News : Master P Replaces Bill Clinton As NAACP Youth Speaker

News : Master P Replaces Bill Clinton As NAACP Youth Speaker

Obama: "I Have some Jay-Z and Beyonce on My iPod"

Obama: "I Have some Jay-Z and Beyonce on My iPod"

President Bush Celebrates Black Music Month at the White House The East Room with Bob Johnson & Kevin Liles

3:04 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Please be seated. Thank you. Rachel, thank you. Thanks for coming. Thanks for the introduction, and thanks for representing the United States. Proud to have you here.
I want to welcome you all right here to the people's house. I'm pleased you could join us for this annual celebration of Black Music Month. This is an event I've always looked forward to. It's a chance to listen to some good music -- (laughter) -- and to be with some good friends. It's an opportunity for us to thank artists whose work inspire our country. And so thanks for coming. I hope you enjoy the day as much as I do.
I appreciate the fact that Alphonso is with us, Alphonso Jackson and Marcia. He's the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Dr. Dorothy Height is with us. I'm proud you're here, Dr. Height. Thanks for joining us. (Applause.) My friend, Bob Johnson has joined us. He knows a little something about black entertainment. (Laughter.) Thanks for coming. (Applause.) Roslyn Brock, Vice Chairman of the NAACP -- I'm proud you're here, Roslyn. Thank you for coming, thank you for joining us. Dyana Williams, President of the International Association of African American Music Foundation -- she knows something about music. (Laughter.) I appreciate Kevin Liles, Executive Vice President of the Warner Music Company. Thank you for coming. And Jonathan Platt, Senior Vice President of EMI Music Publishing and Virgin Records. Appreciate you all being here. Thanks for coming. (Applause.)
Most of all, thank you all. Thanks for taking time out of your day to come. One of the best things about living here is that some of the best musicians come to play. It's amazing what kind of talent you can draw here at the White House. (Laughter.) And over the years American Presidents have seen some fantastic African American musicians here on the White House stage. President Chester Arthur -- you might remember Chester -- (laughter) -- he welcomed the first black choir to perform at the White House, the Jubilee Singers from Fisk University. President Benjamin Harrison hosted one of the first black soloists to play at the White House, Sissieretta Jones, who was the daughter of a slave.
President William Howard Taft invited Joseph Douglass -- grandson of Frederick Douglass -- to perform here. Franklin Roosevelt hosted the great Marian Anderson, when she performed "Ave Maria" for the King and Queen of England. President Ronald Reagan hosted Mikhail Gorbachev, and invited the legendary Pearl Bailey to entertain. And when he introduced her, he just simply said -- simply, "our Pearl" -- welcome "our Pearl." (Laughter.) I hope the translator got that right. (Laughter.)
And Laura and I had some incredible entertainers and Americans sing for us and our friends. We've had Eartha Kitt, Patti Austin, B.B. King, Irwin Mayfield, Aaron Neville, just to give you a taste of what happens here at the White House. Each of the performers has inspired people across the world with their talents, and each performer has brought great pride to the United States. It's really a great country that can produce a diverse group of musicians that can serve as ambassadors about what's right about America.
And we're proud to welcome some new musicians here to the White House today. We're just keeping in a long trend of Presidents who have welcomed some of our great musicians here to the White House. So as we honor Black Music Month, it makes sense to bring some talent here to entertain us.
Karina Pasian grew up in New York City. She's the child of immigrants from the Dominican Republic. Her parents are both teachers in the New York Public School System, and early on it became clear that Karina had an incredible gift for music. At age 3 -- that's the definition of "early on" -- (laughter) -- she was singing and studying piano. By age 12 she was performing at the Coliseum in Rome before a television audience of more than a half-million people, alongside Alicia Keys and Stevie Wonder, and Andrea Bocelli. Today she's 15 years old. She's already recorded her first album. And despite of her young age, she tackles very mature issues with her music. She sings about hunger and disease in Africa, and the genocide in Darfur.
We appreciate that clarity, appreciate her bringing these issues to focus, to help more people understand that the world had got to do something about it -- now, before it's too late. I will tell you America is in the lead when it comes to HIV/AIDS on the continent of Africa, we're on the lead when it comes to feeding the hungry, we're on the lead when it comes to eradicating malaria. And that's where we need to be, and that's where we will stay. And I appreciate very much Karina bringing this issue to focus. We're proud that you're here, and we're proud that you brought your big heart to this stage.
We're also going to welcome KEM Owens, who learned to love music growing up in Detroit listening to R&B greats. He listened to them on his mom and dad's radio. He taught himself to play piano at the home of his Baptist minister grandfather. But as a teenager, this good man lost his way. He became addicted to drugs and alcohol, and eventually he became homeless. Today he finds a home, a warm home to welcome him. He was sleeping on the ground near a building on the Detroit River, and he said this: God found him, and inspired him to set his life straight. With the help of the Almighty, he overcame his addictions, and he rediscovered his passion for music. In 2001, he used a credit card to finance the production of an independent CD he called "KEMistry". Get it, KEM Owens? (Laughter.) KEMistry? (Laughter.)
The disc sold 10,000 copies in five months. It caught the attention of music executives in New York who signed KEM to a major label deal. He has gone on to become one of America's most popular R&B singers. But he knows the audience he's truly playing for. He says, "I want my life to be one that God will be pleased with. I'm by no means a saint." I know what you're saying, KEM. (Laughter and applause.) But he went on to say, "My eye is on the prize; He's not done with me yet." We're proud to welcome such a man to the White House today.
And finally, Tourie and Damien Escobar discovered their love for the violin in the 3rd grade, and soon found themselves studying classical music at New York's finest conservatories. But they grew up in a tough neighborhood, and soon Tourie and Damien had drooped their music, dropped out of school, and fallen in with a bad crowd. Yet their mother and aunt never gave up hope. And with their encouragement and prayers, these two brothers returned to the music they loved. They formed a group called "Nuttin' But Stringz" -- performing a new music fusion that bridges classical, R&B and rap. I'm looking forward to it. (Laughter.)
They started by playing on subways, and went on to win amateur music contests at the Apollo Theater. And last month they released their first album. Here's what Tourie says: "The passion for music and the violin saved my life." And today that passion has brought these talented musicians right here to the White House.
All these artists represent the best of our country. They represent hope and hard work. We're looking forward to hearing them perform. They're going to be in a long list of performers who have come here to be able to entertain the country; to lend their musical talents to this, the people's house. I appreciate them coming to help us celebrate Black Music Month. I appreciate you all joining to help celebrate Black Music Month.
May God bless you, and may God continue to bless our country. (Applause.)

