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Friday, November 04, 2005
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That's Right, Folks: Another All-Time Low!!!
Public Support for Bush Slips to New Low
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By WILL LESTER Associated Press Writer
November 04,2005 | WASHINGTON -- President Bush's public support has eroded to its lowest level yet, with the Iraq war dragging on, a top White House aide facing felony charges and the White House rushing to replace a failed Supreme Court nominee.
Concerned that the president has lost his footing, some Republicans have suggested Bush should shake up his staff.
A new AP-Ipsos poll found the president's approval rating was at 37 percent, compared with 39 percent a month ago. About 59 percent of those surveyed said they disapproved.
The intensity of disapproval is the strongest to date, with 42 percent now saying they "strongly disapprove" of how Bush is handling his job -- twice as many as the 20 percent who said they "strongly approve."
"This is the poorest excuse for a president this country has ever had," said Max Hollinberger, a businessman from Stanwood, Wash., who leans Democratic. He cited "the economy, going to war in Iraq for no reason, the way we can get to the tsunami victims before Katrina victims -- the whole business."
A year after his re-election, Bush's second term has been marred by rising U.S. casualties in Iraq, a failed attempt to restructure Social Security, Hurricane Katrina missteps, rising fuel costs and his forced withdrawal of the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers.
In a case involving the public naming of a covert CIA operative married to an Iraq war critic, Vice President Dick Cheney's former aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, pleaded not guilty on Thursday in federal court to charges of obstruction of justice, perjury and lying to investigators. The case casts a continuing cloud over Cheney and keeps Bush's closest adviser, Karl Rove, in legal jeopardy.
Republicans are starting to worry about the 2006 elections and hope Bush can reverse his slide.
Several senior Republicans who are close to the White House and Rove say there has been a lot of talk inside and outside the White House about the need for him to leave, but they're picking up no indication from him or his associates that it's going to happen -- at least anytime soon.
Neither Bush nor Rove has seemed to get the message, the Republicans say.
Democrats have kept up the attack. "The 2006 midterm elections will be our next opportunity to change the environment of corruption and incompetence in Washington," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Thursday in a fundraising letter to Democrats. Reid has called for Rove's resignation and a "thorough house cleaning" at the White House.
In the AP-Ipsos poll, nearly one in five Republicans disapproved of Bush's handling of his job, compared with nearly nine in 10 Democrats. Nearly seven in 10 independents disapproved.
Four in five Republicans still back the president.
"I think he's done a wonderful job," said Gloria Bloecher, a Republican from Sherman, Texas. "He's done wonderful things for the economy. He rescued people who needed help in Iraq -- it was the Christian thing to do. I still trust his people and the people he picks for the Supreme Court."
The president has lost support from some key groups of constituents over the past year. He's dropped 16 points in his approval rating with men in that time, 18 points with people who have a high school education or less, 16 points among Southerners and 13 points among Republicans.
The poll was conducted by telephone Oct. 31-Nov. 2 among 1,006 adults nationwide. The margin on sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Congress isn't faring much better. In early October, 35 percent of poll respondents approved of the job being done on Capitol Hill, down from 44 percent in February.
In December 2004, soon after Bush's re-election, 51 percent approved of his handling of his job, while 47 disapproved, and 28 disapproved strongly.
"I'm surprised it's not even worse," GOP consultant Rich Galen said of Bush's latest poll numbers. He cited three months of unrelenting bad news that have Republicans "beginning to scratch their heads."
Away from Washington, Republican leaders seemed concerned about Bush's drift downward in the polls and about Iraq, where the 2,000th U.S. military death was recently recorded, and less troubled about the CIA-leak case and the controversy surrounding Rove and Libby.
"I think the war in Iraq being on the front page every day has taken its toll," said Van Poole, former Florida GOP chairman and now a Tallahassee lobbyist, who expects Bush to bounce back. "Americans are impatient. Whatever our job is, Americans want us to get it done."
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Associated Press writer Tom Raum and AP polling director Mike Mokrzycki contributed to this report.
3:07:16 PM 
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Tyranny by Fraud!
It is an absolute fucking disgrace that this story isn't being carried on the front page of every major newspaper, and isn't the lead story of every major broadcast news entity (except Fox, of course) in the country. What more proof does the American public need of the outright fraud that has been perpetrated on this nation by the Bush administration and the Republican Party?
