MUSIC TO THE STUDIO EXECS’ EARS: After reviewing Hollywood’s marketing and advertising practices, the Federal Trade Commission sent a letter to Congress stressing the Constitution’s protection of the entertainment industry and urging voluntary self-regulation by the studios, rather than federally enforced sanctions. "The letter elicited a collective I-told-you-so (and probably a sigh of relief) from Tinseltown types. "We always believed that both the content and the marketing of movies were protected under the First Amendment." E! Online 11/22/00

REASONABLE PROTECTIONS: "Citing 'significant legal limitations' and 'substantial and unsettled constitutional questions,' FTC Chairman Robert Pitofsky concluded that the agency would face considerable difficulties bringing cases against Hollywood under existing federal trade laws." Los Angeles Times 11/22/00

DEBATING CENSORSHIP: It was a dull US presidential election. But the one issue that seemed to get people stirred up was a discussion of violence in the entertainment media. Not such an easy issue to get one's arms around, though, writes Norman Lebrecht. "For half a century the very word 'censorship' was so closely associated with totalitarian regimes that it can no longer be uttered except in inverted commas." Culture Kiosque 11/17/00

RIGHT TO WATCH: "A new British poll on film censorship suggests four out of five viewers would rather censor their own viewing, rather than watch poorly cut films. The study, Making Sense of Censorhip, found that three quarters of those surveyed thought cuts in movies shown on television were the least appropriate methods of controlling content." BBC 11/09/00

NO ONE'S A WINNER: Hollywood had little to cheer about in Tuesday's election. "Enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket ground to a halt last week on studio lots when Lieberman sent a letter to top movie and music execs reiterating the six-month ultimatum. The missive barely acknowledged substantial changes the Motion Picture Assn. of America (MPAA) and the major studios have recently made in an effort to stop the marketing of violent, R-rated movies to kids. Meanwhile, the GOP ticket has been unusually silent on the Hollywood question. But should Bush be elected, Republicans in Congress are expected to sway Bush to take a critical look at media content and its effects on society." Variety 11/08/00

RELUCTANT REFORM: Hoping to avoid federal regulatory action after recent scoldings from the Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s largest film trade group has agreed to beef up its enforcement of the movie ratings system with such measures as selective screenings of adult-themed trailers and audience education. Inside.com 11/08/00

WHO'S POLLUTING WHOM? "Vice President Al Gore has used the phrase 'cultural pollution' in the presidential debates, and on the eve of the presidential election on Tuesday the culture question raised during the campaign hangs in the air: Is civilization really going down the tube? No. And let's stop repeating this nonsense before we actually come to believe it." New York Times 11/05/00 (one-time registration required for entry)

LABEL THIS - PLEASE! It's been 13 years since a conservative movement succeeded in getting warning labels afixed to recordings thought to be potentially offensive. And what's happened to labels? "These days, if you mean business in the market, you'd better have a sticker." The labels have come to signify edgier work and - not surprisingly - that's the music kids want to listen to. So what, really, is the point of labels? Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 10/29/00

WATCHDOG ON MOVIES: The US Senate committee that has been holding hearings on violence and entertainment is not going to leave the movie studios alone. "Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is expected to ask the FTC to monitor closely and often how well the major studios live up to promises to stop marketing violent movies to minors." Variety 10/25/00

HOW LONG ‘TIL ALL FILMS ARE "G"? Are movie studios going to continue making as many adult-oriented pictures if they can no longer market them as widely, given the restrictions imposed by the latest political controversy over ratings? Anyone who says that it won't (affect what gets a green light) is being disingenuous." Inside.com 10/17/00

THE RATINGS LIMBO: So what harm is having a ratings system that warns parents about the content of movies? None, perhaps, but for those movies that fall in the cracks of the "R" or "NC" ratings it can mean the difference between being seen and sinking to obscurity. And, of course, it's about the money. Chicago Tribune 10/17/00

DRIVEN TO VIOLENCE? "Does popular entertainment corrupt young people or not? Popular entertainment inspires lots of crazy, potentially violent people to want to do lots of crazy, violent things in America. But they have the same films, music and video games in Europe and just as many crazy, potentially violent young Europeans with presumably just as much subliminal desire to kill. But they don't. We do. Why so much less copycat violence there? Are they such morally superior people?" Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 10/15/00