JAY gets the Cover of Vanity Fair in July

Rapper Jay-Z has landed one of 20 covers of the upcoming July issue of Vanity Fair, which is guest edited by U2 front man Bono. Vanity Fair's unprecedented 20-cover issue focuses on the plight of the continent Africa. Muhammad Ali, Oprah Winfrey, Madonna, Warren Buffett, George W. Bush, Don Cheadle, George Clooney, Bill and Melinda Gates and others are featured on covers as well. The Vanity Fair covers were shot by Annie Leibovitz, who flew around the world to shoot the various celebrities and politicians who have championed various causes in Africa. Jay-Z toured Africa last year to help bring attention to the world's water crisis. The tour produced the documentary film The Diary of Jay-Z : Water for Life, which aired worldwide on MTV. "In my business, we like to say we're from the hood, we're not in the hood. By no means. Not even close," Jay-Z said upon his return. The Africa issue of Vanity Fair also features the debut of a new print advertising campaign for Russell and Kimora Lee Simmons' non-profit Diamond Empowerment Fund (D.E.F.). The advertisement features Kimora naked from the waist up in shadow except for her arms, which are draped in Green Bracelets. The Green Bracelet initiative is part of the Diamond Empowerment Fund's goal to raise money for educational programs to uplift the people and communities of Africa. Half of the proceeds of all sales from the Green Bracelet will go to the Diamond Empowerment Fund to support educational programs in Africa. Vanity Fair will donate $5 to the Global Fund To Fight AIDS for every subscription that is bought online during the month of June.

Hip-Hop Guru

Interview By DEBORAH SOLOMON
Published: April 29, 2007
As the co-founder of Def Jam Recordings and the so-called C.E.O. of hip-hop, do you think the outrage over Don Imus’s prickly language and his firing might broaden into a crusade against song lyrics? It already has broadened to lyrics. It’s been that way since 1983. They’ve been yelling at me from Run-D.M.C. and the Beastie Boys till now.
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Christian Oth

What do you make of Barack Obama, who recently said that rap musicians should reform their lyrics? What we need to reform is the conditions that create these lyrics. Obama needs to reform the conditions of poverty. I wish he really did raise his money on the Internet, like he said. I wish he really did raise his money independently.
What are you saying? I think about one-fourth of his campaign contributions came from small donations made over the Internet, even though he collected more than any other Democratic candidate from Wall Street people. So at the end of the day, he’s controlled, too. That’s my point. He’s a mouse, too, like everybody else.
Are there any presidential candidates who inspire you? I talk to John Edwards more than I talk to anyone. He has said more things about the conditions we need to think about. He went to yoga with me. He did the whole class, an hour and a half. He sweated like crazy. He’s in good shape, but it was hard on him.
You write extensively about your devotion to yoga in your new self-help book, “Do You!” Is the title your own coinage? No. It’s an old hip-hop expression: “Do you!” It’s just something we say all the time. It means do what you want to do. Do what inspires you. Don’t be a sheep. Keep it real. The book was originally called “Russell Simmons’ Laws of Success.”
Really? That’s pretty generic. Oprah renamed the book. It was like God calling. She gave me a better title.
Your book basically advocates for old-fashioned American values — i.e., work hard, don’t give up. The book doesn’t say just work hard. It says meditate. That’s the most important thing in the book. I go to yoga every day. I meditate every morning. Do you meditate?
I prefer reading in bed. That for me is meditation. No it’s not. It’s noise. It’s the opposite. To be awake is to be fully present, no noise, just you and God. Most of us only have seconds of full consciousness. To live in a state of samadhi — that’s what we’re here for.
Why did you, a self-proclaimed seeker of spiritual truths, ask Donald Trump, of all people, to write the foreword to the book? I think it’s all God. I say that all day long. The real process is doing you and having a truth that you live up to. Donald is different than a lot of other very rich people. He has a good time. He is always laughing. He’s into doing him.
In the years since you sold your stake in Def Jam, you’ve gone into the fashion business and developed clothing lines like Phat Farm and Baby Phat. Do you still run them with your wife, Kimora Lee? We’re separated. She works upstairs. People do think it’s inspiring the way we handle our partnership.
You’re known for dating models. What do they offer besides flawless skin? They’re better than actresses. Actresses are kind of a little crazy.
There are other women besides models and actresses. Why don’t you try dating, say, a professor the next time around? A professor? I can barely read.
Are you dyslexic? No. I can read. But I can’t understand anything. I just read “The Autobiography of a Yogi,” by Paramahansa Yogananda, over and over again.
Do you see a therapist? Why? You think I’m crazy?
No, but you seem to have a heightened need for stimulation. Unfortunately, I do. My nickname is Rush, but I practice yoga every day so I can rush less.
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SORRY PART 2- THE RUSSELL EDITION

! I admit, I was infuriated over the comments Russ said about my presidential nominee Barack Obama. Anyway, in a statement, Russell recanted those notions of ¡§the mouse¡¨ called Barack and clarified. Read the statement his publicist hit m with: "A recent comment I made about Dennis Kucinich was taken out of context. I stated that I would like to hear more from Dennis Kucinich in the debate because I believe he has very relevant, important and useful ideas to add to a discussion. When I appeared on "The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch" on April 25, I was asked about the Democratic Primaries and I said that I had not yet picked a candidate. Donny then asked if a change had to be made right now, what would it be. At that point I said I would put Dennis Kucinich in office. I believe that all of the democratic candidates have good qualities and any one of them has the ability to start a process of changing our relationship with the world and improving the lives of the poor in this country. When I am ready to officially support one of the candidates, I will put out an official statement. I'd also like to clarify the part of the interview in the NY Times magazine, where I referred to Senator Barack Obama as a 'mouse,' as it has been take out of context in reports in the media. And, I'd like to publicly apologize to Senator Obama for any hurt it has caused. There has, i believe, been more made of my statement that "all of the Democratic candidates are controlled" than i would have expected. The full statement, i believe, was clear in its intention. The statement in its proper context was meant to make a point about all of the candidates and American politics, in general. In the future, i will be more careful in how i express my views. For the record, I believe Senator Obama is a strong, solid candidate and I wish him the best in his run for the Presidency.

