answer? We must find a consensus and very quickly. If, and I stress if, the public awakens from its hibernation and begins to growl in anger, we had all best have a simple and safe plan in place and it would be much better if we acted before we had to.

I would like your written opinions on this round robin on my desk no later than Monday, December 29^th.