Sarah Jessica Parker's Conservative Clothing Line

With the number of delinquent and/or jailed female pop stars on the rise, somebody had to start urging young women to quit dressing like trollops.

Well, Sarah Jessica Parker has.

The former "Sex and the City" actress is now an unofficial spokesperson for a return to modesty.

Parker has launched a new clothing line, and she is taking the opportunity to encourage folks to cover up.

The affordable female fashion line consists of exclusively conservative attire. Parker's new "Bitten" fashions are available at Steve & Barry's.

"There's not going to be any inappropriate midriff showing, regardless of your age. I really don't care for it," Parker passionately proclaimed to the Female First Web site.

"I feel like, as a culture, we have seen enough damage done by it. It's provocative in a way that I just don't feel comfortable with," she added.

It turns out that Parker's new line of apparel is a bargain in more ways than one.

The cost of the clothing has been held down; this despite the fact that in order to create attire that reflects the desired class and refinement, more fabric is needed.

And just think, if celebrities actually clean up their outfits and their acts, taxpayers' jail bills may go down.

McCain Goes Nuts Near Senate Floor

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, launched into a shouting match during a Thursday Capitol Hill meeting, where reportedly the presidential candidate dropped the "F” word and more.

According to reports in the Washington Post and the New York Post, Cornyn apparently got the former POW’s attention when he raised the issue about the number of judicial appeals that illegal immigrants could receive.

In a meeting room just off the Senate floor, McCain opined that Cornyn was purposely raising petty objections to a compromise plan then being hammered out between Senate Republicans and Democrats and the White House.

"This is chickens--- stuff," McCain fired at Cornyn, according to the news reports. "You've always been against this bill, and you're just trying to derail it."

Not to be outdone, Cornyn accused McCain of being too occupied campaigning for president to take part in the negotiations.

"Wait a second here," Cornyn said to McCain. "I've been sitting in here for all of these negotiations and you just parachute in here on the last day. You're out of line."

"F--- you! I know more about this than anyone else in the room," McCain reportedly rejoined.

McCain, who has missed 42 votes this year, hasn't been intimately involved in the comprehensive immigration reform debate for months.

Reportedly, the shouting match was played out in front of a bipartisan group of senators and aides who had gathered in the meeting room.

Pundits suggest that the temper flare may reopen the can-of-worms that is McCain's "anger-management problem."

Brian Jones, a spokesman for the McCain campaign, acknowledged that a "spirited exchange" did take place.

"Negotiating such a large and important piece of legislation can be intense, and a spirited exchange did occur," Jones said. "[McCain] is somebody who feels very passionate about his work and about solving the problems facing the country."

Catholics to Hillary: Stop Using Mother Teresa in Ad

A Catholic advocacy group is urging Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign to remove an image of Mother Teresa from a campaign video narrated by former President Bill Clinton.

"It is wholly inappropriate, disrespectful and disturbing that Hillary Clinton is using an image of Blessed Mother Teresa as a political tool, especially given their radically different views on abortion," said Fidelis President Joseph Cella.

He noted that Mother Teresa fought to protect unborn children, while Hillary Clinton "staunchly supports abortion on demand in all nine months of pregnancy, including partial birth abortion and taxpayer funding of abortion.

"Out of respect to Mother Teresa, and the Missionaries of Charity strict guidelines for the use of Mother's image, we call on the Hillary Clinton campaign to immediately remove her image from their campaign video," Cella said in a news release.

A shot of Mother Teresa standing with then-First Lady Hillary Clinton and daughter Chelsea appears in the five-minute video for only a moment.

The video then cuts to a clip of Mrs. Clinton's address at the 1995 Beijing Conference, in which she says, "It is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights."

What the Clintons don't mention in the video, Fidelis noted, is that the Beijing Conference tried to declare abortion a fundamental human right.

"Mother Teresa, by contrast, abhorred the international abortion policies of the UN," Cella said.

He noted that Mother Teresa sent a letter to the 1995 Beijing Conference in which she wrote, "That special power of loving that belongs to a woman is seen most clearly when she becomes a mother. Motherhood is the gift of God to women...Yet we can destroy this gift of motherhood, especially by the evil of abortion .... No job, no plans, no possessions, no idea of 'freedom' can take the place of love."

Cella said he has sent a letter to the head of the Missionaries of Charity, urging her to ask the Clinton campaign to "cease and desist in its unauthorized use of Mother's image."

Fidelis describes itself as a Catholic-based advocacy organization established to help elect pro-life, pro-family and pro-religious liberty candidates to public office, support the confirmation of judges, and promote and defend laws faithful to the Constitution in Congress and the Courts.

The Hillary Clinton for president campaign is sending the video narrated by Bill Clinton to her supporters and donors. In it, Mr. Clinton speaks admiringly for five minutes of his wife's accomplishments and commitment to public service.