Notes on the "Decency March"By NYOIL

Rapper NYOIL has issued a response to Reverend Al Sharpton's March for Decency, a protest of raunchy, sexist and violent Hip-Hop lyrics. The march for decency? I'll keep this direct and to the point. I am a firm believer in involving myself with community action, social movements, and the political process. As a father, a man and a concerned citizen, I'm not into the idea of just allowing people to dictate where my life goes or allowing them to alter the things that impact my life. They cannot just tell me how the things that I find personally valuable shall be allocated and resourced. Hence when my dude NES (Petroleum Empire Music Group: Promotions VP) called me and told me that Al Sharpton was organizing a "Decency March," I was compelled to get involved. Now I am in a conflicted position for a variety of reasons that I am sure many of you may share. First, I am an adult and, as a parent, I agree wholeheartedly that the language and images portrayed in Hip-Hop today are damaging and destructive to the minds of our children. I bare witness to this everyday in my hometown of Staten Island, NY, where I watch kids emulate lifestyles they aren't even living - until they are truly living that lifestyle. They invariably find themselves trapped in situations that they are ill-equipped to escape. Secondly, as an MC and a devout Hip Hopper who loves the complete culture and this lifestyle. I am concerned because I can see a "lowering of the Boom " on Hip-Hop as it is being made the scapegoat for mass media's systematic corruption of our nation and people in the international community. It is being used to cloak the nefarious deeds of corporate entertainment companies and corporate radio. All the while focusing on the bad elements and further promoting them and their presence while totally ignoring artist such as an NYOIL, Wise intelligent, Immortal Technique, Little Brother, Uno the Prophet, Dead Prez, and so on. Artist that make the sort of music that these demagogues seem to be screeching for. Finally, as an American and a concerned citizen who has a great deal of respect and understanding of the items contained in the Constitution. It feels like these movements to ban words and censor artist is a cloaked veil hiding a larger agenda to co-opt our freedom of speech. Granted in insuring our freedom of speech there is a great deal of speech that is respectfully unworthy of protection, and even if 99% of free speech is useless filth, it is for that 1% that challenges the ideas and percepts of this country and this society and in the end create the dialogue that initiates a better world for us that this right has to be protected tooth and nail. Now this is my internal paradigm which doesn't include my personal distrust of so called Black leaders like Rev. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson who at this stage in their Civil Rights careers appear to be more media whores than fighters for equality and justice for all people. So here I am at this March for Decency, looking around for Hip Hop somewhere in here and all I could find was Kurtis Blow. (LOL) Kurtis Blow was the only Rapper besides myself that was there which was unreal to me. Where was Hip-Hop at??? Why weren't we there making our collective voices heard. Many of us are established men and women with families and careers and in some cases political and corporate influence. Hip Hoppers span a wide demographic now. We are at the minimum between the ages of 10 to 50. No one was out there to support our culture except Kurtis Blow and me? I guess these are the breaks. This was disheartening because when we speak about Hip-Hop, it is less a culture we are speaking about in some instances but a time span that we have had the opportunity to live in. Even if you never tried to break dance or write graffiti you and your life and the people around you have been greatly influence by this music and culture. It has shaped your means of communication, your fashion, and in some cases your very values systems. So it is sad that we could not be bothered to represent ourselves and our interest. I am also looking at who exactly was organizing this march. And to be honest, it was pitiful. It was a throng of upwards of 300 people who were the most clearly out of touch individuals on the planet. The type of people who go outside and yell at the unruly kids on the block while their son is smoking crack behind the building and their daughter is the neighborhood whore. A group of people more interested in controlling people than understanding them. When are we going to retire these so called Black leaders? These leaders that lead us further into embarrassment. These leaders that are still trying to use outdated and ineffective Civil Rights techniques in this day and age. Who pragmatically clutch to the "old ways " and old glory refusing to acknowledge much less uplift new leaders and new guards for our and their futures. I mean think about it... they do it in sports it is called recruiting, they go out and find athletes that they believe can further a great sports program. In the corporate world they find a young executive and develop this protege to be able to continue the vision of the company and lead it into the future with an influx of new ideas and an understand of the future. I could cite this in almost any institution that involves a hierarchy of men and women grouped to accomplish a goal of some sort. But not so for the Black community. Our leaders remain the same leaders from 1960 in 2007. It is laughable. And finally I am looking at who they were marching against. What is the point of marching from record label to record label? Especially after you (Reverend Al Sharpton) promoted this march on HOT 97... on the Miss Jones in the morning show... what an irony. Rev. Al promoted a decency march on Miss Jones' morning radio show. Then he went on the Ed Lover show on Power 105.1 Never once did he hold them, their shows, their stations, program directors accountable for playing this filth. At some point DJ Scratch of EPMD fame called the station (power 105.1) and insinuated that the radio should be accountable too. Ed Lover retorted, "Oh it's our fault now? " Oprah Winfrey had the gall to have a two-day discussion based on this issue. But lest we forget that Oprah has the unique ability to be able to place anyone on her show to promote a product Idea or book and that person will achieve great success. In fact she had a straight liar on her show who promoted a book full of lies about his drug addicted life. He made it to the best sellers list as a result of his Oprah appearance. Why couldn't she just as soon highlight Hip-Hop artist that are making music that respects women and the culture? Imagine what these record labels would do if they knew that if they had a positive artist that he might get a shot at some Oprah time? An artist that could sell to an Oprah crowd...think about it. Imagine instead of marching and wasting valuable action initiative energy think if Al Sharpton mobilized his following to go out to retail stores and purchase a CD from a list of positive artist. He would have been more effective that any of this marching will ever be. Seeing as how in this day Hip Hoppers like to identify to the criminal element.. let me break it down in that language.. Hip Hoppers, teens, Black men, you're being played as a "patsy." That means you are getting framed to take the fall for something someone else said or did. There is a 300lb Gorilla in the room drinking tea and crumpets pointing the finger at a little black boy for taking up all the space in the room. A very interesting and scary time is upon us. We need to get our head on a swivel and start looking at what is going on around us. I suggest that some of us start playing chess so we can start seeing a few moves ahead. There is a big joke being told and we look to be on the business end of its punch line. We'd better wake up fast and get mobilized and start speaking up. Lest we leave our future in the hands of Rev. Al Sharpton and the like. Hip-Hop, stand up or just sit down and shut up. My name is NYOIL And I approve this message

