Abstract

In Fact…

This section presents brief news and comment pieces. The US media had nary a harsh word to say about the President's Thanksgiving flight to Iraq. The foreign press was less obeisant. Some prizewinning comments: Best Headline: "The Turkey Has Landed"--Independent (London). Runners Up: "Electoral Raid on Baghdad"--Libération (Paris); "I came, I saw nothing, but I will conquer"--An-Nahar (Beirut). Best Capsule Descriptions: "one of the most audacious publicity coups in White House history"--The Times (London). Matt Gonzalez, San Francisco's Green candidate for mayor, is shaking things up in a city long run by Democrats. Gonzalez, president of San Francisco's Board of Supervisors and a former Democrat, has invigorated a progressive coalition of artists and community activists in a grassroots effort to defeat the well-connected, well-funded and wealthy Democrat, Gavin Newsom. Until his death on November 26, at age 87, John Patrick Hunter maintained that it was the job of journalists to defend democracy and the liberties that underpin it. He despised the Patriot Act, the internment of immigrants and other assaults on liberty by John Ashcroft and his ilk in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack.