The My Life on the D-List star brought Bristol Palin's baby daddy, Levi...
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E! Online (US) - Top Stories | 9 Aug 2009 | 8:15 pm
Back in April, when the debate over torture was roaring, Jon Stewart invited Cliff May, a national-security hawk and former spokesman for the Republican Party, to come on The Daily Show and defend waterboarding. May was hesitant. He thought Stewart would paint him as a crazy extremist. The audience would jeer. It would be a disaster. "I was apprehensive about going on, even though I've been on TV for a dozen years," says May. "A lot of my friends told me: 'Don't do it. You're meat going into the sausage factory.'"
But May had a change of heart after soliciting advice from his friend Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard. "Kristol told me: 'You'll be pleasantly surprised. He doesn't take cheap shots. Jon is smart. You'll do just fine.'" Kristol proved to be right. Stewart's interview of May — a crackling, lengthy debate about where to draw the line between freedom and security — produced one of the most clarifying discussions about torture on television. "Literally, this is the best conversation I've had on this subject anywhere," May told Stewart.
"There is genuine intellectual curiosity," May told New York. "He's a staunch liberal, but he's a thoughtful liberal, and I respect that." May isn't the only conservative gushing about Stewart. While the movement professes a disdain for the "liberal media elite," it has made an exception for the true-blue 46-year-old comedian. "He always gives you a chance to answer, which some people don't do," says John Bolton, President Bush's ambassador to the United Nations and a Fox News contributor, who went on the show last month. "He's got his perspective, but he's been fair." Says Bolton: "In general, a lot of the media, especially on the left, has lost interest in debate and analysis. It has been much more ad hominem. Stewart fundamentally wants to talk about the issues. That's what I want to do."
What's more, Stewart seems to like hosting conservatives (Comedy Central did not reply to requests for comment). In recent weeks, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, and Bill Kristol have stopped by. Since the beginning of the Obama administration, Stewart has interviewed more conservative pundits than liberal ones. (Remember when fans fretted he'd have trouble finding ways to be funny under the new president?) It may be because it's simply easier to tangle with an ideological adversary than to needle a compatriot. A clash of ideas is always more entertaining than an echo chamber. And, for a liberal wit like Stewart, it's easier to stake out a clear position when facing off against a direct opponent. When he's interviewing a liberal politician or pundit, he comes from a weaker position. His offensive instincts are blurred — notwithstanding his on-air indictment of Jim Cramer — and occasionally he fawns.
Take his interview last month with House Financial Services Committee chair Barney Frank. "It seems like it's disappeared," Stewart said of the stimulus money. Frank dodged the attack by insisting that Democrats had made the economic crisis "less bad than it used to be." Stewart toggled to another point, that Democrats had revised the recovery timetable. Frank claimed his intervention prevented a deeper hole. Frank wasn't really answering the questions. The conversation felt unsatisfying.
Conservatives like Stewart because he's providing them a platform to reach an audience that usually tunes them out. And they often find that Stewart takes them more seriously than right-wing political hosts, who are often just using them to validate their broad positions, do. Stewart will poke fun, but he offers a good-faith debate on powder kegs — torture, abortion, nuclear weapons, health care — that explode on other networks. "Shepard Smith did the same discussion [on torture]," says May. "He kept yelling me at me: 'This is where I get off the bus! Not in my name!' He wasn't arguing with me. It was just assertions and anger. That's not what Jon deals in."
To be sure, Stewart wants to outsmart and discombobulate his conservative guests. He loves catching them in inconsistencies. "I feel like you just trapped me," a grinning Kristol told Stewart, after Kristol conceded that the government provides "first-rate" health care to American soldiers. "I just want to get this on the record," said Stewart. "You just said ... the government can run a first-class health-care system." (Asked about Stewart, Kristol e-mailed back: "I enjoy being on the show, don't mind serving as his punching bag, and am happy to do my little bit to broaden his horizons.") But conservatives respect the rules of engagement. They're trying to trip up Stewart just the same. Says May: "As soon as we finished, he leaned forward and said to me, 'I can't believe you got me to say that Harry Truman was a war criminal.'" (Stewart later recanted.)