HSAN Issues Statement Calling For Removal of Derogatory WordsBy Alexis JeffriesDate:

4/23/2007 4:30 pm By Alexis Jeffries

The Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, headed by Russell Simmons and Dr. Benjamin Chavis, issued a statement today (Apr. 23) calling for the recording industry's removal of the words "b**ch," "ho" and "n***er" in all of its future recordings. The statement contains recommendations after Simmons hosted a closed door meeting with various record label executives last week. "We recommend that the recording and broadcast industries voluntarily remove/bleep/delete the misogynistic words 'bitch' and 'ho' and the racially offensive word 'n***er.'," Simmons and Chavis said in a joint statement. The statement requests that the three words should be considered with the same objections to obscenity as "extreme curse words." Simmons and Chavis said "the words are reminders of the misogyny that "African American women have experienced in the United States as part of the history of oppression, inequality, and suffering of women." "The word 'n***er' is a racially derogatory term that disrespects the pain, suffering, history of racial oppression, and multiple forms of racism against African Americans and other people of color," the statement read. HSAN is also calling for the formation of a new body called the Coalition on Broadcast Standards, which will consist of leading executives from music, radio and television industries. The Coalition, the statement says, would be responsible for recommending guidelines for lyrical and visual standards within the recording and media industries. Additionally, HSAN is calling for the creation of an artist mentoring program and forum to be established, designed to promote dialogue between fans and artists in order to work for positive change in the Hip-Hop industry. "Hip-Hop is a worldwide cultural phenomena that transcends race and doesn't engage in racial slurs. Don Imus' racially-motivated diatribe toward the Rutger's women's basketball team was in no way connected to Hip-Hop culture. As Chairman and President of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN), respectively, we are concerned by the false comparisons some in the media are making between Don Imus and Hip-Hop. We want to clarify what we feel very strongly is an obvious difference between the two." Founded in 2001, the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN) is a non-profit national coalition of Hip-Hop artists, entertainment industry leaders, education advocates, civil rights proponents, and youth leaders. The organization was created to harness Hip-Hop music for the purposes of educational advocacy and youth empowerment.

Al Sharpton Plans Next Move Against Rap, Obama: 'Let's Not Single Out The Rappers'By Nolan

StrongDate: 4/23/2007 8:00 am
The Rev. Al Sharpton announced the next steps in his battle against rap music and will take his fight into various corporations' boardrooms, by buying stock in companies that promote the music.
Sharpton and his National Action Network are planning on purchasing stock in various companies, including Time Warner and Universal Music Group, and will then use his right to attend shareholder meetings, where he will voice his opinion on lyrics deemed raunchy and sexist.
"Some of these stockholders have no idea that they own stock in a parent company that owns companies calling them b**ches and ho's," Sharpton told The New York Post.
The tactic is the same strategy that C. Delores Tucker used in 1995.
Tucker was an outspoken criticism of "gangsta rap."
She bought stock in Time Warner and attended shareholder meetings, where she read the lyrics to various albums marketed and sold by Interscope, which was eventually dropped from Time Warner's distribution system, because of releases by Death Row Records.
Sharpton will also lead a group of women who will boycott the offices of Sony, Time Warner and Universal Music Group.
The announcement was made during the National Action Network's four-day conference, which took place from Apr. 18-21.
Various politicians supported the conference, including Senators John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean (DNC), NBC Nightly News Anchor Brian Williams, Governor Eliot Spitzer, filmmaker Spike Lee, Governor Bill Richardson, Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly and Presidential hopeful Barack Obama, who addressed the current fervor around Hip-Hop music.
"We are all complicit...let's not just single out the rappers," Obama said, noting that he had heard offensive words in many places other than rap songs.
Universal Music Group withdrew it's $15,000 contribution to Sharpton's National Action Network, after Sharpton decided it was inappropriate to honor Universal Music Group executive and Island Def Jam CEO, Antonio "L.A." Reid.
Sharpton, who had planned on honoring Reid with the James Brown Freedom Award prior to the Don Imus controversy, changed his mind and felt it was inappropriate to bestow the award upon Reid.
Congressman Charles Rangel, who recently introduced a bill in Congress to reinstate the military draft, is also among Sharpton's supporters.
"I heard that someone in the music industry threatened to take back $15,000 they'd paid for a table at this convention," told The New York Post. "I said to Al, 'You'll have $15,000 from me tomorrow

Group Aims To Ban Three Derogatory Words From Rap Songs, Airwaves

April 23, 2007Don Imus was fired for using language that was considered racially insensitive. But in the wake of that incident, many say rap and hip-hop artists need to reconsider the language they use in their lyrics. NY1 Bronx reporter Dean Meminger has more on one group that's focusing on three words in particular. Dr. Ben Chavis of the hip hop summit action network says enough already, he says it's time for the music industry to clean up rap lyrics. "We are recommending that three words: bitch, ho, and nigger be removed, deleted or bleeped from the airwaves,” said Chavis. Chavis along with hip hop mogul Russel Simmons who is the co-founder of the hip hop summit sent the recommendations to the heads of major record labels, video channels and radio stations. They say songs like 99 problems by Jay-Z are prime examples: "I got 99 problems, but a bitch ain't one." Even before receiving the recommendations, the CEOs and presidents of numerous media companies had already met with Chavis to discuss this issue. But members of the NAACP's youth and college division say recommendations aren't good enough, they want strict guidelines. "We are going to lay down the law and push these record labels and corporations to hold their artists and themselves accountable for what they are putting out into our community,” said Victoria Lanier of the NAACP Youth and College Division. Even when the words are hard for some to hear -- rap fans clearly pick them up. "I have seen young people in my neighborhood nine, 10 years old using words that at that age I had no idea what they meant,” said Michael Fleming of the NAACP Youth and College Division. Chavis says that's one of the major reasons for these recommendations. He says many rappers have young children, so he thinks the rappers themselves will understand the need for change. "The time has come for black people and other persons of color to speak out and stand up,” said Chavis. “We should not be silent in the face of derogatory language about our women and we should not be silent about the use of a term that speaks to the history of racial oppression, the n-word." The hip hop summit action network says artists still can make plenty of money without using these words. Chavis says he wants the industry to police itself, before the government steps in. But it may already be too late according to Congressman Charles Rangel: "What we will be doing is deciding the strategy and in all probability besides just the FCC, we will be going after sponsors,” said Rangel. That means going after the money that pays a lot of the record companies and their rappers. – Dean Meminger

REID OUT: Ludacris' record company wants $15,000 back from...

