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Negotiations Are Under Way for Clinton Talk Show o
Josey1
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Negotiations Are Under Way for Clinton Talk Show on CBS
By BILL CARTER and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
ome associates of Bill Clinton and executives from CBS are involved in negotiations to make the former president the host of a daily afternoon talk show.
The seriousness of the talks is a matter of dispute among the people surrounding Mr. Clinton. West Coast friends of his are advancing the negotiations and believe that a deal can be made. But his advisers on the East Coast said Mr. Clinton was unlikely to commit himself to a daily talk show.
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CBS executives consider the talks preliminary and say that a number of hurdles remain, including a significant difference over money. But these executives, as well as NBC executives who have talked with Mr. Clinton, said that he had offered assurances that under the right circumstances he would be the host of a talk show.
One East Coat adviser noted that the former president had a history of sounding agreeable to interesting suggestions, however, and that it did not mean he was committing himself.
In May, after a spate of reports that he was considering an offer to star in a talk show, Mr. Clinton said he did not think that would ever happen. His spokesmen dismissed the reports, saying the former president had only had courtesy meetings with television executives.
But since then associates of Mr. Clinton have held talks with NBC and CBS, discussing the possibility that Mr. Clinton would be the host of a syndicated talk show, at a salary of $30 million to $50 million a year, the highest fee ever paid to a first-time talk show host. The NBC talks collapsed in mid-July.
Mr. Clinton's spokesman, James E. Kennedy, referred all questions to Mr. Clinton's Washington lawyer, Robert Barnett, who, he said, would negotiate any contracts for the former president.
Mr. Barnett said: "The president has received an enormous number of offers from broadcast television, cable television, the Internet, print and radio. We have no immediate plans to make any media deals, and when the time comes a proper announcement will be forthcoming."
The talks with CBS started up after the collapse of long negotiations with NBC, where the prospect of a Clinton talk show first emerged at a meeting on May 1. NBC executives and representatives for Mr. Clinton held several meetings through mid-July trying to work out the terms of a deal.
Dennis Swanson, then the head of NBC's flagship station, WNBC, Channel 4 in New York, met one-on-one with Mr. Clinton in late May and became the champion for the show inside NBC. Mr. Swanson quit NBC in July to join CBS as the head of the network's stations, and is now a part of the CBS effort to make a deal with Mr. Clinton.
NBC executives said they did not question whether Mr. Clinton would agree to do a show if the terms were right. "I honestly believed he would do it," one NBC negotiator said. "I never believed his interest was bogus."
The NBC executives said they were repeatedly assured by Mr. Clinton's associates that he was tired of his post-presidential financial reliance on speaking engagements and that he was enthusiastic about pursuing a new career as host of a talk show.
Still, one consistent stumbling block, first for NBC and now for CBS, has been that the Clinton side has not fully made clear what kind of show he would be willing to do - the extent to which such a show would deal with public affairs or feature lighter fare, like celebrity interviews.
The first meeting was held in the Hollywood offices of Mr. Clinton's longtime friend Harry Thomason, a television producer who has been involved in previous media projects with the former president, including his campaign video biography, "The Man From Hope."
One NBC executive said Mr. Thomason was the driving force in the discussion and was especially eager to conclude a deal quickly. "They wanted to make a deal before they had a program," the executive said. "What they were talking about was a talk show but a weird talk show. They wanted a public affairs show, but there might be a band."
Still, the NBC side agreed that Mr. Clinton's media skills might make him an intriguing, perhaps extraordinary talk show host. "You think maybe he could be a force for good," the NBC executive said. "In between playing the sax or singing with Carly Simon or whatever he's going to do, maybe he could do some great things."
Though that meeting ended in disarray - the NBC executive said he felt as if he were in the middle of a sketch for "Saturday Night Live" - NBC stayed interested enough to continue negotiating. The talks became serious enough that NBC's station group held several conference calls to debate the risks and the rewards of signing Mr. Clinton. Stations in the larger cities in the North generally supported the idea, while some stations in the Sun Belt questioned it, saying their more conservative audiences would not respond well to Mr. Clinton.
NBC executives believed that a show starring Mr. Clinton would have the biggest opening week in the history of daytime television.
They also expected that signing him would would bring on criticism, both because the former president might seem to be selling out to become a performer and the visceral enmity toward Mr. Clinton from conservatives.
"NBC was going to take a lot of heat," one NBC executive involved in the negotiations said. "But so what? In the business of television sometimes things are controversial and sometimes that's the best thing that can happen."
