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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (487017)	11/4/2003 11:24:00 PM
From: calgal	Respond to of 769670

The Democrats' Southern strategy Georgia Sen. Zell Miller shocked his fellow Democrats when he came out swinging at the party's would-be standard-bearers for the 2004 presidential contest. Last week, he said he couldn't trust any of the Democratic candidates in the race and suggested that the country would be imperiled if any one of them somehow found his way into the White House. Over the weekend, a few of the Democratic candidates reminded the Southern part of the country that they are not interested in their votes. Political pandemonium erupted when former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean stated, "I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks." Perhaps not the best choice of words, but his point was clear enough: Mr. Dean thinks his support for capital punishment and gun-ownership rights will make him appealing to conservative Southern voters despite his liberal positions on most other issues. Other Democratic candidates took aim and fired immediately. "If I said I wanted to be the candidate for people that ride around with helmets and swastikas, I would be asked to leave," said the Rev. Al Sharpton. "I would rather be the candidate of the NAACP than the NRA," said Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry. Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt claimed that Mr. Dean was pandering to elements "who disagree with us on bedrock values like civil rights." It didn't occur to any of the Democratic candidates that their attacks on Mr. Dean came at the expense of painting all Southerners as racists. Mr. Miller maintains that most national Democrats do not understand the South and make campaign strategies based on the notion that the Southern vote "can go to hell." As he told Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" two days ago: "The South right now, if you took its economy, it would be the third largest in the world, next to the United States as a whole and next to Japan. Fifty-five hundred African-Americans right now hold office in the South . . . This is not the South that Howard Dean thinks it is. Sure, we drive pickups, but on the back of those pickups you see a lot of American flags. It's the most patriotic region in the country." Elections are being held in Mississippi and Kentucky today, and more will take place in Louisiana next week. All three are historically Democratic states, but their electorates are leaning toward picking up Republican governors — a signal that Democrats are not in touch with many traditional constituencies. In Saturday's Des Moines Register, Howard Dean suggested, "We can't beat George Bush unless we appeal to a broad cross-section of Democrats." His Democratic competitors seem to disagree.

To: calgal who wrote (487017)	11/5/2003 12:19:22 AM
From: calgal	Respond to of 769670

REVIEW & OUTLOOK Dem-onomics On economics, the Democratic presidential candidates are far to the left of Clinton. Wednesday, November 5, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST URL:http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110004261 Notwithstanding the third quarter's 7.2% growth boom, Democrats seem undaunted in attacking President Bush's economic policies. Well, that's politics, and it is always possible that a year from now one of them could win. So it's worth distilling the economic themes that the main Democratic Presidential contenders have been offering this primary season. All of them naturally invoke the prosperity of the 1990s, but what's notable is how much their policies sometimes diverge from those of the Clinton years. This is not the same Democratic Party of 1992, or even 2000. For example: • The taxman cometh, again and again. All nine of the candidates are proposing to raise taxes, the only difference being how much and on whom. Among the non-crank candidates, Dick Gephardt and Howard Dean are the bravest, or the most suicidal, depending on your politics. They're proposing to repeal every dime of the Bush tax cuts, regardless of income. Dr. Dean then goes further and proposes lifting the income cap on payroll taxes, a huge marginal rate increase on anyone making more than $87,000 a year. All of this plays well with liberal primary voters who loathe all things Bush, but it would amount to the largest tax increase in history if they prevailed. The other major candidates would merely repeal the tax cuts on the "wealthy," which Joe Lieberman defines as a couple earning more than $150,000. John Kerry and John Edwards have a similar strategy. This worked politically for Bill Clinton in 1992, though only because the 1990s' recovery started closer to Election Day than the current one and the first President Bush had raised taxes. Banging on the rich doesn't usually work when everybody in the country is getting richer. • The miracle of 1993. In this Democratic version of the Big Bang theory, all modern prosperity began when Congress passed the Clinton tax hike in that glorious summer a decade ago. Mr. Gephardt in particular likes to tout his heroic one-vote victory in the House. Mr. Clark was in