THE WAR IS OVER? Eight years ago Pat Buchanan was calling a "cultural war" in the United States. But this presidential campaign "the blistering cultural issues of the early '90s - federal funding of the arts, naughty pictures, tart-tongued, disrobed performers - are on today's back burners. The anti-arts, far-right-wing Buchanan voice lost. They thought it would be easy, the elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts based on arguments of pornography and blasphemy. And they lost." Philadelphia Inquirer 10/15/00

STEPPING BACK FROM UNIVERSAL RATINGS: Some members of the US Congress want to grant the entertainment business an antitrust exemption so a universal ratings system can be established. But objections from members of both parties make a vote on the issue increasingly unlikely. Variety 10/11/00

STANDARD RITE OF PASSAGE: For young people, a big part of the attraction to violent or shocking popular culture is its rebellious nature. The wish to shock and be shocked is a youthful right of passage. "The youngster who loves Eminem today is, in many ways, the descendant of the kid who loved Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard in the '50s, or the Rolling Stones and the Doors in the '60s, or the Sex Pistols and David Bowie in the '70s." Should the US Congress really be trying to squelch it? Los Angeles Times 10/08/00 

"FAMILY VALUES" STILL GET VOTES: Who exactly did John McCain think he was scaring last week when he threatened to unleash another FTC investigation into Hollywood’s marketing practices? Both Democrats and Republicans have a lot to gain by keeping the issue in front of the media. "As both parties scramble for each other's base, a momentum is building, with each side pushing the other to apply the tourniquet more tightly. The last time this happened, in the postwar era, the result was bipartisan support for McCarthyism. Then as now, Hollywood was a target." Village Voice 10/10/00

THE CANDIDATES' POSITIONS ON THE ARTS: Where do George Bush and Al Gore stand on the issue of federal funding for the arts? It's a (little) hard to tell. Hartford Courant 10/01/00

POLITICIANS AGREE ON VIOLENCE AND MEDIA: Aren't politicians supposed to disagree? So what's with all the concern over violence and the entertainment industry? "When you actually look back through the public record and study the candidates' various utterances on this topic, the striking thing is how similar - virtually identical, in fact - their stated positions are." Hartford Courant 10/01/00

WHAT SHOULD BE IN THEATRES? "The whole question of what should and should not be shown to young people is one that can appear either simple or complex, depending on how you look at it. Yes, it's true that each generation always feels the next one is going too far, and that Elvis, ragtime and even Jimmy Cagney's gangsters were condemned in their day. Yes, it's not been proved to all scientists' satisfaction that violent images do lasting damage. But you don't have to prove that violent films directly cause mayhem to feel that constant vivid and explicit images of supercharged hostility fed to children in particular and society in general do a lot more harm than good." Los Angeles Times 10/02/00

WHAT'S THE REAL TARGET? "The same government that's failed to impose consumer product safety or advertising standards for marketing guns to kids is now firing on Hollywood for doing the same with films. In blasting away at violence, the government has diverted its ammunition to Hollywood, while the real target hasn't been hit." Los Angeles Times 10/02/00

AN ISSUE WITH LEGS: US Senator John McCain isn't finished with the entertainment industry. A day after this week's Senate hearings on violence and entertainment, he says the studios have not gone far enough on the issue and that he'll delve further into the FTC report on violence. "John McCain gets his teeth into something and doesn't let go." Variety 09/29/00

"YOU'VE GOT OUR ATTENTION": Hollywood studio execs appear before Congressional hearings on violence and the entertainment industry. "All eight studio executives who attended the hearing agreed to follow a set of 12 voluntary guidelines issued the day before by the Motion Picture Association of America. Those rules include not showing previews for R-rated movies before a G-rated film; not 'knowingly' including children under 17 in audiences for research screenings unless they are accompanied by a parent; and seeking ways to include the reasons for a movie's rating in advertisements and packaging, such as noting excessive violence or sexuality. Washington Post 09/28/00

SENATOR TO MOVIE EXECS: "If the industry doesn't take additional steps to keep violent films away from young children, "you're going to see some kind of legislation," said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Texas Republican. "I'm sending a signal across the bow." Washington Times 09/28/00