Other NBC executives expressed concern that advertisers might be wary of the show because Mr. Clinton had been a polarizing figure. One NBC executive said he doubted that, however, adding, "I think you sell commercials in his first show for record prices."
The question, NBC executives said, was the show's staying power and whether it could ever recoup the money the Clinton side was then demanding: a guarantee of $100 million over two years.
The price was beyond anything any syndicator ever promised a star. "The highest guarantee for any syndicated talk show was about $30 million for a proposed show with Katie Couric," one longtime syndicated television executive said of the co-host of NBC's "Today." "In this case, that wouldn't get you in the room."
But the profits for a hit talk show can be enormous. The genre's leader, Oprah Winfrey, takes in hundreds of millions a year, and she herself makes as much as $125 million a year from her show, which she owns.
The Clinton associates later came back to NBC with an altered financial structure. NBC executives said the new offer included significant backing from a production company that they said was willing to share the costs.
But NBC backed away from the deal anyway.
CBS executives said they were still far apart on the financial terms of the deal and were not completely convinced that Mr. Clinton wanted to go through the rigors of being the host of a daily show.
Joel H. Silbey, a historian at Cornell University, said that although other former presidents had written books, given speeches or, like Jimmy Carter, sought to contribute to public life, none "came back into the realm of popular culture."
But Professor Silbey said the possibility of a talk show reflected Mr. Clinton's unique personality, noting the former president's close ties to Hollywood and his comfort in settings like MTV.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/21/business/media/21TUBE.html?ex=1030507200&en=82b42cac0986fc1a&ei=5006&partner=ALTAVISTA1
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By BILL CARTER and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
ome associates of Bill Clinton and executives from CBS are involved in negotiations to make the former president the host of a daily afternoon talk show.
The seriousness of the talks is a matter of dispute among the people surrounding Mr. Clinton. West Coast friends of his are advancing the negotiations and believe that a deal can be made. But his advisers on the East Coast said Mr. Clinton was unlikely to commit himself to a daily talk show.
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CBS executives consider the talks preliminary and say that a number of hurdles remain, including a significant difference over money. But these executives, as well as NBC executives who have talked with Mr. Clinton, said that he had offered assurances that under the right circumstances he would be the host of a talk show.
One East Coat adviser noted that the former president had a history of sounding agreeable to interesting suggestions, however, and that it did not mean he was committing himself.
In May, after a spate of reports that he was considering an offer to star in a talk show, Mr. Clinton said he did not think that would ever happen. His spokesmen dismissed the reports, saying the former president had only had courtesy meetings with television executives.
But since then associates of Mr. Clinton have held talks with NBC and CBS, discussing the possibility that Mr. Clinton would be the host of a syndicated talk show, at a salary of $30 million to $50 million a year, the highest fee ever paid to a first-time talk show host. The NBC talks collapsed in mid-July.
Mr. Clinton's spokesman, James E. Kennedy, referred all questions to Mr. Clinton's Washington lawyer, Robert Barnett, who, he said, would negotiate any contracts for the former president.
Mr. Barnett said: "The president has received an enormous number of offers from broadcast television, cable television, the Internet, print and radio. We have no immediate plans to make any media deals, and when the time comes a proper announcement will be forthcoming."
The talks with CBS started up after the collapse of long negotiations with NBC, where the prospect of a Clinton talk show first emerged at a meeting on May 1. NBC executives and representatives for Mr. Clinton held several meetings through mid-July trying to work out the terms of a deal.
Dennis Swanson, then the head of NBC's flagship station, WNBC, Channel 4 in New York, met one-on-one with Mr. Clinton in late May and became the champion for the show inside NBC. Mr. Swanson quit NBC in July to join CBS as the head of the network's stations, and is now a part of the CBS effort to make a deal with Mr. Clinton.
NBC executives said they did not question whether Mr. Clinton would agree to do a show if the terms were right. "I honestly believed he would do it," one NBC negotiator said. "I never believed his interest was bogus."
The NBC executives said they were repeatedly assured by Mr. Clinton's associates that he was tired of his post-presidential financial reliance on speaking engagements and that he was enthusiastic about pursuing a new career as host of a talk show.
Still, one consistent stumbling block, first for NBC and now for CBS, has been that the Clinton side has not fully made clear what kind of show he would be willing to do - the extent to which such a show would deal with public affairs or feature lighter fare, like celebrity interviews.