In a fair and just world, the Republican Party would go the way of their miserable, slinking predecessors, the Whigs, and most of their leaders, along with their corporate and religious overlords, would be headed to prison for crimes not only against the nation but against humanity as well. Instead they rule all three branches of government while crying about not wielding enough power over the Judicial.
Is this country completely beyond all hope of social and political redemption? Do the Republicans have their talons dug so deeply into the machinery of politics in this country as to be guaranteed a permanent "majority" despite the true wishes of the electorate?
Stay tuned. . .
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GAO report upholds Ohio vote fraud claims
| By Joe Baker, Senior Editor |
Back |
As if the indictment of Lewis “Scooter” Libby wasn’t enough to give the White House some heavy concerns, a report from the Government Accounting Office takes a big bite out of the Bush clique’s pretense of legitimacy.
This powerful and probing report takes a hard look at the election of 2004 and supports the contention that the election was stolen. The report has received almost no coverage in the national media.
The GAO is the government’s lead investigative agency, and is known for rock-solid integrity and its penetrating and thorough analysis. The agency’s agreement with what have been brushed aside as “conspiracy theories” adds even more weight to the conclusion that the Bush regime has no business in the White House whatever.
Almost a year ago, Rep. John Conyers, senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, asked the GAO to investigate the use of electronic voting machines in the Nov. 2, 2004, presidential election. That request was made as a flood of protests from Ohio and elsewhere deluged Washington with claims that shocking irregularities were common in that vote and were linked to the machines.
CNN said the Judiciary Committee got more than 57,000 complaints after Bush’s claimed re-election. Many were made under oath in a series of statements and affidavits in public hearings and investigations carried out in Ohio by the Free Press and other groups seeking to maintain transparent elections.
Online Journal.com reported that the GAO report stated that “some of [the] concerns about electronic voting machines have been realized and have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of votes.”
This is the only democratic nation that permits private partisan companies to count and tabulate the vote in secret, using privately-held software. The public is excluded from the process. Rev. Jesse Jackson and others have declared that “public elections must not be conducted on privately-owned machines.” The makers of nearly all electronic voting machines are owned by conservative Republicans.
The chief executive of Diebold, one of the major suppliers of electronic voting machines, Warren “Wally” O’Dell, went on record in the 2004 campaign vowing to deliver Ohio and the presidency to George W. Bush.
In Ohio, Bush won by only 118,775 votes out of more than 5.6 million cast. Honest election advocates contend that O’Dell’s statement to hand Ohio’s vote to Bush still stands as a clear indictment of an apparently successful effort to steal the White House.
Some of the GAO’s findings are: 1. Some electronic voting machines “did not encrypt cast ballots or system audit logs, and it was possible to alter both without being detected.” In short, the machines; provided a way to manipulate the outcome of the election. In Ohio, more than 800,000 votes were cast on electronic voting machines, some registered seven times Bush’s official margin of victory.
2: the report further stated that: “it was possible to alter the files that define how a ballot looks and works, so that the votes for one candidate could be recorded for a different candidate.” Very many sworn statements and affidavits claim that did happen in Ohio in 2004.
Next, the report says, “Vendors installed uncertified versions of voting system software at the local level.” The GAO found that falsifying election results without leaving evidence of doing so by using altered memory cards could easily be done.
The GAO additionally found that access to the voting network was very easy to compromise because not all electronic voting systems had supervisory functions protected by password. That meant access to one machine gave access to the whole network. That critical finding showed that rigging the election did not take a “widespread conspiracy” but simply the cooperation of a small number of operators with the power to tap into the networked machines. They could thus alter the vote totals at will. It therefore was no big task for a single programmer to flip vote numbers to give Bush the 118,775 votes.
Another factor in the Ohio election was that access to the voting network was also compromised by repeated use of the same user ID, coupled with easy-to-guess passwords. Even amateur hackers could have gotten into the network and changed the vote.
System locks were easily picked, and keys were easy to copy, so gaining access to the system was a snap.
One digital machine model was shown to have been networked in such a rudimentary manner that if one machine experienced a power failure, the entire network would go down. That is too fragile a system to decide the presidency of the United States.
Problems obviously exist with security protocols and screening methods for vendor personnel.
The GAO study clearly shows that no responsible business would operate with a computer system as flimsy, fragile and easily manipulated as the one used in the 2004 election.