April 19, 2007 -- The Rev. Al Sharpton's annual convention hit a sour note yesterday after a major record company withdrew financial support for the gathering, sources told The Post.
Universal Music Group demanded that its $15,000 donation to Sharpton's event at the Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan be returned after the civil-rights leader nixed plans to give an award to L.A. Reid of Def Jam, a Universal label.
The Post reported yesterday that Sharpton "suspended" the planned James Brown award for Reid because he handles a stable of foul-mouthed singers, including the notorious Ludacris.
Sharpton believed the recognition would have been inappropriate and hypocritical in the wake of racially insensitive comments made by Don Imus.
Associates of Reid contacted Sharpton's organization, the National Action Network, to have their contribution returned - and quickly, sources said.
Also in protest, Def Jam founder Russell Simmons didn't buy an anticipated two tables to a dinner last night at the National Action Network confab, sources said. Tables are priced at $10,000 each.
Sharpton suggested the reason Simmons hadn't paid for the tables is that he is retaliating for the reverend's criticism of rap lyrics.
"Oh, you only bought tickets if he would agree with us on lyrics?" Sharpton said. "You weren't supporting the civil-rights cause, you weren't supporting the fight against police brutality? I've been against the lyrics all along."
Simmons denied that he didn't buy the tables and said he still planned to pay for them. "My credit with the rev is good," he said.
Earlier yesterday, Simmons' Hip-Hop Summit Action Network abruptly canceled a press conference at which the organization had planned to announce measures to deal with the use of racist and misogynist lyrics in rap and hip-hop music.
The group hosted a closed-door meeting with more than 20 record execs at the Upper East Side home of Warner Music head Lyor Cohen, as well as a later Midtown get-together, said a source familiar with the meetings.
The source said the group, which was making an "honest effort to look at the issue," scrapped the afternoon press conference so it would have more time to plan a major summit it hopes will address the issue.
At the National Action Network meeting, which kicked off yesterday and runs through Saturday, Sharpton said he didn't care if Universal and Simmons were yanking their financial backing.
The policy board of Sharpton's group yesterday voted to wage a campaign to clean up misogynistic rap lyrics.
A Universal Music Group spokesman said there are no hard feelings over Sharpton's withdrawing the award for Reid, and didn't ask for the return of its $15,000 donation.
"It's absolutely not true," said a Universal Music Group spokesman. "We didn't ask for it back."
Sharpton also announced that former President Bill Clinton will be a guest speaker at his group's conference today.
carl.campanile@nypost.com

Imus fallout: Music execs discuss rap lyrics

NEW YORK (AP) — In the wake of Don Imus' firing for his on-air slur about the Rutgers women's basketball team, a high-powered group of music-industry executives met privately Wednesday to discuss sexist and misogynistic rap lyrics.
During the furor that led to Imus' fall last week from his talk-radio perch, many of his critics carped as well about offensive language in rap music.
DISCUSS: Should the music industry regulate rap lyrics?
The meeting, called by hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons' Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, was held at the New York home of Lyor Cohen, chairman and chief executive of U.S. music at Warner Music Group. The summit, which lasted several hours, did not result in any specific initiative.
Organizers billed the gathering as a forum to "discuss issues challenging the industry in the wake of controversy surrounding hip-hop and the First Amendment." Afterward, they planned to hold a news conference at a Manhattan hotel to discuss "initiatives agreed upon at the meeting." But by early afternoon, the news conference was postponed, because the meeting was still going on.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Rutgers Sharpton Imus Imus in the Morning
After the meeting ended, it was unclear whether there would be another one. Simmons' publicist released a short statement that described the topic as a "complex issue that involves gender, race, culture and artistic expression. Everyone assembled today takes this issue very seriously."
Although no recommendations emerged, the gathering was significant for its who's-who list of powerful music executives.
According to a roster released by Simmons on Wednesday, attendees included: Kevin Liles, executive vice president, Warner Music; L.A. Reid, chairman of Island Def Jam Music Group; Sylvia Rhone, president of Motown Records and executive vice president of Universal Music Group; Mitch Bainwol, chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America; and Damon Dash, Jay-Z's former Roc-A-Fella Records partner. Top-selling rapper T.I. also attended, organizers said.
Simmons declined to comment through a spokeswoman. But he appeared this week with others at a two-day town hall meeting on The Oprah Winfrey Show to discuss the issue. While Simmons, Liles and the rapper Common agreed "there is a problem," Simmons cautioned against trying to limit rappers' free-speech rights.
He said that "poets" always come under fire for their unsanitized descriptions of the world.
"We're talking about a lot of these artists who come from the most extreme cases of poverty and ignorance ... And when they write a song, and they write it from their heart, and they're not educated, and they don't believe there's opportunity, they have a right, they have a right to say what's on their mind," he said.
"Whether it's our sexism, our racism, our homophobia or our violence, the hip-hop community sometimes can be a good mirror of our dirt and sometimes the dirt that we try to cover up," Simmons said. "Pointing at the conditions that create these words from the rappers ... should be our No. 1 concern."
Common said criticism of rappers and their music should come with love. "When I talk to the cats, regardless of rap, when I talk to cats on the street, they don't wanna be in that situation," the rapper said. "We don't wanna be in this painful situation. We want it to heal. And we are apologizing for ... the disrespect that does come from the mouths of men to women whatever color."
Meanwhile, the Rev. Al Sharpton, who said he planned to challenge the recording industry on denigrating lyrics, announced he had suspended plans to honor Def Jam's L.A. Reid during this week's convention of his National Action Network in New York. Sharpton was among Imus' most vocal critics and demanded his firing.
Several rappers under Reid's label frequently use racial and sexual epithets.
Imus was fired last week by CBS, which owned his radio show, and MSNBC, which produced the TV simulcast, for having referred to the Rutgers players as "nappy-headed hos."