"Maybe he's discovered that interesting discussion attracts viewers," suggested Bolton. But it's more than that. At the end of the day, the spirited debate on The Daily Show doesn't leave people feeling queasy or upset — and that includes the guests with whom Stewart spars.
Read more posts by Jacob Gershman
Filed Under: cliff may, daily show, early and often, john bolton, jon stewart, media, politics, william kristol
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Daily Intel | 9 Aug 2009 | 8:10 pm
Nina Ricci.The shoes on Fall '09 runways were mind-blowing. Heels were sky-high (Galliano, Dior) and bottoms were metal-plated (Manolo Blahnik at Brian Reyes). Boots went on for miles, like Rodarte's leather-wrapped pairs. And some shoes, like Nina Ricci's, were just so fantastic, looked more at home on circus stilt-walkers than models. So we had to find out if real women could actually walk in these shoes. The ladies of the Cut (and a few good-natured volunteers around the office) bravely laced, zipped, and strapped in for a little stroll. Find out if anyone fell.
Read more posts by Doria Santlofer
Filed Under: dior, in which we embarrass ourselves, john galliano, jonah green, nina ricci, rodarte, shoes, video
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The Cut | 9 Aug 2009 | 8:10 pm
http://images.nymag.com/images/2/daily/2009/08/20090809_morgenthau_250x375.jpgBob Morgenthau has always been known as the D.A. that won't let go — after all, he's occupied the office for the last three decades. Nevertheless, many Hogan Place insiders were surprised last week when the Boss, as Morgy is known, announced he wasn't taking vacation this year. (Meaning, of course, that neither were many of his top chiefs.) One prosecutor says the Boss usually goes to Martha's Vineyard in August, but with an upcoming contested primary to replace him, Morgenthau wants to stay in town and push for his pick, Cyrus Vance Jr.
Other prosecutors say the upcoming primary has turned some of their cases political. "Nobody is going to get a fair shake between now and September," says another Hogan Place veteran. Inside the investigative division, this prosecutor says, there is internal pressure to make "the headline cases" before the primary. Both sources say that some prosecutors are furious because they are being forced to rush investigations, which could result in sloppy cases or missed opportunities.
These concerns aren't new. In a recent interview, Morgenthau told me that the rush to make cases has nothing to do with the primary. He pointed to the massive caseload he wants to finish up before he retires. "I'm underwater," he said a few months ago. “We’re just submerged at the moment. The place is a mess. I haven’t been able to dig myself out from the time I announced I was going to take early retirement."
Read more posts by Geoffrey Gray
Filed Under: bob morgenthau, cyrus vance jr., d.a. drama, early and often, law, manhattan d.a.
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Daily Intel | 9 Aug 2009 | 8:06 pm
Front Page: Actor joins LaBeouf, Douglas in Stone sequel -- Frank Langella will join the cast of "Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps," the Oliver Stone-directed sequel for 20th Century Fox.
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Variety.com - Front Page | 9 Aug 2009 | 8:00 pm
Front Page: 'Hurt Locker' duo set for Paramount pic -- Paramount is reteaming "The Hurt Locker" director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal on action-adventure "Triple Frontier," with Charles Roven, Alex Gartner and Steve Alexander producing through their Atlas Entertainment banner.
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Variety.com - Front Page | 9 Aug 2009 | 8:00 pm
Front Page: Producer lands bigscreen rights to vidgame -- The Scorpion is being prepped for his first mission at the megaplex.
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Variety.com - Front Page | 9 Aug 2009 | 8:00 pm
Banks like to pretend that they still have their capitalistic swagger — just take a look at the somewhat implausible defiance of Goldman "we didn't need a bailout" Sachs last week — but Uncle Sam is still undoubtedly calling the shots for some of them.
The best and most instructive example is Bank of America chief executive Ken Lewis. Lewis, who has always hoarded power and earned a reputation as a standoffish, acid-tongued loner, grudgingly acknowledged last week that three executives are now engaged in a race to succeed him: former Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch trading executive Thomas Montag, former Citigroup executive Sallie Krawcheck, and former Fleet executive Brian Moynihan.