The first meeting was held in the Hollywood offices of Mr. Clinton's longtime friend Harry Thomason, a television producer who has been involved in previous media projects with the former president, including his campaign video biography, "The Man From Hope."
One NBC executive said Mr. Thomason was the driving force in the discussion and was especially eager to conclude a deal quickly. "They wanted to make a deal before they had a program," the executive said. "What they were talking about was a talk show but a weird talk show. They wanted a public affairs show, but there might be a band."
Still, the NBC side agreed that Mr. Clinton's media skills might make him an intriguing, perhaps extraordinary talk show host. "You think maybe he could be a force for good," the NBC executive said. "In between playing the sax or singing with Carly Simon or whatever he's going to do, maybe he could do some great things."
Though that meeting ended in disarray - the NBC executive said he felt as if he were in the middle of a sketch for "Saturday Night Live" - NBC stayed interested enough to continue negotiating. The talks became serious enough that NBC's station group held several conference calls to debate the risks and the rewards of signing Mr. Clinton. Stations in the larger cities in the North generally supported the idea, while some stations in the Sun Belt questioned it, saying their more conservative audiences would not respond well to Mr. Clinton.
NBC executives believed that a show starring Mr. Clinton would have the biggest opening week in the history of daytime television.
They also expected that signing him would would bring on criticism, both because the former president might seem to be selling out to become a performer and the visceral enmity toward Mr. Clinton from conservatives.
"NBC was going to take a lot of heat," one NBC executive involved in the negotiations said. "But so what? In the business of television sometimes things are controversial and sometimes that's the best thing that can happen."
Other NBC executives expressed concern that advertisers might be wary of the show because Mr. Clinton had been a polarizing figure. One NBC executive said he doubted that, however, adding, "I think you sell commercials in his first show for record prices."
The question, NBC executives said, was the show's staying power and whether it could ever recoup the money the Clinton side was then demanding: a guarantee of $100 million over two years.
The price was beyond anything any syndicator ever promised a star. "The highest guarantee for any syndicated talk show was about $30 million for a proposed show with Katie Couric," one longtime syndicated television executive said of the co-host of NBC's "Today." "In this case, that wouldn't get you in the room."
But the profits for a hit talk show can be enormous. The genre's leader, Oprah Winfrey, takes in hundreds of millions a year, and she herself makes as much as $125 million a year from her show, which she owns.
The Clinton associates later came back to NBC with an altered financial structure. NBC executives said the new offer included significant backing from a production company that they said was willing to share the costs.
But NBC backed away from the deal anyway.
CBS executives said they were still far apart on the financial terms of the deal and were not completely convinced that Mr. Clinton wanted to go through the rigors of being the host of a daily show.
Joel H. Silbey, a historian at Cornell University, said that although other former presidents had written books, given speeches or, like Jimmy Carter, sought to contribute to public life, none "came back into the realm of popular culture."
But Professor Silbey said the possibility of a talk show reflected Mr. Clinton's unique personality, noting the former president's close ties to Hollywood and his comfort in settings like MTV.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/21/business/media/21TUBE.html?ex=1030507200&en=82b42cac0986fc1a&ei=5006&partner=ALTAVISTA1
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
Greg Pierce
Clinton sued over IRS probe
Judicial Watch accuses Bill of prompting politically motivated audit
Judicial Watch yesterday filed a civil rights lawsuit accusing Bill Clinton and five top congressional Democrats of instigating a politically motivated audit of Judicial Watch by the Internal Revenue Service.
The conservative public-interest law firm said it even had proof that Mr. Clinton was personally involved in getting the IRS to start the investigation.
Documents turned over to Judicial Watch by the IRS under the Freedom of Information Act included a copy of an e-mail to President Clinton at the White House that stated: "I have received solicitation for funds and a questionnaire from Larry Klayman, of Judicial Watch. They have targeted you and the Vice President. My question is how can this obviously partisan organization be classified as tax-exempt under 501(C)(3). I think you and your wife have done a great job in spite of the partisan attacks against both of you."
Judicial Watch, in a prepared statement, said: "The IRS documents show the e-mail, which was sent to the IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti's office by President Clinton, was received by the IRS on or about September 22, 1998. Judicial Watch's first audit notice was dated two weeks later, on October 6, 1998. It is illegal and criminal for the President to directly or indirectly request an IRS audit of any taxpayer. Separately, Judicial Watch had been told by an IRS official that an audit was to be expected for suing President Clinton."