PBS Announces Plans to Broadcast 2007 Presidential Forums Tavis Smiley to Moderate Conversations Between Journalists and Announced Candidates

Arlington, VA, February 8, 2007 – PBS announced today it will broadcast two live presidential forums in primetime with Tavis Smiley, host of TAVIS SMILEY, PBS’ late-night talk show, serving as moderator.
The Democratic presidential forum will be held Thursday, June 28, at 9 p.m. EST, at Howard University in Washington DC. The Republican presidential forum will be held Thursday, Sept. 27, at 9 p.m. EST, at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland.
The forums will include three journalists of color who will pose questions to the candidates. Additional details regarding the selection of the journalists and forums will be released at a later date.
“These forums reflect PBS’ commitment to informing the public on the key issues in the next presidential campaign, and we are especially delighted that Tavis Smiley, who is so knowledgeable on these topics, will serve as moderator,” said PBS president and chief executive officer Paula A. Kerger.
In addition to his PBS program, Smiley also hosts the “Tavis Smiley Show from PRI,” a two-hour news and opinion radio program featuring commentary and interviews.
Smiley, who conceived of the forums, said they are an outgrowth of last year’s New York Times best-seller, the Covenant with Black America. When the book was released in 2006, both the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee pledged that their respective presidential candidates would address the issues outlined in the book. Edited by Smiley, the book outlines 10 of the most pressing issues facing African Americans.
“While Iraq is clearly an important issue for all Americans, there are a number of domestic issues mentioned in my book that we’re all grappling with in this country, including education, healthcare, the economy – you name it. As moderator, I will insure that the forums address these issues,” says Smiley. “We live in the most multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic America ever, and the presidential campaign must respond to and reflect this reality from all perspectives.”
“Tavis Smiley asks the questions that other interviewers won’t,” says Al Jerome, president and chief executive officer of KCET, the presenting station for the forums. These conversations are sure to be lively as well as informative.”
About PBS
PBS is a media enterprise that serves 354 public noncommercial television stations and reaches almost 90 million people each week through on-air and online content. Bringing diverse viewpoints to television and the Internet, PBS provides high-quality documentary and dramatic entertainment, and consistently dominates the most prestigious award competitions. PBS is a leading provider of educational materials for K-12 teachers, and offers a broad array of other educational services. More information about PBS is available at pbs.org, one of the leading dot-org Web sites on the Internet.
About Tavis Smiley
Tavis Smiley is the host of TAVIS SMILEY on PBS and “The Tavis Smiley Show from PRI” and the author/editor of 11 books including the New York Times best-sellers Covenant with Black America and What I Know for Sure: My Story of Growing up in America. His latest book, THE COVENANT In Action is in stores now. For more information, visit www.tavistalks.com.
-PBS-
CONTACTS:
Laurel Lambert, KCET Los Angeles, Tel.: 323/953-5246, Fax: 323/662-2123; llambert@kcet.org
Carrie Johnson, PBS, Tel.: 703/739-5129; Fax: 703/739-5777; cjohnson@pbs.org

Imus isn’t the real bad guy

Instead of wasting time on irrelevant shock jock, black leaders need to be fighting a growing gangster culture.

By JASON WHITLOCK - Columnist

Thank you, Don Imus. You’ve given us (black people) an excuse to avoid our real problem.
You’ve given Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson another opportunity to pretend that the old fight, which is now the safe and lucrative fight, is still the most important fight in our push for true economic and social equality.
You’ve given Vivian Stringer and Rutgers the chance to hold a nationally televised recruiting celebration expertly disguised as a news conference to respond to your poor attempt at humor.
Thank you, Don Imus. You extended Black History Month to April, and we can once again wallow in victimhood, protest like it’s 1965 and delude ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than eradicating our self-hatred.
The bigots win again.
While we’re fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, I’m sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cent’s or Snoop Dogg’s or Young Jeezy’s latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos.
I ain’t saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don’t have the heart to mount a legitimate campaign against the real black-folk killas.
It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.
Rather than confront this heinous enemy from within, we sit back and wait for someone like Imus to have a slip of the tongue and make the mistake of repeating the things we say about ourselves.
It’s embarrassing. Dave Chappelle was offered $50 million to make racially insensitive jokes about black and white people on TV. He was hailed as a genius. Black comedians routinely crack jokes about white and black people, and we all laugh out loud.
I’m no Don Imus apologist. He and his tiny companion Mike Lupica blasted me after I fell out with ESPN. Imus is a hack.
But, in my view, he didn’t do anything outside the norm for shock jocks and comedians. He also offered an apology. That should’ve been the end of this whole affair. Instead, it’s only the beginning. It’s an opportunity for Stringer, Jackson and Sharpton to step on victim platforms and elevate themselves and their agenda$.
I watched the Rutgers news conference and was ashamed.
Martin Luther King Jr. spoke for eight minutes in 1963 at the March on Washington. At the time, black people could be lynched and denied fundamental rights with little thought. With the comments of a talk-show host most of her players had never heard of before last week serving as her excuse, Vivian Stringer rambled on for 30 minutes about the amazing season her team had.
Somehow, we’re supposed to believe that the comments of a man with virtually no connection to the sports world ruined Rutgers’ wonderful season. Had a broadcaster with credibility and a platform in the sports world uttered the words Imus did, I could understand a level of outrage.
But an hourlong press conference over a man who has already apologized, already been suspended and is already insignificant is just plain intellectually dishonest. This is opportunism. This is a distraction.
In the grand scheme, Don Imus is no threat to us in general and no threat to black women in particular. If his words are so powerful and so destructive and must be rebuked so forcefully, then what should we do about the idiot rappers on BET, MTV and every black-owned radio station in the country who use words much more powerful and much more destructive?
I don’t listen or watch Imus’ show regularly. Has he at any point glorified selling crack cocaine to black women? Has he celebrated black men shooting each other randomly? Has he suggested in any way that it’s cool to be a baby-daddy rather than a husband and a parent? Does he tell his listeners that they’re suckers for pursuing education and that they’re selling out their race if they do?
When Imus does any of that, call me and I’ll get upset. Until then, he is what he is — a washed-up shock jock who is very easy to ignore when you’re not looking to be made a victim.
No. We all know where the real battleground is. We know that the gangsta rappers and their followers in the athletic world have far bigger platforms to negatively define us than some old white man with a bad radio show. There’s no money and lots of danger in that battle, so Jesse and Al are going to sit it out.
To reach Jason Whitlock, call (816) 234-4869 or send e-mail to jwhitlock@kcstar.com. For previous columns, go to KansasCity.com