MCCAIN TO EXECS: After studios promise to try harder on ratings Senate panel chairman John McCain remained unconvinced: ''My friends, that language is not good enough because it leaves a subjective judgment and some very bad subjective decisions were made in the past.'' Inside.com 09/28/00

SOMEBODY TO BLAME: The Gore/Liberman attacks on Hollywood miss the mark. "The premise behind the argument once made by Cheney and Robert Bork, and now by Lieberman and Gore, is that the marketing of violence and sex to children leads to higher levels of teenage violence, sex, drug use, illegitimacy, social breakdown, and so on. But even a cursory glance at reality shows that the opposite is true. The era that has seen the popular culture ratchet up its drug-addled, bigoted, violent messages to new levels of depravity has also seen one of the sharpest declines in teen violence, sex, and drug use ever. If corporate America is out to poison our children's minds, it's failing in spectacular fashion." The New Republic 09/26/00

OFFERING A BONE: On the eve of the next round of US Congressional hearings on violence and the entertainment industry, movie studio executives propose to "stop advertising for R-rated movies during television shows that tend to attract viewers under 17. There would also be a ban on previews for R-rated films at G-rated movies." Washington Post 09/26/00

PROTECTING THE UNPOPULAR: "According to a recent poll by Mark Penn, only about fifteen percent of the American public believes the First Amendment protects Hollywood movies from any government action. More incredibly, twenty-two percent of the public supports government content restrictions on movies that would, if enacted, constitute blatant constitutional violations. Recalling that one of the First Amendment's purposes is to protect unpopular speech, one may wonder how the Amendment itself became so unpopular." Findlaw 09/22/00

THE BOTTOM LINE: "How should an entertainment company balance the demands of profit-making versus good corporate citizenship? It's no secret that we live in an era when the demands of Wall Street dominate entertainment company decision-making. The Oscars, Emmys and Grammys are a once-a-year gold medal for corporate responsibility. The rest of the year, we celebrate the corporate gunslingers who boost their company's value - and we demand the heads of the losers who lag behind in profits." Los Angeles Times 09/25/00

HEAR THIS: "A week ago, Congress used its authority to force the major television networks to explain at a hearing their marketing of violence to children. Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Texas, chairman of the arts and entertainment caucus, says similar tactics could be used to have the networks explain why there are so few Latinos on TV shows." Nando Times 09/24/00

THE RATINGS GAME: The US Representative who would chair the House subcommittee on telecommunications if the Democrats win control of Congress this fall says he's in favor of regulating content of the entertainment industry. "I think there could be a very strong case made for a universal rating system for everything but television." Wired 09/22/00

SUITING UP: The first of what promises to be many lawsuits against the entertainment industry in the wake of the US's FTC report on violence and the entertainment industry was filed in Los Angeles by a group called Citizens for Fair Treatment.  "The complaint, which seeks class-action status, accuses the companies of deceptive, unfair and unlawful business practices." Inside.com 09/21/00

REGULATING ENTERTAINMENT: US Senate Commerce Committee passed a bill Wednesday that would ban "graphic bloodshed or gratuitous violence" on television during daylight hours. Other lawmakers expressed constitutional concerns about the measure. Orange County Register (AP) 09/21/00

ANTITRUST: Congress discusses giving the entertainment industry an antitrust exemption so the industry could get together to determine standards on violence. Entertainment industry isn't so sure it wants the exemption. Variety 09/21/00

GORE AND LIEBERMAN GO TO HOLLYWOOD: Speaking to a Hollywood audience, the candidates tried to be reassuring about their attacks on the entertainment industry. "The industry has entertained and inspired and educated us over the years. And it's true from time to time we will have been, will be, critics, or noodges, but I promise you this: We will never never put the government in the position of telling you by law, through law, what to make." New York Times 09/20/00 (one-time registration required for entry)

CRITICAL MOTIVES: Joe Lieberman's "crusade against the entertainment industry has presented an otherwise boisterous campaign with a sometimes tense and sober balancing act. Is it brazen hypocrisy? Or is Lieberman simply not afraid to scold his wealthy Democratic friends when he disagrees with them even as he takes their contributions?" Los Angeles Times 09/20/00

