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Ailes' Book, Condi's Poll, Gore Vidal Special From NewsMax's Most Informed Sources
Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories):
It's hush-hush right now, but a publishing industry source tells NewsMax that Fox News Channel president Roger Ailes is quietly working on a book detailing how he created the cable news channel. There is no word yet on when the book might appear, but the source says it will chronicle how Fox, founded in 1996, surpassed CNN to become the leader in cable news. Under Ailes' stewardship, Fox News' viewership soared 430 percent over one three-year period, and the channel has enjoyed triple the ratings of CNN in some rating periods. Ailes served as a media consultant to Richard Nixon in the 1968 campaign, and also worked for the Ronald Reagan campaign in 1984 and the George Bush Sr. campaign in 1988. Before joining Fox, he was president of CNBC from 1991 to 1996.
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2. Gore Vidal Doesn't Like Al Gore Gore is no fan of Gore – author and liberal political pundit Gore Vidal believes Al Gore is a conservative masquerading as a liberal to gain power within the Democratic Party. "Although we are cousins, and I was a friend of his father, I've always thought he was absolutely pointless as a politician," Vidal – who has claimed to be a distant cousin of Gore – told Stephen Marshall, author of the forthcoming book "Wolves in Sheep's Clothing." "He's just another conservative Southerner." And Marshall declared: "Al Gore's voting record as a senator was surprisingly conservative until he rolled his eye toward the White House." In his book, Marshall of the Guerilla News Network points out:
"Another border-state, southern lover of the Pentagon," said Vidal. "There was never anything the Pentagon asked for that Cousin Albert wasn't down there giving it to them." Despite his environmentalist posture, Gore and the Democrats during the Clinton administration received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Occidental Petroleum, which Marshal calls "one of the worst corporate polluters in the world. In its most scandalous case, an Occidental subsidiary dumped thousands of tons of toxic chemical waste near the residential area of Love Canal in New York." As vice president, Gore helped Occidental get oil drilling rights in the Elk Hills National Petroleum Reserve in California – the largest turnover of public lands to a private corporation in American history, according to Marshall. It later came to light that Gore held up to $500,000 worth of Occidental stock through a family trust. "But for Vidal, the act that most proves Gore's contempt for representative politics was his total acquiescence in the face of the contested 2000 presidential election results in Florida," Marshall writes. Vidal concluded: "He is of above average intelligence, on issues that people didn't really care about, like the environment. But if there's a hot issue, he runs the mile."
3. Condi's Surprise Showing in Straw Vote The media widely reported Newt Gingrich's convincing victory over other potential Republican candidates for president in a straw ballot at Minnesota's GOP convention – but the real news was Condoleezza Rice's surprising showing. The secretary of state is not running a campaign and has said she does not want to be president. Yet she got more votes than several likely candidates. Former House Speaker Gingrich garnered nearly 39 percent of the 540 votes cast in the June 2 poll, more than twice as many as Virginia Sen. George Allen, who finished second with about 15 percent. But Condi got 11 percent of the votes, while Arizona Sen. John McCain – who is considered by some as the front-runner – got 10 percent, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush received 6 percent, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney got 5 percent and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, 4 percent. Political strategist Dick Morris, author of the book "Condi vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race," insists that Rice is the only person in the GOP with the charisma, credentials and voter appeal to stop Hillary Clinton from gaining the White House. The organization Americans for Dr. Rice is actively drumming up support for drafting Condi in 2008. Recently Rice won kudos – and possibly increased support for a candidacy – with her success in changing the Bush administration's overall approach to dealings with Iran. "Rice took the bold step of pushing through a new policy which supports the European philosophy of dialogue and engagement," the Sunday Herald in Scotland reported. "Condi for president in ‘08' isn't a wacky Web site anymore, it's a strong possibility," a senior diplomatic source in Washington told the Herald. "She's come out of this looking good. It can't have been easy taking on the White House, especially over Iran, but she stuck to her guns and her pragmatic approach." Editor's Note:
4. NewsMax Poll: Condi Would Beat Hillary An Internet poll sponsored by NewsMax.com reveals that Condoleezza Rice would trounce Hillary Clinton if the two squared off in a head-to-head race for president. More than 250,000 people took part in the poll, and they picked Condi as their most favored candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 2008. NewsMax will provide the results of this poll to major media and share them with radio talk show hosts across the country. Here are the poll questions and results:
1. Do you believe Hillary will run for president in 2008?
2. Who would you vote for?
3. Do you believe Condi is the best candidate the Republicans could nominate?
4. Who is your 2008 candidate?
5. Mexican Presidential Candidate Worries U.S. Many political and business leaders in the U.S. are casting a wary eye on Mexico as a leftist candidate threatens to win July's presidential election. But there is also concern that Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will lose. A decade ago, Obrador lost a closely contested state election, charged fraud and led mass demonstrations. "U.S. policymakers are consulting with political players in Mexico to see if something similar could happen now," BusinessWeek reports. James R. Jones, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico, told BusinessWeek: "If there is serious disruption over the results, that's going to make Washington nervous, as well as the markets." Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City, is a populist who wants to create jobs through government spending. In March, Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., told several Mexican legislators that he had intelligence reports revealing that Obrador's party was receiving support from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a firm ally of Fidel Castro, according to political strategist Dick Morris. Obrador's chief opponent, Felipe Calderon, has a master's degree from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and says he would boost private initiative and create jobs by making Mexico attractive to private investors. The two were running neck and neck in recent polls.
6. Mormons May Desert GOP over Romney If Republicans reject Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as a presidential candidate in 2008 largely because of his Mormon faith, many Mormons could abandon the GOP, political observers believe. Followers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have overwhelmingly supported the Republican Party during the past three decades. But if GOP conservatives – especially evangelicals in the South – spurn him, Mormons might stay home from the polls, leave the Republican Party for independent status – or even become Democrats. "I think that's a real possibility," Charles Reagan Wilson, director of the University of Mississippi's Center for the Study of Southern Culture, told the Salt Lake Tribune. "To feel that kind of rejection from the national party they have allied with, that could well lead to some reassessment of the party." Romney hasn't yet officially declared that he will run for president, but he has been traveling around the country meeting with Republican groups and distributing money to local candidates, "all preparatory moves for chasing the White House," the Tribune reports. "But the issue of his religion continually dogs Romney, and some observers predict a Mormon could never be elected president." A 1999 poll found that 17 percent of Americans would not vote for a Mormon. That sentiment is most prevalent in the South, where some evangelical groups consider the faith a cult. Columnist Robert Novak, writing in April, said: "Prominent, respectable Evangelical Christians have told me, not for quotation, that millions of their co-religionists will not vote for Romney for president solely because he is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." Romney has said that he plans to give a speech similar to the one John F. Kennedy delivered when he insisted that if elected president he would not do the Pope's bidding. "I think if I decided to go national that there will probably be a time when people will ask questions, and it will be about my faith, and I'll have the opportunity to talk about the role of religion in our society and in the leadership of our nation," he said in early May. But Wayne Holland, chairman of the Utah Democratic Party, said Romney will face a powerful anti-Mormon bias in the South. "I'm thinking [Mormons are] going to get pretty disgusted with what I believe they'll do to Romney," he told the Tribune. If that happens, he added, some Mormons might finally start questioning whether the Republican Party isn't "too beholden to the group that just can't jibe with the LDS faith.".