'I AM A NYER': OBAMA

By STEPHANIE GASKELL and IAN BISHOP

April 10, 2007 -- Barack Obama swooped into rival Hillary Rodham Clinton's back yard yesterday to appear on David Letterman's show and gobble up campaign cash - as he declared the turf his own.
"I'm part-New Yorker!" Obama said.
He was back for another bite of the Big Apple after New Yorkers contributed $4 million to his campaign in the first three months of the year - pushing his total haul to $25 million, nearly as much as Clinton's $26 million take.
Asked by The Post outside a Midtown fund-raiser yesterday why New Yorkers' have fallen in love with him, Obama quipped, "I think it's because I went to Columbia. I lived in New York for five years, so I'm part-New Yorker."
The Illinois Senate rookie took time out from his cash dash to appear on Letterman's "Late Show" on CBS.
Letterman teased Obama about possibly being Clinton's running mate, or having Clinton be his No. 2 - "undeniably, that would be a powerful ticket," the host said.
"Which order are we talking about?" Obama quipped, drawing laughter from the audience.
Obama's fund-raising march through Manhattan included four separate events, highlighted by a swank bash at the Park Avenue home of investment guru George Hornig, a former Clinton backer, and his wife, Joan.
Obama mined for more gold at the Central Park West home of Huffington Post co-founder Ken Lerer, who co-hosted a cash bash with former AOL honcho Bob Pittman.
"We expect to try to earn votes here," Obama said. "We don't take anything for granted. Obviously, we've got a popular senator here. But I think we're making some inroads."
His fund-raisers drew heavy-hitters from New York's socialite scene, including former actress Patricia Duff, ex-wife of cosmetics bigwig Ron Perelman.
Obama also found time to head up to Harlem for a private chat with community leaders - "letting Harlem know that he loves her," an adviser said.
Despite Obama's cash-collecting success here, a NY1 poll showed Clinton crushing him among Democrats in the city, 52 percent to 20 percent - and beating Obama in the Empire State, 49 percent to 17 percent.

McCain Presidential Bid Linked to Iraq

By LIZ SIDOTI Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- John McCain, his presidential bid faltering and his support for the unpopular Iraq war unflinching, is seeking to convince Americans that the conflict is "necessary and just."
"I know the pain the war causes," the Arizona senator and former Vietnam prisoner of war says in a speech to be delivered Wednesday. "But it's the right road."
All three leading Republican presidential candidates back President Bush's decision earlier this year to dispatch additional troops to Baghdad. But McCain is the only one directly linked to the policy, and, by extension, the war.
"We have a long way to go, but for the first time in four years, we have a strategy that deals with how things really are in Iraq and not how we wish them to be," he said, urging patience.
McCain is staking his presidential candidacy on the war's outcome - for better or worse. "I would rather lose a campaign than a war," he said.
In his speech at the Virginia Military Institute, McCain stresses the consequences of failure in Iraq and explain his staunch support of the war, now in its fifth year, which has caused more than 3,200 American deaths.
"Our defeat in Iraq would constitute a defeat in the war against terror and extremism and would make the world a much more dangerous place," McCain said, chastising Democrats in Congress pushing for withdrawal for advocating what he equated to surrender.
While McCain embraces the war, his top GOP rivals, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney are positioning themselves as leaders on foreign policy as they vie for the support of hard-core Republican voters.
In his own speech Tuesday in Texas, Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, said: "Running away from Iraq now would embolden our enemies, giving them the sanctuary they need to plan more devastating attacks against our country."
The troop increase, Romney said, "deserves a chance to succeed."
McCain, once the chief GOP critic on how the United States was waging the war, has been out front for years in calling for more troop levels. In January, he became Bush's top Senate pitchman to sell skeptics on the increase and his political fate became entwined with it.
Most Americans have turned against the four-year-old conflict that has claimed more than 3,200 U.S. lives. The latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll showed that a majority of Americans say the United States made a mistake going to war in Iraq and half call it a hopeless cause.
However, support remains strong among Republicans. Roughly three in four say the United States made the right decision in going to war and nearly the same numbers say the war is a worthy cause.
That means McCain's steadfastness actually could help him in the GOP primary even as it turns off independents and Democrats in a general election.
His Iraq speech is the first of three major policy addresses McCain plans to give as he seeks to inject much-needed momentum into his campaign.
While visiting Iraq last week, McCain said he was encouraged by signs of progress and cautiously optimistic about security improvements in Baghdad even as he toured the capital under heavy military guard. Iraqis mocked his characterization as too rosy, and he faced criticism at home of being out of touch with reality.
The episode threatened to undercut McCain's credibility on one of his signature issues - defense. A former Navy pilot held captive in Vietnam for nearly 6 years, McCain is the only top-tier Republican candidate to have served in the military. He is the senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
At the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Texas on Tuesday, Romney proposed increasing defense spending and adding 100,000 troops to the armed forces. He called for supporting U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and criticized Democrats in Congress for considering cutting off funding. "This is a grave error," he said.
Romney also stressed the dangers posed by radical Islam, saying "many of us still fail to comprehend the extent of the threat" and, understandably, focus on Iraq and Afghanistan only.
"For radical Islam, there is one conflict and one goal - replacing all modern Islamic states with a caliphate, destroying America, and conquering the world," Romney said.
The former governor served only one term but recently has traveled the world to boost his foreign policy portfolio. The speech was part of that effort.
Giuliani, a two-term mayor of New York City, also is emphasizing his foreign policy experience and is casting himself as the most qualified candidate to deal with threats against the country.
He tells voters he knows how to remain on offense against terrorists.
"It's a thing that I understand better than anyone who is running for president of the United States. And it's not because I lived through September 11," he said in West Des Moines, Iowa, last week. "I've been dealing with things like terrorism, and, to some extent, terrorism for many, many years, before September 11 and since September 11."
He emphasized his years as a U.S. attorney, his work in the Justice Department and his years as mayor.

Tonight, George Martinez and I just happened to see a posting for a book signing that Charles Rangle was having for his new book entitled "And I haven't had a bad day since". It was great because I was just telling George that we have to get Charles Rangle for a sit down interview and the next thing we know there he was agreeing to give us the time in his office in Harlem. I shot video of his speech but I didn't have a light on the camera and the sound could be a little off but I'm sure there is something that we can use. I'm looking forward to going to his offices, there is this picture that was taken of him sitting behind this huge desk with all of these things around him, he looks great in that setting and I want to shoot him like that with some of the footage from tonight along with other footage we have I have been accumulating.

The Mysterious Appeal of Fred Thompson

Five years ago, former Senator Fred Thompson seemed ready to say goodbye to White House dreams for good. He’d announced his re-election campaign in the wake of the attacks of Sept. 11, but seemed to lose steam after the death of his daughter a few months later, ultimately abandoning the run in the spring of 2002.