These findings are even more damning when we understand the election in Ohio was run by a secretary of state who also was co-chairman of Bush’s Ohio campaign. Far from the conclusion of anti-fraud skeptics, the GAO’s findings confirm that the network, which handled 800,000 Ohio votes, was vulnerable enough to permit a handful of purposeful operatives to turn the entire election by means of personal computers using comparatively simple software.
One Ohio campaign operative, Tom Noe, a coin dealer, was indicted Oct. 27 for illegally funneling $45,400 to Bush by writing checks to others, who then wrote checks to Bush’s re-election campaign, allegedly dodging the $2,000 limit on contributions by an individual.
“It’s one of the most blatant and excessive finance schemes we have encountered,” said Noel Hillman, section chief of the U.S. Department of Justice’s public integrity section, as quoted in the Kansas City Star.
In the 2000 election, Florida was the key; in the 2004 election, Ohio was the key.
From the Nov. 2-8, 2005, issue
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12:17:49 PM
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The Time to Act is Now
The climate crisis and the need for leadership.
By Al Gore
Nov. 04, 2005 | It is now clear that we face a deepening global climate crisis that requires us to act boldly, quickly and wisely. "Global warming" is the name it was given a long time ago. But it should be understood for what it is: a planetary emergency that now threatens human civilization on multiple fronts. Stronger hurricanes and typhoons represent only one of many new dangers as we begin what someone has called "a nature hike through the Book of Revelation."
As I write, my heart is heavy due to the suffering the people of the Gulf Coast have endured. In Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, and particularly in New Orleans, thousands have experienced losses beyond measure as our nation and the world witnessed scenes many of us thought we would never see in this great country. But unless we act quickly, this suffering will be but a beginning.
The science is extremely clear: Global warming may not affect the frequency of hurricanes, but it makes the average hurricane stronger, magnifying its destructive power. In the years ahead, there will be more storms like Katrina, unless we change course. Indeed, we have had two more Category 5 storms since Katrina -- including Wilma, which before landfall was the strongest hurricane ever measured in the Atlantic.
We know that hurricanes are heat engines that thrive on warm water. We know that heat-trapping gases from our industrial society are warming the oceans. We know that, in the past 30 years, the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes globally has almost doubled. It's time to connect the dots:
Last year, the science textbooks had to be rewritten. They used to say, "It's impossible to have a hurricane in the South Atlantic." We had the first one last year, in Brazil. Japan also set an all-time record for typhoons last year: 10. The previous record was seven.
This summer, more than 200 cities in the United States broke all-time heat records. Reno, Nev., set a new record with 10 consecutive days above 100 degrees. Tucson, Ariz., tied its all-time record of 39 consecutive days above 100 degrees. New Orleans -- and the surrounding waters of the Gulf -- also hit an all-time high.
This summer, parts of India received record rainfall -- 37 inches fell in Mumbai in 24 hours, killing more than 1,000 people.
The new extremes of wind and rain are part of a larger pattern that also includes rapidly melting glaciers worldwide, increasing desertification, a global extinction crisis, the ravaging of ocean fisheries, and a growing range for disease "vectors" like mosquitoes, ticks and many other carriers of viruses and bacteria harmful to people.
All of these are symptoms of a deeper crisis: the "Category 5" collision between our civilization -- as we currently pursue it -- and the Earth's environment.
Sixty years ago, Winston Churchill wrote about another kind of gathering storm. When Neville Chamberlain tried to wish that threat away with appeasement, Churchill said, "This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste, of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year -- unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor, we rise again and take our stand for freedom."
For more than 15 years, the international community has conducted a massive program to assemble the most accurate scientific assessment on global warming. Two thousand scientists, in a hundred countries, have produced the most elaborate, well-organized scientific collaboration in the history of humankind and have reached a consensus as strong as it ever gets in science. As Bill McKibben points out, there is no longer any credible basis to doubt that the Earth's atmosphere is warming because of human activities. There is no longer any credible basis to doubt that we face a string of terrible catastrophes unless we prepare ourselves and deal with the underlying causes of global warming.
Scientists around the world are sounding a clear and urgent warning. Global warming is real, it is already under way and the consequences are totally unacceptable.
Why is this happening? Because the relationship between humankind and the Earth has been utterly transformed. To begin with, we have quadrupled the population of our planet in the past hundred years. And secondly, the power of the technologies now at our disposal vastly magnifies the impact each individual can have on the natural world. Multiply that by six and a half billion people, and then stir into that toxic mixture a mind-set and an attitude that say it's OK to ignore scientific evidence -- that we don't have to take responsibility for the future consequences of present actions -- and you get this violent and destructive collision between our civilization and the Earth.