Rev. Jerry Falwell Dies Suddenly at 73

The Rev. Jerry Falwell, the television evangelist who founded the Moral Majority and used it to mold the religious right into a political force, died Tuesday shortly after being found unconscious in his office at Liberty University. He was 73.

Ron Godwin, the university's executive vice president, said Falwell was found unresponsive late Tuesday morning and taken to Lynchburg General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead about an hour later.

"I had breakfast with him, and he was fine at breakfast," Godwin said. "He went to his office, I went to mine, and they found him unresponsive."

Dr. Carl Moore, Falwell's physician, said the evangelist had a heart rhythm abnormality. He said Falwell was found without a pulse and never regained consciousness.

Falwell had made careful preparations for a transition of his leadership to his two sons, Jerry Falwell, Jr., now vice-chancellor of Liberty University, and Jonathan Falwell, executive the pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church.



One daughter, Jeannie Falwell Savas, Surgeon, Richmond, Va. Godwin said. "He has left instructions for those of us who had to carry on, and we will be faithful to that charge," Godwin said.

Falwell had survived two serious health scares in early 2005. He was hospitalized for two weeks with what was described as a viral infection, then was hospitalized again a few weeks later after going into respiratory arrest. Later that year, doctors found a 70 percent blockage in an artery, which they opened with stents.

"Jerry has been a tower of strength on many of the moral issues which have confronted our nation," fellow evangelist Pat Robertson said Tuesday.

Falwell credited his Moral Majority with getting millions of conservative voters registered, electing Ronald Reagan and giving Republicans Senate control in 1980.

"I shudder to think where the country would be right now if the religious right had not evolved," Falwell said when he stepped down as Moral Majority president in 1987.


The fundamentalist church that Falwell started in an abandoned bottling plant in 1956 grew into a religious empire that included the 22,000-member Thomas Road Baptist Church, the "Old Time Gospel Hour" carried on television stations around the country and 7,700-student Liberty University, which began as Lynchburg Baptist College in 1971. He built Christian elementary schools, homes for unwed mothers and a home for alcoholics.

Liberty University's commencement is scheduled for Saturday, with former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich as the featured speaker.

Sen. John McCain, the school commencement speaker last year, said Tuesday that his prayers were with Falwell's family.

"Dr. Falwell was a man of distinguished accomplishment who devoted his life to serving his faith and country," McCain said.

Last year, Falwell marked the 50th anniversary of his church and spoke out on stem cell research, saying he sympathized with people with medical problems, but that any medical research must pass a three-part test: "Is it ethically correct? Is it biblically correct? Is it morally correct?"

Falwell had once opposed mixing preaching with politics, but he changed his view and in 1979, founded the Moral Majority. The political lobbying organization grew to 6.5 million members and raised $69 million as it supported conservative politicians and campaigned against abortion, homosexuality, pornography and bans on school prayer.

Falwell became the face of the religious right, appearing on national magazine covers and on television talk shows. In 1983, U.S. News & World Report named him one of 25 most influential people in America.

In 1984, he sued Hustler magazine for $45 million, charging that he was libeled by an ad parody depicting him as an incestuous drunkard. A federal jury found the fake ad did not libel him, but awarded him $200,000 for emotional distress. That verdict was overturned, however, in a landmark 1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held that even pornographic spoofs about a public figure enjoy First Amendment protection.

The case was depicted in the 1996 movie "The People v. Larry Flynt."

With Falwell's high profile came frequent criticism, even from fellow ministers. The Rev. Billy Graham once rebuked him for political sermonizing on "non-moral issues."

Falwell quit the Moral Majority in 1987, saying he was tired of being "a lightning rod" and wanted to devote his time to his ministry and Liberty University. But he remained outspoken and continued to draw criticism for his remarks.

Days after Sept. 11, 2001, Falwell essentially blamed feminists, gays, lesbians and liberal groups for bringing on the terrorist attacks. He later apologized.

In 1999, he told an evangelical conference that the Antichrist was a male Jew who was probably already alive. Falwell later apologized for the remark but not for holding the belief. A month later, his National Liberty Journal warned parents that Tinky Winky, a purple, purse-toting character on television's "Teletubbies" show, was a gay role model and morally damaging to children.

Falwell was re-energized after family values proved important in the 2004 presidential election. He formed the Faith and Values Coalition as the "21st Century resurrection of the Moral Majority," to seek anti-abortion judges, a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and more conservative elected officials.

The big, blue-eyed preacher with a booming voice started his independent Baptist church with 35 members. From his living room, he began broadcasting his message of salvation and raising the donations that helped his ministry grow.

"He was one of the first to come up with ways to use television to expand his ministry," said Robert Alley, a retired University of Richmond religion professor who studied and criticized Falwell's career.