It is completely out of character for Lewis to finally agree to cede some power to a future successor a full three years before the firm's traditional retirement age of 65. It is also the strongest sign yet that the government agencies and regulators, including the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission, have become disinhibited about meddling in the day-to-day management of struggling bailed-out banks. The SEC recently seized upon Lewis's lack of candor with shareholders before the acquisition of Merrill Lynch, and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke appeared to threaten Lewis with the loss of his job last year. The succession race follows on the heels of the government's months-long effort to weaken Lewis's control of Bank of America's board of directors by making way for federally approved replacements.
Lewis, 62, has ruled the bank since 2001 with an easy southern drawl that belied his sharp temper and habit of undermining the careers of potential successors — including the unfortunate $35,000-commode poster boy John Thain. In eight years, as Bloomberg points out, Lewis went through four finance chiefs and five heads of investment banking.
Tellingly, not one of the three executives is a Lewis loyalist or protégé (mostly because there is no such thing). Montag was lured to Merrill Lynch with a $50 million pay package promised by former Merrill chief executive John Thain. Krawcheck, once labeled "the last honest analyst" by Fortune, is clearly being brought in for credibility. Moynihan rose through the ranks at Fleet. Lewis handed him responsibility for the businesses Lewis dislikes most: investment banking and Europe.
These three executives are lucky. For years at Bank of America, success was the easiest way to cut an executive career short. Consider former investment-banking chief Carter McClelland, who left a career at Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley to spearhead Bank of America's growth in investment banking, starting in 1998 by hiring hundreds of bankers. McClelland, a key architect of BofA's growth, resigned in 2005 for no discernible reason.
Or look at Eugene Taylor, a good friend and tennis buddy of Lewis's, who took on the mammoth job of getting the firm's investment bankers — snappy Wall Street mergers-and-acquisitions veterans — to play nice with the boring, underpaid commercial bankers who made loans to companies. The two groups hated each other, but Taylor succeeded in integrating them. In 2007, a Lewis-led restructuring pushed Taylor into early retirement.
The most spectacular example of Lewis's political sharp elbows is the shaming of Thain over the leak of the $1 million bill for redecorating his Merrill office. Merrill paid Thain's bill in January 2008 — but the public didn't hear about it until January 2009, shortly after Lewis received bad press for fighting the government on the Merrill acquisition. Not only was the commode dustup a valuable distraction, it provided an excellent excuse for Lewis to fire his expected successor.
It might seem implausible that the government is ruling Wall Street. The $700 billion bailout and guarantees lavished on banks have made our federal officials look like the careless nerdy kid who gets his lunch money stolen by the jocks. But a succession race at BofA for the first time in a decade — that's a sign of your taxpayer dollars at work.
Read more posts by Heidi N. Moore
Filed Under: bank of america, business, john thain, ken lewis, white men with money
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Daily Intel | 9 Aug 2009 | 7:57 pm
The Teen Choice Awards bring out a little bit of the kid in everyone, including the stars attending, like the Jonas Brothers, Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Britney Spears and resident E!...
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E! Online (US) - Top Stories | 9 Aug 2009 | 7:54 pm
Politicians have used swimsuit photo ops to signal virility from the Kennedy era through to Obama's surfing shots during last year's presidential run, but no world leader disrobes for the cameras with quite as much gusto as Vladimir Putin. The Russian ruler's first batch of topless vacation snaps, which came out in 2007 and paired his oddly bellied bulk with a fishing rod and a Panama, were a tame if tasteless display of masculinity. The appearance last week of a second collection, however, defies all reason. Here's Putin astride a horse, in a tree, breaking a branch, emerging from the depths mid–butterfly stroke. It's a far cry from Brezhnev's famous hunts (where the secretary general favored jaunty sweaters and pine-decorated Tyrolean hats). These pictures seem designed to illustrate a kind of mythical communion with nature itself. This Putin is less likely to shoot a bear than to wrestle it, make love to it, or ride it into the sunset.