There are those who say that we can't solve this problem -- that it's too big or too complicated or beyond the capacity of political systems to grasp.
To those who say this problem is too difficult, I say that we have accepted and met such challenges in the past. We declared our liberty, and then won it. We designed a country that respected and safeguarded the freedom of individuals. We abolished slavery. We gave women the right to vote. We took on Jim Crow and segregation. We cured fearsome diseases, landed on the moon, won two wars simultaneously -- in the Pacific and in Europe. We brought down communism, we defeated apartheid. We have even solved a global environmental crisis before: the hole in the stratospheric ozone layer.
So there should be no doubt that we can solve this crisis too. We must seize the opportunities presented by renewable energy, by conservation and efficiency, by some of the harder but exceedingly important challenges such as carbon capture and sequestration. The technologies to solve the global-warming problem exist, if we have the determination and wisdom to use them.
But there is no time to wait. In the 1930s, Winston Churchill also wrote of those leaders who refused to acknowledge the clear and present danger: "They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent. The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place, we are entering a period of consequences."
With Hurricane Katrina, the melting of the Arctic ice cap and careless ecological mayhem, we, too, are entering a period of consequences. This is a moral moment. This is not ultimately about any scientific debate or political dialogue. Ultimately it is about who we are as human beings. It is about our capacity to transcend our own limitations.
The men and women honored as warriors and heroes have risen to this new occasion. On the surface, they share little in common: scientists, ministers, students, politicians, activists, lawyers, celebrities, inventors, world leaders. But each of them recognized the threat that climate change poses to the planet -- and responded by taking immediate action to stop it. Their stories should inspire and encourage us to see with our hearts, as well as our heads, the unprecedented response that is now called for.
As these heroes demonstrate, we have everything we need to face this urgent challenge. All it takes is political will. And in our democracy, political will is a renewable resource.
10:27:51 AM
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Another Day, Another New Low (Yawn. . .)
A bird flu speech, a "qualified" Supreme Court appointee. . .nothing can seem to dig this guy out of his hole. Hee Hee.
Bush's Popularity Reaches New Low
58 Percent in Poll Question His Integrity
By Richard Morin and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 4, 2005; A01
For the first time in his presidency a majority of Americans question the integrity of President Bush, and growing doubts about his leadership have left him with record negative ratings on the economy, Iraq and even the war on terrorism, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows.
On almost every key measure of presidential character and performance, the survey found that Bush has never been less popular with the American people. Currently 39 percent approve of the job he is doing as president, while 60 percent disapprove of his performance in office -- the highest level of disapproval ever recorded for Bush in Post-ABC polls.
Virtually the only possible bright spot for Bush in the survey was generally favorable, if not quite enthusiastic, early reaction to his latest Supreme Court nominee, Samuel A. Alito Jr. Half of Americans say Alito should be confirmed by the Senate, and less than a third view him as too conservative, the poll found.
Overall, the survey underscores how several pillars of Bush's presidency have begun to crumble under the combined weight of events and White House mistakes. Bush's approval ratings have been in decline for months, but on issues of personal trust, honesty and values, Bush has suffered some of his most notable declines. Moreover, Bush has always retained majority support on his handling of the U.S. campaign against terrorism -- until now, when 51 percent have registered disapproval.
The CIA leak case has apparently contributed to a withering decline in how Americans view Bush personally. The survey found that 40 percent now view him as honest and trustworthy -- a 13 percentage point drop in the past 18 months. Nearly 6 in 10 -- 58 percent -- said they have doubts about Bush's honesty, the first time in his presidency that more than half the country has questioned his personal integrity.
The indictment Friday of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, in the CIA leak case added to the burden of an administration already reeling from a failed Supreme Court nomination, public dissatisfaction with the economy and continued bloodshed in Iraq. According to the survey, 52 percent say the charges against Libby signal the presence of deeper ethical wrongdoing in the administration. Half believe White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, the president's top political hand, also did something wrong in the case -- about 6 in 10 say Rove should resign.
Beyond the leak case, Americans give the administration low scores on ethics, according to the survey, with 67 percent rating the administration negatively on handling ethical matters, while just 32 percent give the administration positive marks. Four in 10 -- 43 percent -- say the level of ethics and honesty in the federal government has fallen during Bush's presidency, while 17 percent say it has risen.