CHENEY AND THE CULTURE WARS: If George W Bush goes to the White House, Lynne Cheney may well lead a revival of those eighties culture wars. The former head of the National Endowment for the Humanities has been an arch foe of the agency she formerly headed, and she's being touted for a cabinet position if Bush wins. The Nation 10/02/00

WARY OF CENSORSHIP: US Senator John McCain is leading hearings on violence in entertainment.  But he disagrees with presidential candidate Al Gore on regulating the entertainment industry. "Before we embark on censorship we'd better make very sure where this all leads." Nando Times (AP) 09/17/00

HOLLYWOOD ATTACKS CONGRESS: Studio heads might not have wanted to talk to Congress about violence and the entertainment industry last week, but those who actually make the movies weren't shy about expressing themselves:  "In all honesty, I think what they're doing is reprehensible. What they should be doing is focusing on why there is less of a family structure in America today. Instead, they attack us. These guys attack the easy issue because the hard issue doesn't make for such big headlines for them." The New York Times 09/18/00 (one-time registration required for entry)

DATA DOESN'T SUPPORT PREMISE: "While there's no question that popular culture has been getting increasingly violent and lurid with every passing year, consider this: According to the most recent National Crime Victimization Survey, violent crime - including violent crime committed by juveniles - is now at its lowest point since the federal government started tracking such trends in 1973." Reason 09/15/00

NEED TO DO SOMETHING: "When four prominent national health organizations banded together recently to condemn the "measurable and long-lasting" effects of media violence on children, which they found can "lead to emotional desensitization toward violence in real life," and when a Federal Trade Commission report about how that material is marketed to children leads to Senate hearings that call Hollywood bigwigs to the carpet, something is clearly wrong." Los Angeles Times 09/18/00

CHASING BETTER RATINGS: Eight prominent Hollywood directors advocate scrapping the current movie ratings system, saying that it is unworkable. In its place, they propose a ratings system that would apply to all popular culture. Washington Post 09/15/00 

ON THE ATTACK: A long parade of lawmakers testified before the Senate Commerce Committee Wednesday in response to this week’s FTC report attacking Hollywood’s marketing violent content to children. VP nominee Joseph Lieberman decried a “culture of carnage” and urged the industry to self-regulate itself, or face government intervention. CNN 09/13/00

BUT WHAT IF YOU HELD A HEARING AND NOBODY CAME? Not one of the film industry executives invited to participate in Wednesday’s hearing showed up. John McCain was livid, demanding the absentees (including Michael Eisner, Rupert Murdoch, and Harvey Weinstein) show up for a follow-up hearing in two weeks. Salon 09/14/00

NO, YOU'RE RUDE: Hollywood execs, meanwhile, said that Senator McCain "showed his absence of manners by inviting them Friday night to show up on short notice without ever having had time to study the report. A spokesman for one of the studios, in fact, said no invitation to appear was ever received." Variety 09/14/00

FTC TAKES AIM AT ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY: "This Big Tobacco-type drubbing comes from the Clinton-Gore administration just 28 days - long enough for the checks to clear? - after the same entertainment industry whooped the city of Los Angeles into one, huge week-long fund-raising party for Hillary Clinton, Al Gore and the Democratic Party." Inside.com 09/11/00

• NEXT UP - CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS: "Wednesday, Lynne Cheney, wife of GOP vice presidential nominee Dick Cheney and a longtime leading figure in the culture wars, will be called to testify. And she is only the latest high-profile figure from both parties eager to take part in what is shaping up to be such a congressional gangbang that representatives from the entertainment industry have decided to pull out of the hearings." Salon 09/12/00

LIKELY OUTCOMES: Expect protests from the entertainment industry and a lot of grandstanding from politicians, but don't expect any legislation. The entertainment industry will remain self-regulated, but it will be encouraged to get a lot better at that self-regulation. If it doesn't, it will face a full-on assault, much like the tobacco industry has faced in the last several years. Inside.com 09/11/00

REALPOLITIKS: Al Gore and Joe Lieberman issue an ultimatum to the entertainment industry: "Mr. Gore said he would give industry officials six months to 'clean up their act.' If they do not, and if he and Mr. Lieberman win the November election, the vice president said he would encourage the Federal Trade Commission to move against the industry by using its power to prohibit false and deceptive advertising." New York Times 09/11/00 (one-time registration required for entry)