In 1987, Falwell took over the PTL (Praise the Lord) ministry in South Carolina after Jim Bakker's troubles. Falwell slid fully clothed down a theme park water slide after donors met his fund-raising goal to help rescue the rival ministry. He gave it up seven months later after learning the depth of PTL's financial problems.

Largely because of the Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart scandals, donations to Falwell's ministry dropped from $135 million in 1986 to less than $100 million the following year. Hundreds of workers were laid off and viewers of his television show dwindled.

Liberty University was $73 million in debt and on the verge of bankruptcy, and his "Old Time Gospel Hour" was $16 million in debt.

By the mid-1990s, two local businessmen with long ties to Falwell began overseeing the finances and helped get companies to forgive debts or write them off as losses.

Falwell devoted much of his time keeping his university afloat. He dreamed that Liberty would grow to 50,000 students and be to fundamentalist Christians what Notre Dame is to Roman Catholics and Brigham Young University is to Mormons. He was an avid sports fan who arrived at Liberty basketball games to the cheers of students.

Falwell's father and his grandfather were militant atheists, he wrote in his autobiography. He said his father made a fortune off his businesses _ including bootlegging during Prohibition.

As a student, Falwell was a star athlete and a prankster who was barred from giving his high school valedictorian's speech after he was caught using counterfeit lunch tickets his senior year.

He ran with a gang of juvenile delinquents before becoming a born-again Christian at age 19. He turned down an offer to play professional baseball and transferred from Lynchburg College to Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Mo.

"My heart was burning to serve Christ," he once said in an interview. "I knew nothing would ever be the same again."

The day before he died, Falwell had been up on the Liberty campus hillside chatting with students, Godwin said. He was talking about plans for the future that day and over breakfast Tuesday morning, he said.

"Dr. Falwell was a giant of faith and a visionary leader," Godwin said. He "has always been a man of great optimism and great faith."

Falwell is survived by his wife, Macel, and three children, Jerry, Jonathan and Jeannie.

Japan has drop box for unwanted babies

A Japanese hospital opened the country's only anonymous drop box for unwanted infants Thursday despite government admonitions against abandoning babies.

The baby drop-off, called "Crane's Cradle," was opened by the Catholic-run Jikei Hospital in the southern city of Kumamoto as a way to discourage abortions and the abandonment of infants in unsafe public places. The hospital described it as a parent's last resort.

A small hatch on the side of the hospital allows people to drop off babies in an incubator 24 hours a day, while an alarm will notify hospital staff of the new arrival. The infants will initially be cared for by the hospital and then put up for adoption.

"We started the service but hope it won't be used," head nurse Yukiko Tajiri said. "I hope it is seen as a symbol that we are always here for parents to share their difficulty."

But government officials warned the service might only encourage more abandonments.

"In principle, parents should not abandon their babies anonymously," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters Thursday. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki meanwhile said it was "fundamental for parents to raise their children with their own hands."

Similar baby drops exist in Germany and South Africa. Some U.S. states, such as Alabama and Minnesota, also have programs protecting identities of women who give up their babies.

The drop box was set up after a series of high-profile cases in which newborn babies were abandoned in parks and supermarkets, triggering a public outcry.

Abortion is readily available and widespread in Japan where restriction against the measure is loose and there are no clear religious taboos.

Nearly 290,000 abortions were reported in 2005, according to the Health Ministry.

Russia's Putin Likens U.S. Policy to 'Third Reich'

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a thinly veiled attack on the United States, comparing American foreign policy to the "Third Reich” in a speech on Wednesday.

Putin’s comments were the latest in a series of Russian criticisms of the U.S. on Iraq, missile defense and NATO expansion, as the Russian leader maintains that America is striving to single-handedly dominate world affairs, the International Herald Tribune reported.

Putin delivered the speech from a podium in front of Lenin’s Mausoleum on Red Square as he marked Victory Day, the 62nd anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany.

"We do not have the right to forget the causes of any war, which must be sought in the mistakes and errors of peacetime,” he declared.

"Moreover, in our time, these threats are not diminishing. They are only transforming, changing their appearance. In these new threats – as during the time of the Third Reich – are the same contempt for human life and the same claims of exceptionality.”

Putin did not mention the U.S. by name. But Sergei Markov, director of the Institute of Political Studies – who works closely with the Kremlin – confirmed to the Herald Tribune that Putin was referring to the United States and NATO.

"He intended to talk about the United States, but not only,” Markov said, in reference to the sentence citing the Third Reich. "The speech said that the Second World War teaches lessons that can be applied to today’s world.”

According to the Herald Tribune, Russians say Putin’s "sharper edge” is a reflection of "frustration that Russia’s views, particularly its opposition to NATO expansion, have been ignored in the West.”

Giuliani Set to Fully Embrace Abortion

Republican Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani will fully embrace support for abortion in the coming days, according to a report in Thursday's editions of The New York Times.