Faced with its cascade of recent setbacks, the White House is hoping the latest court nomination can rally disaffected conservatives and score the president a victory akin to the one he enjoyed in the nomination of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. Alito begins the confirmation process with the support of 49 percent of the public, while 29 percent say he should not be confirmed, the poll found. One in 5 Americans -- 22 percent -- did not yet know enough about him to make a judgment.
The dissatisfaction with Bush flows in part out of broad concerns about the overall direction of the country. Nearly 7 in 10 -- 68 percent -- believe the country is seriously off course, while only 30 percent are optimistic, the lowest level in more than nine years. Only 3 in 10 express high levels of confidence in Bush, while half say they have little or no confidence in this administration.
Just 35 percent of those surveyed rated the economy as either excellent or good, with 65 percent describing it as not so good or poor. Although the government reported last week that gross domestic product rose 3.8 percent in the last quarter, despite the effects of Hurricane Katrina, 29 percent of those surveyed said they regard the economy as poor, the highest recorded during Bush's presidency.
Attitudes toward Bush are sharply polarized by party, as they have been throughout his presidency. Almost 8 in 10 -- 78 percent -- of Republicans support the president, while just 11 percent of Democrats rate him positively. Republicans long have been the key to Bush's overall strength, but Bush has suffered some defections since the beginning of the year, when 91 percent approved of the way he was handling his job.
Among independents, Bush's approval has plummeted since the beginning of the year. In the latest poll, 33 percent of independents approved of his performance, while 66 percent disapproved. In January, independents were evenly divided, with 49 percent approving and an equal percentage disapproving.
The intensity of Bush's support has changed since his reelection a year ago, with opponents deepening their hostility toward the administration. In the latest survey, 47 percent said they strongly disapprove of the way he was performing in office, compared with 35 percent who expressed strong disapproval in January. At the same time, the percentage who say they strongly approve of his performance has fallen from 33 percent last January to 20 percent today.
Iraq remains a significant drag on Bush's presidency, with dissatisfaction over the situation there continuing to grow and with suspicion rising over whether administration officials misled the country in the run-up to the invasion more than two years ago.
Nearly two-thirds disapprove of the way Bush is handling the situation there, while barely a third approve, a new low. Six in 10 now believe the United States was wrong to invade Iraq, a seven-point increase in just over two months, with almost half the country saying they strongly believe it was wrong.
About 3 in 4 -- 73 percent -- say there have been an unacceptable level of casualties in Iraq. More than half -- 52 percent -- say the war with Iraq has not contributed to the long-term security of the United States.
The same percentage -- 52 percent -- says the United States should keep its military forces in Iraq until civil order is restored, and only about 1 in 5 -- 18 percent -- say the United States should withdraw its forces immediately. In the week after U.S. deaths in Iraq passed the 2,000 mark, a majority of those surveyed -- 55 percent -- said the United States is not making significant progress toward stabilizing the country.
The war has taken a toll on the administration's credibility: A clear majority -- 55 percent -- now says the administration deliberately misled the country in making its case for war with Iraq -- a conflict that an even larger majority say is not worth the cost.
The president's handling of terrorism was widely regarded among strategists as the key to his winning a second term last year. But questions about Bush's effectiveness on other fronts have also depreciated this asset. His 48 percent approval now compares with 61 percent approval on this issue at the time of his second inauguration, down from a 2004 high of 66 percent.
Bush also set new lows in the latest Post-ABC News poll for his management of the economy, where disapproval topped 60 percent for the first time in his presidency. And 6 in 10 are critical of the way Bush is dealing with health care -- a double-digit increase since March. On gasoline prices, Bush's numbers have increased slightly over the past two months but still remain highly negative, with just 26 percent rating him positively.
The survey suggests a rapidly widening gulf between Bush and the American people. Two in 3 say Bush does not understand the problems of people like them, a 10 percentage point increase since January.
Nearly 6 in 10 -- 58 percent -- doubt Bush shares their values, while 40 percent say he does, another new low for this president. For the first time since he took office, fewer than half -- 47 percent -- said Bush is a strong leader, and Americans divided equally over whether Bush can be trusted in a crisis.
Told of the poll results, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said Bush will rally support through such issues as education reform, changes to the tax code, and a new energy strategy to show the public that he "will continue to push for changes in our government to serve the American people."