HOLLYWOOD PONDERS DAMNING REPORT: Hollywood was busy digesting Monday's report by the US Federal Trade Commission on violence which concluded that "the movie, music and video game industries undermined their own rating systems by advertising to audiences for which the content is deemed inappropriate." Variety 09/12/00

DOWNLOADING DONS: Attorney General Janet Reno said Tuesday that organized crime's intellectual property infringement should be prosecuted as vigorously as other serious crimes like drug trafficking and money laundering. Recent busts (like last week’s in New York in which 35,000 counterfeit CDs were seized) have shown organized crime’s turn from drugs to software for profits. Wired 09/12/00

BIG RETAILERS TO POLICE ENTERTAINMENT CONTENT: This week Congress is due to release a report on violence and the entertainment industry and accompany the report's release with hearings. In advance, retailers are clamping down. "Kmart said Thursday that it will refuse sale of mature-rated games to anyone under age 17, using a bar-code scanner that will prompt cashiers to ask for identification from young people. After Kmart's news conference in Washington, Wal-Mart said it will enact the same policy, and in a letter last month, Toys R Us officials said the practice is in place at their stores." Chicago Sun-Times 09/10/00

MORALITY R US: The US Senate is holding hearings next week on violence in the entertainment industry. The buzz is about what Hollywood film executives might be hauled in to testify. Inside.com 09/07/00

FOLLOW THE MONEY: The entertainment industry is pumping big money into politics. "The Democrats have collected $5.8 million from the television, movie, and music industries, ranking it fourth on the campaign donation list. That figure outpaces the Republicans by $2.1 million, which ranks the entertainment industry eleventh." The money figures to influence policies on recording, intellectual property and content regulation. Wired 09/06/00

LIEBERMAN TO TESTIFY: US vice-presidential candidate Joe Lieberman will testify as early as Sept. 13 about a Federal Trade Commission report that reportedly claims "that film, record and video game producers are pushing their wares on children while pretending not to." The Gore campaign is unfazed: "I think he's brought to the ticket some real credibility on this issue. And it's an issue that's real important to people, especially to families. And where you find this level of concern is with working families - families where both parents are working, and the kids have a lot of time on their own where they're unsupervised." Salon 08/29/00

THE SENATOR AND ART: US VP-candidate Joe Lieberman's criticism of popular culture has free-speech advocates worried. But he's also a supporter of government funding for the arts.  "To have strict restrictions, having the government being judge and jury of what's acceptable art, (Lieberman) doesn't believe that's an appropriate role for government.'' Boston Herald 08/28/00

WHICH WAY TO THE CULTURE WAR? Attacking culture is usually good for a few votes. But so far the candidates in this year's US elections have been generally quiet. "Sen. Joseph Lieberman's selection as Al Gore's running mate prompted a flurry of Hollywood hand-wringing, but so far the vice presidential nominee has spent more time attacking George W. Bush's tax-cut plan than the way women are tortured in 'The Cell'." Los Angeles Times 08/28/00

THE POLITICS OF MONUMENTS: "For reasons no one has satisfactorily explained, a few well-placed, influential men - apparently chief among them J. Carter Brown, chairman of the Commission of Fine Arts, and Bob Dole, former senator and Republican presidential nominee, now national campaign chairman of the World War II Memorial - are hellbent not merely on building a memorial but on building one of surpassing ugliness and placing it right in the heart of the National Mall." Washington Post 08/28/00

SUIT OVER ARTS FUNDING: "The Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, founded in 1988 to support illegal aliens and homosexuals, established an arts program in 1990. It is suing the city because it claims the city council's decision in 1997 to eliminate taxpayer funding for its arts program was political." Newsmax.com 08/23/00

WAR'S A WAR... They don't have Communists, and the drug war has gotten old. What's the next "great" issue? "With three major combatants in the nation's culture wars closely tied to the race, the assault on sex, violence, and sensationalism in the entertainment industry is now very much a bipartisan venture. 'These censorship crusades are quite cyclical. There may be some differences ideologically in terms of what Lynne Cheney would want to censor and what Al and Tipper Gore want to censor. But I'm not aware of any significant differences'.'' Boston Globe 08/20/00