the Army at the time, but he's taking counsel from Robert Rubin and other Clintonites on the point. In this theory, the tax increase caused revenues to cascade into the Treasury, which in turn caused interest rates to fall, and the boom was on. All of this is a repudiation of the old Democratic argument, rooted in Lord Keynes, that tax cuts were advisable in difficult times. Nowadays most Democrats believe in tax increases as fiscal stimulus. Of course, this theory also overlooks a little economic history. Long-term interest rates actually rose through most of 1994, peaking on the day Republicans took Congress promising to cut spending and taxes. The much bigger bang came from the Gingrich revolution. Only with it did rates fall, the budget move toward balance, the stock market soar and the boom begin. (See the chart nearby.) • Protectionism. The largest exception to the candidates' embrace of Clintonomics is trade. In a recent debate, Mr. Gephardt pointed out with pride that--unlike his opponents--he had never supported Mr. Clinton on Nafta, China and other open trade pacts. To dodge these arrows and win in Iowa, Dr. Dean and Mr. Kerry have in turn walked away from their earlier Nafta support. Most of the candidates also support Mr. Bush's misguided steel tariffs, which Mr. Clinton resisted. With the exception of Messrs. Lieberman and Clark, all of the candidates now accept the AFL-CIO-Sierra Club diktat that any new trade deals must impose U.S. labor and environmental standards on the rest of the world. Since few important countries are likely to accept these terms, this is a recipe for ending all future trade deals. • Entitlements are forever, in every detail. It's hard to recall now, but reforming Medicare and Social Security was also once a Clinton ambition. No more. The message of the current Democratic candidates is back to the future of 1969. All of the candidates oppose Mr. Bush's prescription drug plan for Medicare, but only because they say it isn't generous enough. Messrs. Gephardt and Kerry are pounding Dr. Dean daily for having dared even to consider reforming Medicare during the 1990s. Mr. Dean has responded by denying he'd ever do such a horrible thing. If any of these candidates win, Social Security and Medicare will be on autopilot for four more years closer to the day the Baby Boomers retire. These are of course the same candidates who say the Bush tax cuts are "fiscally irresponsible." Part of the political dynamic at work here is a primary bidding competition that is pushing everyone to the left. While Messrs. Gephardt and Lieberman are holding firm in support of the Iraq war, on economics the day of the New Democrat seems to be over. Higher taxes, unrestrained entitlements, less free trade: The voters will certainly be getting a choice and not an echo.

To: calgal who wrote (487017)	11/5/2003 12:20:09 AM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Tiffany Trips Up CBS's problems are bigger than "Reagan." BY JOHN H. FUND Wednesday, November 5, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST Only two days after CBS celebrated its 75th anniversary last Sunday with a slick retrospective, the Tiffany Network had to beat a humiliating retreat. Yesterday it announced that it would move a four-hour biographical movie on Ronald and Nancy Reagan that it had planned to air on Nov. 16 to Showtime, its pay-cable sister network. Advertisers had fled the project as evidence mounted that its politicized producers had done a historical hit-and-run. But it would be a mistake for CBS to "move on" before the shareholders of Viacom (which owns CBS) and its chairman, Sumner Redstone, learn how its quality controls and judgment of its core audience in Middle America failed so badly. Leaked copies of the script and distribution of an eight-minute trailer make clear how much poetic license gave way to dramatic distortion. The film portrays Mr. Reagan as callous towards AIDS victims ("They that live in sin shall die in sin"), has him call himself "the anti-Christ," implies he suffered from Alzheimer's during his second term (he doesn't recognize his own national security adviser) and shows him being controlled by a scheming Nancy. On "Hardball" last week, Lou Cannon, Mr. Reagan's most prolific biographer, said the film's allegation that Mr. Reagan supplied names to the Hollywood blacklist is "really wrong." The House Committee on Un-American Activities "was very unhappy with Reagan because he didn't name names," he said. The film's cartoon plot can be summarized as "Mommie Dearest Manipulates President Fuddy Duddy," and it mirrors the worldview of the people involved in bringing it to television. Mrs. Reagan is played by Australian actress Judy Davis, who told the New York Times last month that she deplores the "ugly specter of patriotism" she has seen in America since 9/11. President Reagan is played by James Brolin, the husband of liberal activist Barbra Streisand. He has told reporters he believes Nancy Reagan "took over" the White House as her husband's health allegedly failed. Producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, longtime collaborators of Ms. Streisand's, are liberal activists who next March will accept an award from the left-leaning