A total of 1,202 randomly selected adults were interviewed Oct. 30-Nov. 2 for this survey. Margin of sampling error for the overall results is plus or minus three percentage points.
Assistant polling director Claudia Deane contributed to this report.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
9:39:30 AM
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So women's stories don't sell; why not?
By Carrie Rickey
Inquirer Movie Critic
The Full Monty. About a Boy. Sideways. Moviegoers like a story about a character overcoming and becoming, right?
Apparently only when it is, literally, about a boy.
In Her Shoes, the estimated $35 million Cameron Diaz film about a young woman overcoming learning disabilities and becoming responsible, has grossed only $29 million after three weeks.
That's chump change for a movie starring Diaz and Shirley MacLaine. A fizzle for a film based on a best-seller and reasonably expected to ignite the box office.
Theories abound about why In Her Shoes has failed to find an audience. And these hypotheses suggest an industry reliant on a business model that may be out of date and out of step, and that most certainly reinforces a double standard.
Hollywood knows how to sell a movie to the 12-to-24 age group. (See Doom and Saw II.) And it knows how to sell a movie to boys and men.
But studios have less experience selling to an older demographic, especially when the headliners are female.
"In Her Shoes doesn't speak to the age group that goes to the movies regularly," says Len Klady, box office analyst for moviecitynews.com. "Hollywood is out of the habit of selling to older audiences. That's been fatal to the movie," he says.
So, perhaps, is the movie's marketing campaign. "Fox failed to sell what the movie was about. They made it appear like a romantic comedy, and it isn't," says a producer and industry observer (and confessed In Her Shoes fan) who spoke not for attribution so as not to publicly bash the competition. "It should have been sold as Beaches with sisters instead of best friends."
"The image of the stiletto heels on the poster doesn't give you a sense of what the picture is," Klady says.
For many, the poster conjured the impression that the movie is a girls-night-out that boys aren't invited to.
Now, no one would dare dismiss About a Boy and Sideways with the male tag "d---flicks." But the dread "chick flick" label stuck to the sole of Shoes. More than a few men of my acquaintance act as if they saw the movie they would lose their Y chromosomes.
No question, there is a bias against female stories. "Where you see it most is with children's movies," says Lindsay Doran, the Oscar-nominated producer of Sense and Sensibility. "I'm told that little boys would rather eat cat litter than go to a movie about a girl."
She cites The Little Princess, a story that was a huge hit for Shirley Temple in 1939, but a box-office bust when it was remade, exquisitely, in 1995.
As to why boys, young and older, are phobic about stories about girls and women, look no further than the playroom.
A girl toddler who slips on Daddy's loafers is met with peals of approving laughter. A boy toddler who teeters in Mommy's heels is met with uncomfortable stares. From the first, boys get the message that girl stuff is unmanly. (But for publishers' maintaining that boys don't read stories with girls, a certain literary hero might have been Harriet Potter, J.K. Rowling has said.)
While men prefer stories about men, women don't necessarily prefer stories about women. According to Doran, current wisdom in Hollywood is that "women want to see stories about women and men."
This theory supports why Bridget Jones's Diary and Something's Gotta Give succeeded: Both were about women and men, and each boasted two male stars. Flanking Renée Zellweger in Diary were Hugh Grant and Colin Firth; escorting Diane Keaton in Something were Jack Nicholson and Keanu Reeves.
The skinny on In Her Shoes, a good movie that tested well in preview yet failed to draw a large audience, is that it is a casualty of marketing.
I submit that its box-office disappointment is symptomatic of an industry that principally focuses on one demographic at the expense of others. And I worry, for the sakes of our sons and daughters, that its box-office disappointment might be indicative of a culture that values stories about men and devalues those about women.
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© 2005 Philadelphia Inquirer and wire service sources
8:17:59 AM
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In the Company of Friends
Bush may be besieged by charges of cronyism, but they don’t seem to have affected his picks for a panel assessing intelligence matters.
Newsweek
Updated: 6:45 p.m. ET Nov. 2, 2005
Nov. 2, 2005 - Controversy continues to rage over spying failures and the mishandling of intelligence in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Last week it was the indictments in the CIA leak case. This week, it was the extraordinary secret session of the Senate, when Democrats pushed for a new round of inquiries into the misuse of intelligence on Saddam’s regime. So it’s all the more remarkable to see how the White House has just filled a committee overseeing intelligence issues.
