Inside Politics

Screen gem

Hollywood’s favorite liberal, Michael Moore, penned yet another diatribe against the Bush administration at his Web site (www.michaelmoore.com) on Wednesday. But mixed up in the filmmaker’s rant is a grudging but noteworthy acknowledgment that things aren’t as bad as he would like them to be.

Mr. Moore is busy piecing together “Fahrenheit 9/11,” a film that is heavily critical of the war in Iraq and President Bush. He plans to release the film just before the November elections.

“I currently have two cameramen/reporters doing work for me in Iraq for my movie (unbeknownst to the Army). They are talking to soldiers and gathering the true sentiment about what is really going on,” Mr. Moore writes.

“They Fed Ex the footage back to me each week. That’s right, Fed Ex. Who said we haven’t brought freedom to Iraq?” he said.

Playing ketchup

John Kerry’s kajillionaire wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, hopes to keep her tax returns private, the Drudge Report said yesterday. She claims the information “is my life, my business, not John’s.”

Well, duh. No wonder. As heiress to the $500 million Heinz condiments fortune, Mrs. Kerry’s stratospheric income probably would shock most American voters. Mr. Kerry himself made almost $400,000 last year, according to his own tax records, which he made public.

Byron York of the National Review smells something fishy in those returns, though.

He notes that Mr. Kerry reported $89,220 in royalties income from his book “A Call to Service: My Vision for a Better America.” But according to Bookscan, an industry sales tracking system, the book sold just 2,212 copies in 2003 and 6,620 copies this year — which “would not have resulted in nearly $90,000 in royalties income.”

A Kerry spokeswoman also declined “to say whether Kerry paid for his one-half interest in a 17th-century Dutch painting that he and his wife, multimillionaire heiress Teresa Heinz Kerry, sold last year for $1,350,000, said Mr. York.”

A real stronghold

Whom do college students want for president? Depends on the college and the student.

Story Continues →