What the hell is going on here? Is Putin engaging in some sort of Freudian flex-off with Obama as Russian subs prowl the Atlantic? Tweaking his pal Berlusconi, whose recent exposure to the telephoto lens was less voluntary? (And which, sadly, we can't include in our accompanying slideshow of politicians in bathing suits through the ages.) Or is the audience for these shots strictly domestic? Some in Russia have noticed that the 2007 photos coincided with a nationwide campaign for higher birth rates. Perhaps they were a kind of state-sponsored aphrodisiac for the homeland's ladies. This time around, though, according to the Guardian, Putin actively courted Western photographers to join him on his Siberian trip, so he seems to have had an international audience in mind.
Russia is actually on the cutting edge of a new trend in political personality cults: It is now possible for a politician to be a respected, feared, or hated ruler and a lighthearted celebrity story without contradiction. This foliation is markedly different from the usual attempts to "humanize" a leader. It is tantamount to creating two separate avatars — man-as-his-office and man-as-tabloid-fodder. There is Prime Minister Berlusconi and "Il Cavaliere," the priapic jester. President Sarkozy and "Sarko," Carla Bruni's husband. Prime Minister Putin and a Siberian centaur-merman.
You can see this happening Stateside as well. The Obama administration, as Jennifer Senior describes in her cover story from last week, "The Message Is the Message," skillfully feeds media interests high and low; as one result, the president's approval ratings and his ability to sell magazines have become two distinct indicators. Hundreds of thousands of people who detest Obama's policies will happily flip through a pictorial of Michelle's dresses or coo at Bo.
The upside and the downside of this is that it may now become harder for a personal scandal to remove a politician from office. Once a head of state moves into the tabloid sphere next to Jon and Kate, we expect scandal. The tabloid-fame contract requires constant acceleration. We're now done with Putin's pecs — the next batch needs to be funnier, darker, or more obscene. On the one hand, this means a politician's private misdeeds will be more likely forgiven if they don't impede his performance or involve misuse of state funds. On the other, this opening-up of the celebrity dimension further muddies the issue of whom people vote for: the public figure or the tabloid avatar. This is how we end up with Sarah Palin, and they with Vladimir Putin rearing his head from the icy waters of the Baikal.
Read more posts by Michael Idov
Filed Under: barack obama, bathing suits, early and often, politics, putin, sarkozy
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Daily Intel | 9 Aug 2009 | 7:45 pm
No public issue passes through New York or Washington without attention from Chuck Schumer. High, low, consequential, or esoteric, our senior senator is on the scene: There he is, crying as he introduces Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor before her confirmation hearings. Watch him bounding into action to stop a sneaky concealed-weapon bill from becoming law. And pushing to extend the "Cash for Clunkers" program while warning of scams. And nudging along the refinancing of Starrett City. And decrying the air-traffic gridlock at the city's airports. And unveiling a plan to give every child born in the United States a $500 savings account as soon as he or she breathes air. And leading the charge against "flash trading" on Wall Street. And choking off the oxygen to any Democrat who'd dare challenge Kirsten Gillibrand in a primary. And sounding the alarm about "distracted driving." All pretty much at the same time.
Schumer is so energetic — and so good at self-promotion — that the breadth of his activity often makes it difficult to judge the actual importance of his role in any single issue. But in the biggest domestic-policy debate of the moment — heck, probably of this decade and the next several — Schumer is playing a pivotal part. As with most things involved in the fight over health-care reform, however, Schumer's role is even more complicated than it first appears. And when Congress returns from its current recess in September, the senator may face one of the most difficult political crossroads of his career.
Schumer is not one of the Gang of Six, the bi-partisan group of Senate Finance Committee members, led by Montana Democrat Max Baucus, that has been at the center of health-care negotiations. Yet Schumer has played a crucial role in framing the group's discussion. This spring Baucus handed Schumer one of the most controversial tasks of the entire health-care debate, developing a "public plan" — a government-run health-insurance option — that could cover millions of uninsured Americans while not further inflaming the guv'mint-hating "socialized medicine" scare-tactic right. The nuts and bolts of the plan Schumer crafted are reasonable enough; his proposal that the public option pay for itself, instead of being government subsidized, is an especially canny appeal to conservatives.