President Bush last week appointed nine campaign contributors, including three longtime fund-raisers, to his Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a 16-member panel of individuals from the private sector who advise the president on the quality and effectiveness of U.S. intelligence efforts. After watching the fate of Michael Brown as head of FEMA and Harriet Miers as Supreme Court nominee, you might think the president would be wary about the appearance of cronyism—especially with a critical national-security issue such as intelligence. Instead, Bush reappointed William DeWitt, an Ohio businessman who has raised more than $300,000 for the president’s campaigns, for a third two-year term on the panel. Originally appointed in 2001, just a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, DeWitt, who was also a top fund-raiser for Bush’s 2004 Inaugural committee, was a partner with Bush in the Texas Rangers baseball team.
Other appointees included former Commerce secretary Don Evans, a longtime Bush friend; Texas oilman Ray Hunt; Netscape founder Jim Barksdale, and former congressman and 9/11 Commission vice chairman Lee Hamilton. Like DeWitt, Evans and Hunt have also been longtime Bush fund-raisers, raising more than $100,000 apiece for the president’s campaigns. Barksdale and five other appointees—incoming chairman Stephen Friedman, former Reagan adviser Arthur Culvahouse, retired admiral David Jeremiah, Martin Faga and John L. Morrison—were contributors to the president’s 2004 re-election effort. Friedman also served a year on the intelligence board under President Bill Clinton, who appointed chairmen with very different profiles from Bush's Pioneers: former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. William Crowe, former Defense secretary Les Aspin, former House speaker Tom Foley and former GOP senator Warren Rudman. (Clinton did also appoint two donors who gave $100,000 apiece to the Democratic National Committee: New York investment banker Stan Shuman and Texas real estate magnate Richard Bloch.)
According to the White House, the intelligence advisory board offers the president “objective, expert advice” on the conduct of foreign intelligence, as well as any deficiencies in its collection, analysis and reporting. Created during the Eisenhower administration, the board has played a role in determining the structure of the intelligence community. Indeed, its members have been considered important presidential advisers, receiving the highest level security clearance and issuing classified reports and advice to the president.
Yet, as with many federal panels, membership on the board has also been doled out to top campaign contributors and supporters of the president—a move the White House defends since panelists are not required to have significant intelligence experience.
Friedman, a former top economic adviser to Bush during his first term, replaced Jim Langdon, a Washington lobbyist and Bush Pioneer who had been board chairman since February. Langdon himself replaced Brent Scowcroft, a close adviser to Bush’s father who was not reappointed to the panel after he publicly criticized Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq.
Last summer, Langdon became embroiled in ethical questions after The Washington Post reported that he had helped Akin Gump, the law firm where he works as an energy lobbyist, secure a contract with a Chinese firm seeking to buy Unocal, the California energy company. It’s unclear if Langdon resigned or was simply replaced. A board spokeswoman declined comment, and calls to Langdon’s office were not returned. Last week, Bush named 12 members to the panel, leaving four slots on the committee unfilled. Carol Blair, an administrative officer at the board, tells NEWSWEEK that the positions may remain empty. “The size and scope of the board is really up to the president,” she said. “We don’t know what will happen.”
No Comment?
In briefing after briefing, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan has dodged all questions about the CIA leak investigation by citing the “ongoing legal proceeding.”
That wasn’t what his boss said to reporters for Latin American media this week as he prepared to travel to the region. One Argentine reporter told the president that sources in Argentina’s government suggested they would ask Bush for more help in dealing with the IMF. Bush’s response: “Please don’t tell me that the government leaks secrets about conversations,” he began to joke. When the reporter insisted that he had his own sources, the president quipped “You do? OK, well, I’m not going to ask you who they are, of course.” In case anyone missed the reference, Bush helpfully explained: “Inside joke here, for my team.”
It’s not the first time the president has sounded so, well, insensitive before a foreign trip. Just before his visit to Denmark in July, Bush was interviewed by Danish TV. As a softball final question, the Danish reporter asked what he was looking forward to most about visiting Copenhagen. Bush struggled to answer, explaining that he wouldn’t have time to be a tourist, before ending with this: “I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep on the soil of a friend.”
© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.
© 2005 MSNBC.com
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9900921/site/newsweek/
8:03:08 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Michael D. Zungolo.
Last update: 12/1/2005; 11:07:40 AM.
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