ANOTHER COMPLETE SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

"Sir! No Sir!" Click dat thang:

SIR! NO SIR! trailer

Remember the underground GI press?

Postscript: "Rove Indicted on Charges of Perjury, Lying to Investigators." So sayeth Jason Leopold, whose report -- if true -- is fondly to be wished. There's been no confirmation, official or unofficial.

PPS: The Wall Street Journal has a story today (May 16) that Rove has not been indicted, according to his attorney, and that Leopold's reporting is flat wrong:

WSJ sidebar

Here's Truthout.com's rundown of Leopold's reports on Fitzgerald, Rove, Libby et al, "Mr. Fitzgerald Calling." (It includes stories by several other reporters.)

I've written about Leopold before, in ON THE RECORD (my gut reaction to his memoir, "Off The Record," which I didn't like), and in AN EXCHANGE WITH JASON LEOPOLD (his response to my reaction).

Leopold's contracted publisher, Rowman & Littlefield, ultimately did not bring out "On the Record," as originally announced. He has since published the memoir himself under a different title, "News Junkie." I haven't read the published version, but I presume he's made minor revisions to deal with the legal issue that may have led to the publisher's withdrawal. (One of the people Leopold wrote about threatened a defamation suit.)

What must be said in Leopold's favor is that major investigative journalists and authors -- especially Greg Palast -- have praised his bare-knuckles style both as reporter and writer. And I wouldn't bet against him on the Rove indictment, my objections to his memoir notwithstanding.

PPPS: And now, May 22, comes the Howard Kurtz iteration in The Washington Post.

PPPPS: This is what happens when I take time off. Uh-oh. Which means having to play catch-up (via Eric Umansky). I may yet have to eat those betting words.

May 13, 2006 11:34 AM |

Categories:

Me Elsewhere

'WILD SIDE' STILL ROCKS 

Nelson Algren was one of the great American authors of the 20th century, it is no exaggeration to say, and among the most neglected. Consider his underrated classic, "A Walk on the Wild Side." The title -- popularized and co-opted as an idiomatic phrase by Hollywood and Madison Avenue (institutions Algren loathed) -- is familiar to most anyone who speaks English or knows Lou Reed's lyrics. But the novel itself? Hardly.

BUSTER KEATON REVISITED 
Buster Keaton: Tempest in a Flat Hat is not a biography. "This book is merely a fan's notes," Edward McPherson writes in the introduction, although his publisher ignores the disclaimer and calls it a biography on the cover. In fact, the book is a bit of both, a difficult combination to bring off unless you're David Thomson, who set the standard with Rosebud, his penetrating rumination on the life and career of Orson Welles, which was nothing if not a distillation of every obsessive thought he ever had about the myth and the man and all his movies.
LAUREN BACALL, STILL SALTY AT 80 
When Lauren Bacall writes that her singing voice ranges "somewhere between B minus sharp and outer space," she's being candid and funny. It's not every stage star with two Tony Awards for best actress in a musical whose vocal talent offers so little promise. (OK, Harvey Fierstein excepted.) Still less would one admit it.
THE STARS ACCORDING TO BOGDANOVICH 
Peter Bogdanovich's superb collection of movie-star profiles and interviews -- a sequel to Who the Devil Made It, his interviews of top film directors -- begins with an affectionate tale about Orson Welles that reminds us just how intimate the author's connection to Hollywood's greatest has been. But contrary to what we've come to expect from dime-a-dozen celebrities and celebrity interviews not worth two cents, the tale avoids bromidic egotism and journalistic platitudes.
SAMMY'S WHITE DREAMS 
Four decades ago Lenny Bruce sentenced Sammy Davis Jr. to "30 years in Biloxi," stripping him of "his Jewish star" and "his religious statue of Elizabeth Taylor." Now we have two new biographies of Davis that spring him from ridicule, if not from doubts about his legacy, and restore a measure of dignity to a black entertainer whose huge fame and success never overcame his devout wish -- indeed his lifelong effort -- to be white.
more picks

Sites to See

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Straight Up | published on May 13, 2006 11:34 AM.

PRESIDENT NEUMAN was the previous entry in this blog.

NAILED IT is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Creative Commons License
This weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons License.