So far, it doesn't seem to have worked: Senator Charles Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, branded Schumer's proposal "obnoxious," and Baucus's group appears to have ditched the public option (the House health-care bills, and competing Senate bills, do contain versions of a public option that are clearly influenced by Schumer's work). Yet the greater significance of Schumer's involvement is that it provides political cover on the left: The theory is that Schumer has enough credibility with the progressive wing to sell the idea that he tried his best and a centrist plan is the best the Senate can do.
Schumer often appears to be a primal force unto himself. But his moves in the health-care game have been carefully strategized with the Obama White House, particularly Schumer's close ally from the 2006 electoral wars, Rahm Emanuel. So Schumer's tough talk last week about Democrats being prepared to pass a health-care bill without any Republican support was seen as delivering a message from Obama at a time when the president was facing increasing criticism for giving ground to the insurance industry. "Schumer floating it was a signal to the left, which is worried about the bill being watered down," says Bill Pierce, a former Bush administration official and now a Washington health-care strategist. "The Democratic leadership is saying, 'We won't knuckle under.' And it says to the Republicans that the Democrats are serious about doing it by themselves."
Schumer, having masterminded a Senate Democratic majority, is a large reason why that route is even possible. But going it alone would have important policy ramifications; because of Senate procedural rules, a Democrats-only health-care bill would probably sacrifice, for instance, the coverage of preexisting medical conditions. The one-party approach would also have political fallout: By dividing Congress into intransigent partisan camps yet again, it might damage Obama's future legislative agenda.
Schumer understands all this, of course. He also knows that he's on record unequivocally promising to deliver a Senate health-care package that includes a public option. And he's been one of the strongest proponents of a public option during internal Senate discussions. Which may put Schumer in a tight bind next month. "Senator Schumer has provided real leadership," says Richard Kirsch, the head of Health Care for America Now, a liberal lobbying group. "He's been good about saying he'll stick by his principles. The question is whether the president sticks by those principles as well." Obama says he's strongly in favor of a public option. But the president could be forced to choose between a greatly compromised plan that doesn't include a true public option yet can muster a minor degree of Republican support, and a Democrats-only bill that carries large political risks.
In designing his version of a public plan, Schumer consulted with Len Nichols, director of the health-policy program at the New American Foundation, a Washington think tank. Despite the Republican onslaught, Nichols remains cautiously optimistic that a middle ground can be found, with Schumer leading the way. "I can see a bill where the public plan is an option for certain states and markets, or a fallback that's triggered if coverage conditions aren't met by the private plans," Nichols says. "That would be far superior to doing nothing."
In 1994 it was Daniel Patrick Moynihan who delivered the unpleasant news that a Democratic president's health-care proposal wouldn't fly in Congress. Moynihan, for all his intellectual gifts and his reputation as a flighty academic, was a tough-minded legislative realist; it was the occupants of the White House at the time, especially Hillary Clinton, who were delusional dreamers. The role reversal isn't perfect, and the larger political dynamics quite different, but now it's the White House that's pragmatic and calculating and the New York senior senator who is playing the staunch health-care idealist. Schumer's real role, of course, is more nuanced, and he's never been the all-or-nothing type. If anyone can keep a meaningful public option in the mix, it will be Schumer. Otherwise, he'll be confronted with a choice between defying Obama or signing on to diluted health-care legislation simply to be able to say the Democrats acted. And that won't do much good for anyone's health — physical, emotional, or political.
Read more posts by Chris Smith
Filed Under: charles schumer, early and often, health carnage, politics
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Daily Intel | 9 Aug 2009 | 7:32 pm
Joy Behar can breathe easy. Elizabeth Hasselbeck will be logging yet more maternity leave.
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On the new Melrose Place, Ashlee Simpson-Wentz will be heating up TV sets as sexual, small-town girl, Violet. But while promoting the show at CW's TCAs this week, Bronx's mom was just...