The paper noted that "after months of giving ambiguous signals on abortion," Giuliani will begin to articulate a "forthright affirmation of his support for abortion rights."

In public remarks, Giuliani has emphasized his own, personal distaste for abortion. He has also noted that though he has supported a woman's right to choose, he would also appoint Supreme Court Justices in the strict construction mold, presumably those who could limit abortion rights.


In recent days Giuliani's positon on abortion has drawn significant political static. During the first Republican debate, Giuliani said he would oppose overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.

And this week his staff dealt with a flurry of controversy after it was revealed Giuliani contributed six times to Planned Parenthood, an abortion provider.

With about one-third of Republican primary voters identifying themselves as pro-choice, and Giuliani being the lone candidate abortion rights, his strategists believe he can still win the GOP's nomination despite his liberal social views.

Giuliani's team reportedly is "de-emphasizing" pro-life states like New Hampshire and will focus on more larger states where his views on abortion will be less worrisome, states like California, Florida, New York and New Jersey.

Michael Moore Focus of Treasury Dept. Probe

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore is under investigation by the U.S. Treasury Department for taking ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers to Cuba for a segment in his upcoming health-care documentary "Sicko," The Associated Press has learned.

The investigation provides another contentious lead-in for a provocative film by Moore, a fierce critic of President Bush. In the past, Moore's adversaries have fanned publicity that helped the filmmaker create a new brand of opinionated blockbuster documentary.

"Sicko" promises to take the health-care industry to task the way Moore confronted America's passion for guns in "Bowling for Columbine" and skewered Bush over his handling of Sept. 11 in "Fahrenheit 9/11."

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control notified Moore in a letter dated May 2 that it was conducting a civil investigation for possible violations of the U.S. trade embargo restricting travel to Cuba. A copy of the letter was obtained Tuesday by the AP.

"This office has no record that a specific license was issued authorizing you to engage in travel-related transactions involving Cuba," Dale Thompson, OFAC chief of general investigations and field operations, wrote in the letter to Moore.

In February, Moore took about 10 ailing workers from the Ground Zero rescue effort in Manhattan for treatment in Cuba, said a person working with the filmmaker on the release of "Sicko." The person requested anonymity because Moore's attorneys had not yet determined how to respond.

Moore, who scolded Bush over the Iraq war during the 2003 Oscar telecast, received the letter Monday, the person said. "Sicko" premieres May 19 at the Cannes Film Festival and debuts in U.S. theaters June 29.

Moore declined to comment, said spokeswoman Lisa Cohen.

After receiving the letter, Moore arranged to place a copy of the film in a "safe house" outside the country to protect it from government interference, said the person working on the release of the film.

Treasury officials declined to answer questions about the letter. "We don't comment on enforcement actions," said department spokeswoman Molly Millerwise.

The letter noted that Moore applied Oct. 12, 2006, for permission to go to Cuba "but no determination had been made by OFAC." Moore sought permission to travel there under a provision for full-time journalists, the letter said.

According to the letter, Moore was given 20 business days to provide OFAC with such information as the date of travel and point of departure; the reason for the Cuba trip and his itinerary there; and the names and addresses of those who accompanied him, along with their reasons for going.

Potential penalties for violating the embargo were not indicated. In 2003, the New York Yankees paid the government $75,000 to settle a dispute that it conducted business in Cuba in violation of the embargo. No specifics were released about that case.

"Sicko" is Moore's followup to 2004's "Fahrenheit 9/11," a $100 million hit criticizing the Bush administration over Sept. 11. Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" won the 2002 Oscar for best documentary.

A dissection of the U.S. health-care system, "Sicko" was inspired by a segment on Moore's TV show "The Awful Truth," in which he staged a mock funeral outside a health-maintenance organization that had declined a pancreas transplant for a diabetic man. The HMO later relented.

At last September's Toronto International Film Festival, Moore previewed footage shot for "Sicko," presenting stories of personal health-care nightmares. One scene showed a woman who was denied payment for an ambulance ride after a head-on collision because it was not preapproved.

Moore's opponents have accused him of distorting the facts, and his Cuba trip provoked criticism from conservatives including former Republican Sen. Fred Thompson, who assailed the filmmaker in a blog at National Review Online.

"I have no expectation that Moore is going to tell the truth about Cuba or health care," wrote Thompson, the subject of speculation about a possible presidential run. "I defend his right to do what he does, but Moore's talent for clever falsehoods has been too well documented."

The timing of the investigation is reminiscent of the firestorm that preceded the Cannes debut of "Fahrenheit 9/11," which won the festival's top prize in 2004. The Walt Disney Co. refused to let subsidiary Miramax release the film because of its political content, prompting Miramax bosses Harvey and Bob Weinstein to release "Fahrenheit 9/11" on their own.

