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.

A poll of 1,205 college students by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics released yesterday found that Democrat John Kerry is favored over President Bush, 48 percent to 38 percent. Ralph Nader draws 5 percent of the vote.

“But Kerry’s support is soft. Thirty-seven percent of those surveyed say they do not know enough about Senator Kerry to have formed an opinion about him or do not recognize his name,” the survey stated.

Still, Harvard trumpeted in its press release, “Bush losing stronghold on college campuses, Harvard poll finds.”

Meanwhile, University of Rhode Island students beg to differ.

“John Kerry’s campus tour can’t change the fact that Bush-Cheney ’04 has already signed up over 40,000 young volunteers across America. Kerry’s college visits are a gimmick designed to distract attention from the reality that America’s college students support President Bush. A Zogby poll released March 21 showed that 51.9 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds support President Bush, compared to 36.6 percent for Kerry,” said Trip Krant of Rhode Island Students for Bush.

Strong words

Priests for Life, a national pro-life organization of Catholic clergy, wants John Kerry to rethink abortion.

“As priests ordained to preach the Gospel of justice and peace, it is of grave concern to us when someone seeking the highest office in our land claims to share our faith and ignores the most fundamental injustice our country faces, namely, abortion,” its spokesman, the Rev. Frank Pavone, said yesterday.

“It causes even greater concern when public officials try to privatize the issue, as if the shedding of blood can ever be simply a matter of ’private religious faith.’ … We hold that if they publicly support abortion, they should not try to hide what abortion actually is,” Father Pavone continued.

Thirteen hundred priests in the group agreed to preach on abortion “as the single most important electoral issue.”

Father Pavone concluded: “The central issue regarding Senator Kerry is not about Communion, or whether the bishops will allow it. It is about violence against children, and whether public officials will allow it. We challenge Senator Kerry to either renounce his support of legal abortion, or to publicly admit what he’s supporting, and what abortion practitioners already testify to under oath: that abortion dismembers and crushes the heads of babies.”

Networking

Media bias can be subtle, indeed. In the past three weeks, ABC, NBC and CBS have featured seven times as many interviews with September 11 family members who were critical of the Bush administration as with those who supported Mr. Bush’s policies.

“Nine guests, with a total of 20 appearances, were critics of the president, compared with only three interviews with two Bush supporters,” the Media Research Center noted in a study released yesterday.

Correction alert

An “Editor’s Note” in Newsday yesterday concluded that liberal columnist Jimmy Breslin’s column attacking the Traditional Values Coalition chairman, the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, and describing his views on homosexuality was based on a conversation that took place in 1992, and that “the column did not adhere to Newsday’s standard of publishing only direct quotations that are accurate and precise.”

“The result is that the quotes attributed to Sheldon in the April 7 column were incorrect and not Sheldon’s precise words,” the note stated.

“I am pleased to see the editor of Newsday reasserting what I had thought was the standard — only words which actually come from someone’s mouth may be used as a direct quotation punctuated by quotation marks,” Mr. Sheldon said.

“I hope that, in the future, Mr. Breslin will place a greater emphasis on accurate reporting. Perhaps some of the passion he demonstrates in attacking Christian religious leaders could be directed more constructively to that goal,” he added.

Hillary, take note

Once upon a time, the National Organization for Women (NOW) simply called its activist arm the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund.

But times change. Public outreach requires a little more oomph.

“Legal Momentum is the new name of NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund. Advancing Women’s Rights is our new tag line,” the group announced yesterday.

“This is a big change after 34 years, but it is the next step in our continuing growth and outreach to broader communities and new generations. Our new name signals our confidence, and our forward motion. It’s short, fresh and distinct. It’s about making change. It takes us into the future.

“Legal Momentum is an aspirational name, and succinctly captures our mission: to advance the rights of women and girls by using the power of the law and creating innovative public policy,” NOW explains.

• Contact Jennifer Harper at jharper@washingtontimes.com or 202/636-3085.