CULTURE WARS, ROUND II: "Around the country, think tanks, foundations, academics and researchers are drawing up a wide range of empirical evidence designed to defend and define the civic role of culture in America. And by culture they don't just mean art in a museum or music in an orchestra hall. Culture, they say, includes everything from fine art to movies and pop music, parks, historic monuments and architecture - the essential fabric of our lives. And, they say, government needs to pay fresh attention. Witness the birth of the cultural policy movement." Los Angeles Times 08/18/00

LIEBERMAN VS THE ARTS: "None of us wants to resort to regulation. But if the entertainment industry continues to move in this direction, and continues to market death and degradation to our children, and continues to pay no heed to the real bloodshed staining our communities, then the government will act." The government will act: To many people, even those who agree that the contemporary entertainment world is objectionably coarse and crude, those words are almost as menacing as the tip of a bayonet in the small of the back. Chicago Tribune 08/18/00

THE WHO'S TO BLAME GAME: Joe Lieberman gave his speech to the Democratic Party convention Wednesday and didn't slam Hollywood. But he sent pal William Bennett to speak on a panel in his place across town. Bennett decried the "morass of sex and vulgarity promoted by Hollywood" and "reiterated that the entertainment industry is responsible for 'the degradation of our culture' and that movies, TV and music have led to 'a debasement of the moral environment'." Variety 08/17/00

PLAYING TO THE RIGHT? A longtime critic of the entertainment industry, U.S. Democratic vice presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman on Sunday accused Hollywood of corrupting the nation's children and the culture at large. He singled out Walt Disney Co. as particularly lax morally and warned that Washington could impose “legal restrictions” if the industry doesn’t impose some of its own. “Look, I love the movies. I love music, but there is still too much violence, too much sex, too much incivility in entertainment.” Yahoo! News (Reuters) 08/13/00 

AND BURNING BRIDGES?  “Two days after Al Gore's Lieberman announcement, a lot of people in [Hollywood] were absolutely reeling. Was Joe Lieberman one of ours or was he not? Is a milestone civil rights breakthrough worth the price of a Silver Sewer award?” Salon 08/14/00

EASY TARGETS: "There are three people truly disliked by Hollywood. John McCain, conservative moralist William Bennett and Joe Lieberman. That's because each has sought the spotlight to further his own career by picking on an easy target — the pop culture spewed out by television, movies, music and video games. Most of the culture-war cackling from these three heats up during an election year. It's a no-brainer for politicians: TV equals filth. We need guidelines — like ratings, a V-chip and content concessions from Hollywood producers. That Lieberman is now in the running to become vice president is not good for those who oppose censorship." San Francisco Examiner 09/10/00

CULTURAL CRUSADER: On Tuesday US VP-candidate Joe Lieberman, "a culture warrior considered one of the moral voices of the Senate, promised supporters that the Democratic Gore/Lieberman ticket would help parents 'raise PG kids in an X-rated society.' He praised Vice President Gore's wife, Tipper, for having had the courage to speak out against certain music lyrics, a move for which she was widely blasted in the 1980s." Washington Post 08/09/00

A TV CRITIC: "Lieberman, like a lot of us who actually watch the TV we rip, wants content changes. But when the government threatens to get involved in that sort of thing, it smacks of demagoguery. No matter. TV critic Lieberman is always good for an opinion." Chicago Sun-Times 08/09/00

THE LIEBERMAN FACTOR: US VP-candidate Joe Lieberman has been tough on the entertainment industry. How tough?  "He told Daily Variety last year that shows like 'Friends' should be relegated to late night because of their raciness. Variety 08/08/00

CONSCIENCE OF THE NATION? Hollywood is pondering the possibility of Joe Lieberman becoming vice-president of the US. "Lieberman is widely regarded as 'the moral conscience' of the Senate and has continually blasted TV, movies and the recording industry for featuring too much sex and violence." New York Post 08/08/00

CULTURAL ASSET? Dick Cheney is George Bush's running mate, but of interest to cultural people is his wife Lynne, who was chairperson of the National Endowment for the Humanities in George Sr's administration. When she left NEH, though, she attacked it. Cheney appeared on ABC's 'This Week' last Sunday, "and told interviewer Cokie Roberts that she had tried to eliminate the agency because 'the Endowment, under the Clinton administration, evolved into something outrageous,' and that 'it was such a misuse of taxpayer money.' " Backstage 08/04/00

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