The Weinsteins later left Miramax to form the Weinstein Co., which is releasing "Sicko." They declined to comment on the Treasury investigation, said company spokeswoman Sarah Levinson Rothman.

Romney Says Sharpton's Dig Could Be Considered Bigoted

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Wednesday denounced the Rev. Al Sharpton's remarks about God and his Mormon faith, saying it could be construed as "a bigoted comment."

"It shows that bigotry still exists in some corners," said Romney, who spoke to reporters after a campaign event. "I thought it was a most unfortunate comment to make."

On Monday, Sharpton said in a debate that "those of us who believe in God" will defeat Romney for the White House. He denied he was questioning the Mormon's own belief in God.

Rather, the New York Democrat said he was contrasting himself with Christopher Hitchens, the atheist author he was debating at the time.


"As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyways, so don't worry about that; that's a temporary situation," Sharpton said during a debate with Hitchens at the New York Public Library.

Romney's campaign seized on the comments to criticize Sharpton, and the candidate complained about the remarks on Wednesday, calling them "terribly misguided."

Asked if he considered the civil rights leader a bigot, Romney demurred.

"I don't know Reverend Sharpton," he said. "I doubt he is personally such a thing, but the comment was a comment which could be described as a bigoted comment."

Romney added that he was willing to believe Sharpton didn't mean to be offensive.


"Perhaps he didn't mean it that way, but the way it came out was inappropriate and wrong," said Romney.

In a statement, Sharpton accused the Romney campaign of a "blatant effort to fabricate a controversy to help their lagging campaign" and argued that it was Hitchens who criticized Mormons.

"In no way did I attack Mormons or the Mormon Church when I responded that other believers, not atheists, would vote against Mr. Romney for purely political reasons," Sharpton said.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Sharpton denied questioning Romney's belief in God and suggested the Romney camp was trying to stir up a controversy because of their political differences.

"What I said was that we would defeat him, meaning as a Republican," Sharpton said. "A Mormon, by definition, believes in God. They don't believe in God the way I do, but by definition, they believe in God."

Romney, the former one-term governor of Massachusetts, said that as he campaigns, he hears little criticism about his religion.

"Overwhelmingly, the people I talk to believe that we elect a person to lead the nation not based on what church they go to, but based on their values and their vision," he said. "I receive very little comment of the nature coming from Reverend Sharpton."

The issue of Romney's religion is often compared to the scrutiny given to former President John Kennedy, whose Catholic faith was an issue in the 1960 campaign. Kennedy dealt with the matter by giving a high-profile speech in which he said his religion would not shape his policy choices.

Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, hasn't addressed such questions so directly, but he has been clear that his religion wouldn't dictate his policies.

"I make it very clear that the doctrines of any one church are not the basis for electing any individual in this country _ never have been and I doubt they ever will be," Romney said.

Hillary's French Lesson

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
Monday, May 7, 2007

What does the defeat of Segolene Royal, the first woman to seek the French presidency, mean for Hillary Clinton, in the midst of her pursuit of the Oval Office?

Does Royal's failure signal that the seemingly irresistible momentum of female candidates worldwide is screeching to a halt?

After Angela Merkel was elected chancellor of Germany, Michelle Bachelet won the Chilean presidency and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf took Liberia's presidency. At the time, it seemed that women were on the move globally.

Does Royal's defeat mean that the momentum is waning?

In one important respect, French gender politics is the opposite of American. In the U.S., women vote to the left of men. But in France, men vote to the left of women.

More likely to be observant Catholics, the women of France typically are the mainstay of the conservative parties. French men, who fill out the ranks of the country's powerful unions, back the Socialists.

In nominating a woman, the French Socialist Party was cutting across its normal gender lines. It would be as if the Republicans, not the Democrats, had nominated a woman to run for president.

Royal's defeat was largely due to her inability to lure women who usually back rightist candidates to cross over and back her. In France, ideology and class proved more important than gender in structuring the female vote.

On another level, the lessons of Royal's defeat are important for Hillary to learn.

After a shaky performance touring the Middle East early in her candidacy, the idea took root that Royal was unprepared and unqualified to be president. Her gaffes in seeming to side with the Palestinians against Israel were magnified. She was painted as out of her league on the global stage.

As the campaign continued, Royal embraced an explicitly female posture in the race, seeking to become the modern equivalent of Marianne (the French revolutionary who might fulfill an iconic self image as Uncle Sam does for America) and Joan of Arc, the towering medieval French heroine.

Sarkozy mocked her style, noting that she appeared to be in a bad mood and suggesting that it was due to her standing in the polls. Royal seemed to lend herself to a negative caricature of a female candidate: headstrong, impulsive, uninformed, moody, and emotional. Her posturing did not sell well.