7. Troops in Iraq Shun Hand-Held Translator Many of the hand-held translating devices designed to help American troops communicate with Iraqis remain unused – while a better translator is readily available. The Pentagon has spent an estimated $10 million to buy 5,000 Phraselators, bulky 20-ounce, 3 ½-by-7-inch computers. Soldiers use a stylus to select an English phrase on a touchscreen and then turn the device around to show Iraqis the phrase in Arabic. "But lots of them are still sitting in drawers in Iraq and Afghanistan," Forbes magazine reports. "The computer cannot be used hands-free; it requires the user to look down – not what you want to do in a hostile situation." VoxTec International of Maryland, the manufacturer, acknowledges that the Phraselator is not ideal for combat zones and is intended for controlled areas. But another translating device is available: The hands-free Voice Response Translator. To use it, a soldier speaks into a headset, English is translated into Arabic and then broadcast from a small speaker. It's already used by 15 police departments in the U.S. and by the Coast Guard. The VRT was developed by the Justice Department and a California-based technology company, while the Phraselator was developed mainly by a Pentagon agency. According to Forbes, the Pentagon's "not-invented-here" syndrome is responsible for the military pushing the Phraselator over the VRT.
8. We Heard … THAT former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has finally chosen a collaborator for his memoir – Peter Petre, a senior editor at large at Fortune Magazine. Greenspan had been interviewing writing candidates since March, when he sold the proposed book for an $8.5 million advance. Petre is the co-author of Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf's bestselling autobiography "It Doesn't Take a Hero" and former I.B.M. Chairman Thomas J. Watson's book "Father, Son & Co: My Life at I.B.M. and Beyond." Robert Barnett, the attorney who negotiated Greenspan's book deal, wouldn't comment on how much Petre would be paid, according to the New York Times. But he reportedly received $500,000 for the Schwarzkopf book.
Writing in the Weekly Standard, Barnes – the publication's executive editor – said: "His record is the best. No other governor, Republican or Democrat, comes close."
Among a number of achievements, Barnes writes, "Bush has presided over a booming economy with the highest rate of job creation in the country and an unemployment rate of 3 percent … Florida has no state income tax, but Bush has nonetheless found a way to cut taxes every year of the eight he's been in office. Meanwhile, he's trimmed the state employment rolls by 11,000." Barnes also pointed to Bush's political leadership and his accomplishments regarding education, Medicaid and emergency management. Barnes quotes Donna Arduin, a state budget expert who has worked for four big-state Republican governors, as saying that Bush is "absolutely" the nation's premier governor. "He's principled, brilliant, willing to ignore his pollsters and say no to his friends," she declared. Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, agrees with Barnes and Arduin: "He's the best governor in the country." But Jeb won't be a candidate for president in 2008, according to Barnes – who also doubts Bush would accept an offer for the vice president's spot in 2008.
In his Washington Whispers column in U.S. News & World Report, Paul Bedard writes that Myers is "friends with the Kansas City Chiefs owners; he's a big fan; and he's interested in the job. THAT listeners of a Sacramento, Calif., radio station are up in arms over the ousting of conservative talk show host Mark Williams. Williams was replaced by Bruce Maiman, who is an anti-war liberal, according to Melanie Morgan of Move America Forward. The station has suffered a "growing backlash" from "outraged listeners," said Morgan, who has launched an e-mail, telephone and FAX campaign to protest the move by station KFBK 1530. One advertiser has pulled all ads from the station, and an organization called Marine Moms & Military Families, which has held events supporting the troops in Iraq and protesting Cindy Sheehan's actions, is banning KFBK from covering future events, the Sacramento Bee reports.
A letter sent to the station by the group's leaders states that they were taking Williams' firing "as a personal attack … against our military men and women and their families." THAT Princeton University Professor Robert P. George, a member of the President's Council on Bioethics, has been elected to the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation's board of directors. George is the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton. He previously served as a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights and as a judicial fellow at the U.S. Supreme Court, and is a winner of the foundation's coveted Bradley Prize for Civic and Intellectual Achievement. "We are pleased and honored to welcome Robert George to the Bradley Foundation board of directors," foundation CEO Michael Grebe said in a release. "Not only does his prestigious body of work speak to his intelligence and dedication to democratic ideals, but as a former recipient of the Bradley Prize, we have first-hand knowledge of his strength of character and ideals." The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation is a private, Milwaukee-based institution established in 1985 that supports programs to improve the life of the community "through increasing cultural and educational opportunities, economic development, and effective and humane social and health services," according to the release. Editor's Notes:-
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