Reps. Charles B. Rangel of New York, Martin Frost of Texas, James P. Moran of Virginia and John Lewis of Georgia, as well as Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, also were accused of starting "a widespread campaign to illegally pressure the IRS to audit Judicial Watch." All are Democrats.
The lawsuit will be heard by Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The lawsuit charges the lawmakers of conspiring to violate Judicial Watch's First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights.
Speaking of scandals
"AFL-CIO chief John Sweeney is having a high old time with business scandals, condemning 'corporate greed' and capitalist 'thieves.' Yet his acute moral antennae have somehow missed the shenanigans at Union Labor Life Insurance Co., or Ullico, a labor-owned insurance company that looks like Big Labor's Enron," the Wall Street Journal says.
"Last week, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation asked the National Labor Relations Board to investigate if Ullico's board members - all top union officials - profited at the expense of rank-and-file union members in a dubious stock-selling scheme. A federal grand jury and the Labor Department are also probing those stock transactions," the newspaper said in an editorial.
The newspaper added: "As long as we're talking about blind eyes, we might also mention the quiet in Congress. Perhaps it's a coincidence that Ullico is a big political donor, especially to Democrats, and that Ted Kennedy, who runs the Senate labor committee, was also an Ullico donee his last re-election.
"More alarming is the fact that Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin is insisting on language in an appropriations bill that would block greater public disclosure by unions. In the wake of the Ullico fiasco, that's a scandal in its own right."
Not newsworthy
"If a Republican wins the endorsement of a large Latino organization, doesn't that qualify as news? Not in California. As of Monday, no major California paper had reported that Bill Simon won the endorsement of 22 of the 32 chapters of the Mexican American Political Association," George Neumayr writes at www.americanprowler.org.
"Also newsworthy but ignored was that aides to Gray Davis tried to scuttle these chapters' endorsement of Simon by tweaking MAPA's convention rules. But that didn't work, so they unsuccessfully attempted to cancel its convention," Mr. Neumayr said.
"The California media hammer Simon for his poor campaigning. But once he displays some effective campaigning, their coverage dries up. To the extent that they have reported on Simon's Hispanic outreach, they have assumed a cynical, you-can't-fool-us air.
"The rare times they do deign to report good news about the Simon campaign, it is invariably filtered through the prism that Simon still can't win. Watch this week as they turn George Bush's campaigning for Simon into a story about the perils of the president appearing in the company of a flagging, tainted candidate."
Mission from God
"Well, well, well. Carl McCall, the likely Democratic gubernatorial nominee in New York, has let it all hang out, religiously," Jay Nordlinger writes at National Review Online (www.nationalreview.com).
"In a church the other day, he 'shed his usual reserve and turned to the story of Moses to explain why he is running for governor.' Those are the words of a New York Times report - and if McCall is 'reserved,' he is one of the few New York politicians - or politicians anywhere - to be so," Mr. Nordlinger said.
"Continued this report, '[McCall] told how God called Moses to abandon his comfortable shepherd's life to do something seemingly impossible - to lead the Jews to freedom. Then Mr. McCall suggested a parallel in his own bid to become the first black governor of the state, after nearly eight years as the state comptroller.'"
"What McCall said was, 'When the Lord calls us to do something important, when the Lord calls us to do something that's never been done before, the Lord assures us He will be with us. So I feel that the Lord has called me. The Lord has called me to provide the leadership and the direction and the vision that New York State needs.'
"A couple of quick - and obvious - points," Mr. Nordlinger said. "When a politician tells you he's on a mission from God, watch out. That sort of messianism is dangerous in politics. Every now and then - a Lincoln as the Civil War brews - fine. But a New York gubernatorial contest in 2002? Gimme a break.
"Second, if another politician - one not a black Democrat, for starters - had talked this way, the media establishment would be going nuts. Stark-raving bonkers.
"And they wouldn't be entirely wrong."
No special election
A federal judge has denied an ACLU request for a special election to replace ousted Rep. James A. Traficant Jr., Ohio Democrat.
U.S. District Judge Edmund Sargus noted that Congress is scheduled to recess Oct. 3 and there was a strong likelihood that an individual selected by voters in a special election would never cast a vote, the Associated Press reports.
The judge also said state officials, and particularly Gov. Bob Taft, did not abuse their discretion in deciding against a special election.
After the ruling, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a notice of appeal.
"This decision confuses the issue of when to hold an election with whether to hold an election," Raymond Vasvari, the ACLU's legal director, said Monday.