Most ominously for Hillary is how Royal's marriage played against her. The candidate's long-term "husband" (although they were never married) is Francois Hollande, the head of the Socialist Party. She was widely seen as a stand-in for him and voters saw him as the real power behind the throne.

Will Americans cast Bill in the same role as the hidden power behind Hillary? Will it hurt her as much as it injured Royal?

At the moment, few people would say that Hillary's strings are pulled by Bill. But in 1990, when Bill was contemplating retirement as governor to dedicate himself to the 1992 presidential race, Hillary contemplated running in his place.

But polls that I conducted for Hillary showed that voters rejected her candidacy, seeing her as a puppet of her husband.

The Royal-Hollande debacle in the election sends a message to Hillary: Don't let Bill be seen as your master.

Importantly, the defeat of Royal shows how personally women candidates are vetted by voters. Once in a while voters will hold personal peccadilloes against a man. Recently we have heard such complaints. Is John McCain too temperamental? Rudy Giuliani too arrogant? John Edwards too vain?

For a woman candidate, however, personal scrutiny is de rigueur. Royal discovered that and so will Hillary.

However unfairly, the candidate's every attribute, attitude, and appearance is carefully scrutinized, not the least by her fellow females, for signs about her personality.

Is Hillary too scripted, too programmed, too phony, too dogmatic, too cold, too angry? Female candidates received an "X-ray examination" that men largely do not.

Beyond the French elections' implications for Hillary, the election of Nicolas Sarkozy signifies a key turn for Franco-American relations.

Coupled with Merkel's victory over Gerhard Schroeder in German elections last year, the voters on the European continent have put pro-American leaders at the apex of power.

These electoral victories signal a very different message from that peddled by the American media which frets about America's declining standing in global public opinion.

The fact is that the United States' amazing economic success, coupled with the stagnation of Western Europe, is sending a dramatic message about the superiority of our form of free market economy over their heavily taxed, over-regulated model.

America is back in vogue on the continent! Our form of democratic individualism seems awfully attractive to the tightly controlled European societies and economies.

Whether Merkel or Sarkozy succeed or not, they are trying hard to turn their countries around.

Sarkozy elected France's president

Conservative leader Nicolas Sarkozy triumphed in France's presidential election on Sunday, beating his Socialist rival Segolene Royal by a comprehensive margin and extending the right's 12-year grip on power.

Within an hour of polls closing, a calm, restrained Sarkozy pledged to represent the entire nation and heal the divisions of a bitter election campaign, praising his defeated opponent.

He also reached out to both the United States, which has had frosty relations with France since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and to European Union partners, saying he would make the fight against global warming a priority.

"To all those French who did not vote for me, I want to say that beyond political battles, beyond differences of opinion, for me there is only one France," he told cheering supporters.

With almost two thirds of ballots counted, Sarkozy had won 53.4 percent of the vote against 46.6 percent for Royal. Turnout was some 85 percent -- the highest since 1981.

Royal, her traditional smile slightly faded, immediately conceded defeat. "Universal suffrage has spoken. I wish the next president of the Republic the best in accomplishing his mission in the service of all the French people," she said.

Although opinion polls regularly suggested voters preferred Royal, who was seeking to become France's first woman head of state, they saw the uncompromising Sarkozy as a more competent leader with a more convincing economic program.

Sarkozy, the son of a Hungarian immigrant, presented himself as the "candidate of work," promising to loosen the 35-hour work week by offering tax breaks on overtime and to trim fat from the public service, cut taxes and wage war on unemployment.

Supporters poured into the huge Place de la Concorde in the center of Paris for a rock concert and celebration party.

TAKING OFFICE

Sarkozy is expected to take power on May 16 or 17, becoming the first French president to be born after World War Two and replacing Jacques Chirac, 74, who is retiring after two terms.

He will then name a new government and launch into campaigning for June's parliamentary election, where he will seek a clear majority to implement his reforms. Former Labor Minister Francois Fillon is expected to be prime minister.

The president is elected for five years, is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, nominates the prime minister, has the right to dissolve the National Assembly and is responsible for foreign and defense policies.

Royal started the year as favorite, but a string of gaffes raised persistent doubts over her competency.

Ideological divisions in her own camp also meant she could never enjoy unified party support and Socialist heavyweights said on Sunday the left needed to undergo deep reform after failing in three attempts to win the presidency.

"We need to renew ourselves. It is the condition for regaining hope and I am available for that," said Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a Socialist former finance minister, presenting himself as a future leader for the battered party.

The Socialists portrayed Sarkozy as a danger for France, saying he was authoritarian and likely to exacerbate tensions in the poor, multi-racial suburbs that ring many French cities.

They also accused him of fuelling 2005 suburb riots by promising to rid neighborhoods of what he said were the "scum" responsible for the troubles. Thousands of extra police have been drafted in to patrol sensitive suburbs on Sunday.