Human Rights Campaign for "their sensitive and positive portrayals of GayLesbianBisexualTransgender characters in numerous projects."All this has left CBS under siege. Last Saturday on Fox, Jane Hall, a former Los Angeles Times reporter and no conservative, criticized the network for "having producers who seem to have had an agenda about [Reagan's] policy on AIDS." The Washington Post reported that CBS had ample warning that the producers were anti-Reagan. In 1998, when they pitched a Reagan miniseries to ABC, Mr. Meron told Variety that its premise was, "Everybody wonders when we will have the first female American president, but what will become evident is that we've already had her." The uproar forced CBS President and CEO Les Moonves into damage-control. Even though he had approved the script and the trailer, he told CNBC last week that "there are things we think go too far. So there are some edits being made trying to present a more fair picture of the Reagans." But the Hollywood Reporter concluded that "even extensive edits had failed to produce an acceptably balanced portrayal." This is not the first time CBS has been caught with its demographic pants down. Its audiences skew older and more conservative than those of other networks. Yet Mr. Moonves, a former actor who is known as the smoothest executive in Hollywood, isn't giving interviews on his programming choices.In 1998, he cancelled the family-friendly "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman," even though it dominated its time slot. He felt its audience was too female and too old. This past summer he admitted that the No. 1 viewer complaint to CBS remains his cancellation of "Dr. Quinn." "They want it back," he says. He dismissed the success of the religious show "Touched by an Angel" as a "fluke" and presided over an ill-fated effort to bring radio's raunchy Howard Stern to television. Last year, he was ridiculed by David Letterman on his own network for a four-day junket to Cuba during which he hobnobbed with Fidel Castro and got the dictator's autograph on a cigar box. This year he has stumbled twice. In May, he was embarrassed when the CBS movie "Hitler: The Rise of Evil" drew ominous parallels between Hitler's ascent to power and the reaction of the Bush administration to 9/11. After its producer, Ed Gernon, blatantly tipped his hand by telling TV Guide that "I can't think of a better time to examine this history than now," Mr. Moonves fired him. But that dustup was nothing compared to Mr. Moonves's other blunder: his plan to launch a reality series called "The Real Beverly Hillbillies." Using so-called "hick hunts," the network intended to move an uneducated Appalachian family into an opulent West Coast mansion and invite the nation to laugh at their bumbling ways. Several union leaders and 43 members of Congress called on Mr. Moonves to shelve the show. Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia suggested that, instead, Mr. Moonves program a reality show that relocated network executives to "the sticks," where they would have to find a job. Mr. Moonves admitted the "phenomenal" opposition to the show left him "pretty surprised." CBS could afford to be complacent about these errors until now because it leads all other networks in overall ratings. However, it still shares in the remarkable 9% decline in overall network ratings this season. Dan Rather's "CBS Evening News" remains mired in third place. On late-night TV, David Letterman continues to lose ground to Jay Leno. The fact is that while CBS has an eye for its logo it also has a cultural tin ear. Even as it prepared to jettison "The Reagans," the Tiffany Network managed another faux pas during Sunday's 75th-anniversary program. Shortly after Mr. Moonves appeared onstage, the show aired a clip of Ronald Reagan as a "mystery guest" on a 1953 episode of "What's My Line?" It showed him trying to fool the celebrity panel with a silly hick accent accompanied by grotesque faces. The message seemed to be, "This guy's a dope."Mr. Reagan deserved better. Another brief clip shown Sunday night noted Mr. Reagan's 1954-62 run as host of CBS's "General Electric Theater." Only four months after he started it became TV's top weekly dramatic program. In 1985, the New York Times credited CBS's success at overtaking NBC in 1955 to the popularity of four shows: those featuring Jack Benny, Lucille Ball, Ed Sullivan and Ronald Reagan. Given how much Mr. Reagan contributed to CBS, it's passing strange that the network should be caught treating the former president shabbily. "You'd have to be an idiot not to hear what is going on in this country," Mr. Moonves said back in 1996. But clearly there are cultural signals in portions of America that his mental radio receiver isn't picking up. His missteps have alienated older viewers and made advertisers nervous about what cultural trap he might fall into next. As the only network head with complete power over entertainment, news, sports and sales, the self-admitted "micro manager" may have bitten off more than he can chew. It's time for affiliates and shareholders to ask Mr. Moonves to take a crash course in a "reality show" called Middle America. Studying Ronald Reagan's real life might be a good start.