The ACLU had sued to force Mr. Taft to hold the election, which the governor estimated would cost $800,000. Mr. Taft, a Republican, said that replacing Traficant, a Democrat, for what could only be a few weeks was not worth the expense or the voter confusion it might cause.
The House kicked Traficant out of Congress for his conviction in April on federal charges of bribery and other crimes.
Faircloth's riposte
Former Sen. Lauch Faircloth, North Carolina Republican, fired back yesterday at a spokesman for U.S. Senate candidate Erskine Bowles, a Democrat. The spokesman, Brad Woodhouse, on Sunday referred to Republican candidate Elizabeth Dole as "Lauch Faircloth in a skirt."
"When the Bowles campaign stops calling Mrs. Dole 'Lauch Faircloth in a skirt,' I'll stop calling Erskine Bowles 'Hillary Clinton in a pantsuit,'" Mr. Faircloth said.
Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or by e-mail: gpierce@washingtontimes.com.
http://washingtontimes.com/national/inpolitics.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Posted: August 1, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern
c 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
You might think you live in America - land of the free, home of the brave.
You might think you live in a country where, first and foremost, citizens have an absolute right to express their political opinions, expose government fraud, waste, abuse and corruption without fear of a knock on the door.
You might think you live in a nation that punishes abuse by government officials who exceed their authority under the Constitution by targeting citizens for political reasons, using all of the awesome power of the state to do it.
If you think like that, you are really living in a dream world.
I know first hand about how government officials misuse their power to punish political enemies. I was a victim of it during the Clinton administration. In 1994, my non-profit news organization at the time, the Western Journalism Center, began investigating Clinton administration scandals. In 1996, the Internal Revenue Service came knocking on the door, explaining that this was no ordinary audit, this was a "political case" and the decision about our fate would be made "at the national level."
Later, representatives of the IRS told me, my employees, my accountant and my attorney that we were targeted because we were criticizing the president in an election year. Imagine that! The audacity! The temerity! Criticizing the president in an election year!
This first-hand experience, which nearly bankrupted my tiny news organization, caused me to take the offensive. We began investigating what I perceived as the biggest Clinton administration scandal of all - the targeting of political enemies with all the brute force the IRS could muster.
It turned out we were hardly alone. Virtually every Clinton administration adversary we contacted was also enduring an audit - or would soon. I exposed this horror in the pages of the Wall Street Journal in October 1996 - six years ago. Later, we sued the IRS and other Clinton administration officials. We filed Freedom of Information Act requests for documents. And, in the process of discovery, we found the smoking gun that showed the audit of our center began when the White House sent a letter of complaint about our activities to the IRS.
Nevertheless, six years later, no one has been punished. No recompense has been made to my organization. No official was fired. Few other media voices have even caught on to the scandal.
Columnist Robert Novak is beginning to get it. This week he wrote about yet another smoking gun in the IRS political audit scandal. When my news organization challenged the IRS, we did it with the help of the public-interest legal-watchdog group Judicial Watch. Just weeks after Judicial Watch filed suit on our behalf, that group too found itself under audit.
Novak points out that Judicial Watch's audit, also, began with letters of complaint from the White House and prominent Democratic members of Congress. Here's where he goes wrong: "There is now evidence that the audit of at least one Clinton 'enemy' was triggered by the White House."
Actually, no. There is now evidence that the audit of at least two Clinton "enemies" were triggered by the House. In fact, it's stronger than that. In our case, a Treasury Department report concluded that our audit was triggered by the White House. There are no ifs, ands or buts about it.
In other words, this is no longer an allegation. I am not charging the Clinton administration with using the IRS as a political weapon against its enemies - real and imagined. I am relating facts to you - facts already conceded by his own administration.
Yet, no one pays a price - except the gullible American who believes he still lives in a country governed by the rule of law.
It's important to remember that this kind of alleged abuse of the IRS was one of the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon. As it turned out, Nixon resigned before he could be impeached. And we learned later that while Nixon attempted to pursue political enemies with the IRS, he never succeeded. His IRS commissioner told him to go jump in a lake. And that was the end of it.
By not punishing the successful abuses of the Clinton administration, we encourage future abuses by future presidents of both parties. That's why this is a matter that should be of concern to every American - Republican, Democrat or independent like me.
My turn has come. You may be the next victim.
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28476
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Starring Bill Clinton as Johnny Carson, and featuring James Carville as Ed McMahon.
Lord Lowrider the LoquaciousMember:Secret Select Society of Suave Stylish Smoking Jackets She was only a fisherman's daughter,But when she saw my rod she reeled.