But by backing Sarkozy, voters showed they wanted a strong leader to resolve France's many problems, including high unemployment of at least 8.3 percent, falling living standards, job insecurity and declining industrial might.

He has promised a clean break with the policies of Chirac, once his political mentor, and says he will curb the powers of the unions and toughen sentencing for criminals.

On foreign policy, Sarkozy is more pro-American than Chirac, but said on Sunday Washington had to respect Paris.

"I want to tell (the U.S.) that friendship is accepting that one's friends can act differently, and that a great nation like the United States has the duty to not obstruct the fight against global warming but on the contrary to take the lead," he said.

He has said one of his first acts as president will be to visit Berlin and then Brussels to lay out plans for a mini treaty to replace the European Union constitution that French voters rejected in a 2005 referendum.

Imus May Sue CBS, Get $40 Million Payday

Fired talk show host Don Imus could file a lawsuit against CBS within a month over the $40 million remaining on his contract, according to a source familiar with the contract.

CBS lawyers argue that Imus was fired for cause – his disparaging remarks about the Rutgers women’s basketball team – and therefore he is not entitled to the money.

But as NewsMax reported earlier, Imus has hired Martin Garbus, one of the nation’s leading trial lawyers and a First Amendment specialist.

Garbus’ strategy could focus on language in the $10-million-a-year contract Imus signed in 2006, according to the source. The language stipulates that Imus should receive a warning before being fired for making off-color jokes, the source who has seen the contract told Fortune magazine. The source called it a "dog has one-bite clause.”

But that approach could ultimately fail because Imus’ comments were carried on the public airwaves, which are subject to Federal Communications Commission regulations.

Garbus is "a First Amendment lawyer who’s argued many important cases,” attorney Lynne Bernabei, who has represented plaintiffs in employment disputes, told Fortune.

But "in my mind there is a big difference between someone who is under contract and is under FCC regulations and someone who speaks out in town hall.”

Then there is the question as to whether or not Imus actually was given a previous warning about offensive remarks, Fortune points out.

For one, Imus once referred to PBS anchor Gwen Ifill, who is black, as a "cleaning lady.”

George Tenet Contradicts Himself

In his new book At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA George Tenet depicts President Bush's decision to invade Iraq as a foregone conclusion, but he seemed to have a different version of events when I interviewed him just after the invasion.

Strongly implying that he was against the war from the beginning, the former director of Central Intelligence writes that, as far as he knows, the Bush administration never had a "serious debate" about the "imminence of the Iraqi threat" or even seriously considered the implications of an invasion or the possible consequences.

Moreover, Tenet writes, there seemed to be a "lack of curiosity in asking these kinds of questions." After 9/11, Tenet writes, the decision to go to war became a "runaway freight train."

As noted in a May 2 NewsMax story, Dick Cheney's Real Role, the United States did not invade Iraq until a year and a half after 9/11.

Even though he saw Bush at least once a day, six days a week, Tenet admits in the book that he did not raise any objections to Bush's decision.

"Such decisions properly belong to the policy-makers, not to intelligence officials," Tenet writes. But in an interview for my 2003 book, The CIA at War: Inside the Secret Campaign Against Terror, Tenet presented what appears to be a different account.

Prior to my interview with him, Tenet, as director of Central Intelligence, had given no television interviews and only six print interviews, all before 9/11. However, Tenet approved cooperation on my book, including interviews with a range of CIA officials and tours of some CIA facilities.

The book depicted the CIA's response to terrorism before and after 9/11 and detailed how Tenet had begun to turn the agency around after the CIA, under President Clinton, had withered and become risk-averse.

The first of my two interviews with Tenet for the book took place on May 15, 2003 in the office of Bill Harlow, then the CIA's director of public affairs. Harlow would later collaborate with Tenet on his book. Having commenced on March 20, the invasion of Iraq had just ended on April 9, when U.S. troops occupied Baghdad.

Asked how President Bush operates, Tenet told me then, "He's terrific. We see him six days a week. He's a terrific leader. He's very steeped in our business. He's very supportive of everything we've done and everything we're doing."

These remarks echo what Tenet says about Bush in his book. Only a few sentences of these comments appear in my book.

Going beyond what he said in the book and what I quoted in my book, Tenet said of Bush in our interview at the agency, "He listens. He acquires data. He is always interested in competing views, but he then decides. He doesn't get paralyzed. When we're good, we go. I think there's a lot to be said for this style of leadership."

When I interviewed Tenet, war critics had already begun to question the decision to invade, insisting that diplomacy or sanctions would ultimately work instead. Friends and family members of Tenet and other CIA officers had lined up on opposing sides.

"There were people in my family who didn't agree [with the war]," Tenet told me. "That's part of America. It's great."

Pressed about the opposition to the war and whether going to war was the right thing to do, Tenet went on in our interview: "Going to war is a pretty serious decision for anybody to take. The reason this is a great country is people can express those views. The debate is important and healthy. All I can offer," Tenet said, "is this is not a president who went to war frivolously. He thought about it. He understood the consequences. He understood the potential for the loss of life. He deeply cared about the people who would execute the mission."

But in his book, Tenet lists among the possibilities and issues that the administration allegedly did not consider, "Was it wise to go to war? Was it the right thing to do?"

Asked now for comment, Bill Harlow said, "He was talking about the humanity of the president. The president certainly is not going to send men and women into battle lightly. When he talks in the book about a lack of debate, he's not talking about sending troops to war uncaringly. What he is saying is there was not a sufficient debate within the administration about what happens next: Do we have enough troops on the ground to prevent chaos and anarchy? What is going to happen in the region? What will happen if the Iraqis war among themselves? That's the debate that wasn't happening."

Clearly, Harlow said, there was a public debate about whether to go to war. The Senate debated and voted on the question, he noted.

"So he was not saying there was never any discussion [within the White House] of do we go to war," Harlow said. "It was the next step. What are the implications of it? Are we prepared for what comes next? The criticism is not aimed at the president. It's aimed at the administration's failure to think through what comes after the initial invasion."

In the book, Tenet says there never was a significant discussion within the administration regarding "enhanced containment or the costs and benefits of such an approach" versus going to war and what that would entail.

Harlow acknowledged to me that Tenet didn't know what discussions Bush himself might have had about the questions he is raising now.

"Maybe he was having them," Harlow said. "He just says he wasn't present for them, and other senior officials at the agency also weren't present for them."

Also, Tenet was not privy to deliberations in Bush's own mind, Harlow said.

Harlow said Tenet wrote the book from the perspective of his current position as a Georgetown University professor after reviewing everything he has learned since the invasion. That includes examining tens of thousands of documents as part of the research for the book.

"He is not saying that this is something he thought at the time and focused on at the time," Harlow said. "Everything looks different in hindsight," he said. "He's writing this book looking back and asking what are the lessons we can learn. This is not about pointing fingers at George Bush," Harlow said. "This is about the process of government and what the National Security Council, the State Department, and the Defense Department were thinking," he said. "George admires the president, and I think the feeling is mutual. You know George better than that. It's so the country can do better in the future. That's all this is about."

In an interview this week, former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card told me that the issues raised by Tenet were discussed, but predictions of what would happen after the war were all over the lot.

"There were predictions that ran the gamut about what would happen in Iraq on whether there would be sectarian strife and civil war," Card said. "There were some who said that there was going to be sectarian strife and some who said there would be close to a civil war," Card said.

"There were others who dismissed that," Card said, predicting that Saddam's army and the Iraqis would embrace the Americans.

Hillary, Fearing Obama, Changes Strategy

Faced with the surprising success of Barack Obama in the polls and in fund-raising, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is growing increasingly concerned about her main challenger.

Now a worried Hillary Clinton is dramatically retooling her strategy on several fronts, including fund-raising, in an effort to fend off the challenge from Obama, according to a report in the latest edition of Time magazine.

Already, dollar for dollar in primary campaign money, Obama is beating Hillary, and her own aides acknowledge that the Illinois Senator is simply working the phones more than their candidate.

Her campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe acknowledged that Obama "works the phone like dog. He probably did three to four times the number of events she did” in the first quarter of this year. "No matter who I call, he has already called them three or four times,” McAuliffe told Time.

Clinton had planned to sweep to victory in the Democratic primaries and avoid the nitty-gritty. But Obama's success has forced her campaign to plan on more "small dollar” events, like a recent $100-a-head party at New York City’s Pier 94. And while up until now she has raised most of her money on both coasts, she is now planning more appearances inland – including a May 7 fund-raiser in Chicago.

On another front, Hillary is seeking to counter what Obama’s aides call "an enthusiasm gap.” The latest Gallup poll found that 52 percent of respondents have an unfavorable view of her. Her favorable rating has dropped 13 percentage points since February, to 45 percent, while Obama’s favorable rating is 52 percent – the same as John Edwards’ – with only a 30 percent unfavorable rating.

"So Clinton is lavishing more attention on groups like women, whom she considers her natural constituencies,” Time reports.

During most of her tenure in the Senate Hillary has avoided using her husband for back-up. But that has changed too. Hillary also plans to have husband Bill hit the campaign and fund-raising trails more often.

Both Clintons are using the fear factor to ward off growing support for Obama. Time says the power couple are telling potential contributors that the U.S. could very likely experience a 9/11-scale terrorist attack during the next administration, and Hillary – because of her experience as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee – is the candidate best suited to handle such a crisis.

But the Clinton campaign has no plans to go on a direct offensive against Obama any time soon, Time notes, because that "could further boost her negatives and create an opening for Edwards.”