“At the funeral, I went over to him, and he was obviously just drained,” recalled Representative Zach Wamp of Tennessee. “And he said to me, ‘I’ve just lost my heart for [public] service. I’ve lost my heart.’”

So, like his fellow Tennessean, Al Gore, Mr. Thompson wound up nursing his psychic wounds in Hollywood’s warm embrace. And he married again, this time to Jeri Kehn, then a 35-year-old political-media consultant for Verner Liipfert in Washington; the couple now has two young children and a gorgeous home in the well-heeled Republican suburb of McLean, Va.

It’s a story that helps explain both his exit from and return to the national political stage in a tidy, family-friendly package—a parable of loss and restoration, with the hero rescued by the role of a lifetime, the love of a good woman and a return to domestic bliss. (The Barbara Walters special, as one political consultant noted, practically scripts itself.)

But it doesn’t quite explain the mystery of how and why the 64-year-old mid-level actor suddenly finds himself a news cycle or two away from joining the top tier of Republican Presidential candidates.

Right now, the former Senator is everywhere and nowhere—a man whose screen presence is ubiquitous, but who is, for the moment, rationing out major media interviews like a late-era Brando. Ever since he told Fox’s Chris Wallace on March 11 that he was contemplating a Presidential run—“I’m giving some thought to it. I’m going to leave the door open”—Republicans have been obsessively parsing his handful of public statements for clues to his intentions.

“Draft Thompson” Web sites appeared and exploded overnight—one site run by a 27-year-old salesman from Memphis received thousands of visitors in its first week alone. And Mr. Thompson’s home-state surrogates, former Senator Howard Baker and Mr. Wamp, flooded the airwaves with Thompson boosterism, racing through dozens of media requests.

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(“I have a very good feeling about this,” Mr. Wamp said, juggling a cell phone in a Senate elevator as he squeezed in one last interview on his way from a hearing back to his office. “Very good.”)

Spurred by the flawed Republican line-up of Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney, conservative pundits and opinion journals fanned the flames. In late March, a National Review headline read, “Run, Fred, Run!” And in a column on April 2, Robert Novak called the former Senator a front-runner for the role of conservative “messiah.”

Meanwhile, the national press plunged dutifully into the Thompson-linked frenzy, with The Washington Post and USA Today leading a procession of inevitable “Law & Order candidate” headlines.

And Mr. Thompson’s every move across town is, suddenly, news, from his chummy lunch with Romney consultant Alex Castellanos at the Alexandria watering hole Landini’s, to his marathon Mayflower Hotel meetings with former R.N.C. chair Ed Gillespie and former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.

The buzz has been meticulously cultivated. In addition to the yeoman press work done by his surrogates, Mr. Thompson has now hired former Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo to handle national press. And his planned return to Washington later this month is being plotted with the precision of a military campaign. One advisor says there will likely be an official announcement of some kind within the next two months, if not sooner.

“[Thompson]’s not new at this game,” said Republican consultant Rich Galen. “He just wiggled his nose like that lady on Bewitched, and people swooned. They’re still swooning.

“I think it’s fascinating,” Mr. Galen added, “that by merely, in essence, verbally raising an eyebrow, he goes from not on the [Presidential] list at all to 12 percent.” (He was referring to the latest Rasmussen poll, which has the former Tennessee Senator in third place for the nomination.)

But Why Now?So why Fred Thompson, and why now? Part of it, certainly, is cosmetic: Mr. Thompson’s craggy visage, comforting demeanor and, of course, considerable camera presence have inspired comparisons to Ronald Reagan from even the most level-headed G.O.P. operatives.

Most of Mr. Thompson’s acting roles have played like slickly produced Presidential auditions: the tough-but-fair military man, the tough-but-fair F.B.I. agent, the tough-but-fair prosecutor—even a President. Law & Order, in which Thompson plays a conservative Southerner who somehow managed to get elected Manhattan D.A., has functioned as an hour-long campaign commercial beamed into the nation’s collective cerebral cortex for the past five years.

“More people will watch Fred Thompson on Law & Order next week than will vote in both parties’ [super] primaries on Feb. 5 next year,” Mr. Galen said.

But the reason given most often by Republican activists and elected officials is simply that they are dissatisfied with the current crop of G.O.P. candidates.

“His success will be largely dependent on whether the current front-runners can somehow broaden their appeal and lock up the nomination early,” said American Conservative Union president David Keene, who said that “right now, there’s no evidence any of them can do that.”

Even Republicans who’ve already publicly pledged their support to one candidate or another seem to share the same grim outlook for the current field. Six in 10 G.O.P. primary voters are dissatisfied with the current crop of candidates, according to a recent CBS/New York Times poll.

“McCain’s day has passed,” said one consultant who, six months ago, predicted victory for the Arizona Senator. “He hasn’t been able to make the transition from 2000 candidate to 2008—he hasn’t been able to lock up public support. I think he has a real problem.”

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney doesn’t seem to be catching on either; in the latest USA Today/Gallup poll, his support drops sharply, from first-tier candidate to asterisk-worthy 3 percent. “You spend millions on infrastructure, all for 3 percent?” Mr. Galen asked. “You are barely a serious candidate.”

And no one stands to be more immediately affected by a Thompson candidacy than Rudy Giuliani, who has so far gotten a pass from Republicans on his liberal social positions and complicated personal background because of a sense that he is the most “electable” candidate in the field.

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Mr. Thompson’s prospective entry into the race resulted in an immediate double-digit drop for Mr. Giuliani in the USA Today/Gallup poll.

“It’s possible that none of those guys, regardless of their financial advantage, can put together the kind of support they need to get a majority of the delegates,” said Mr. Keene, talking about the pre-Thompson front-runners. “Then the common wisdom—that if you don’t have $100 million at the starting gates, you can’t win—may be wrong. Someone can come along and jujitsu the thing.”

Back to Reality

But still. Mr. Thompson is a candidate without an exploratory committee, a campaign war chest or a full-time staff. Apart from a few close friends, Mr. Thompson has, as yet, no real inner circle and no coterie of trusted advisors guiding his campaign.

At a time when most G.O.P. Presidential hopefuls are putting as much distance as they can between themselves and the Bush administration, Mr. Thompson has made a point of fund-raising for Scooter Libby’s defense fund.

And in terms of his actual policy positions, Mr. Thompson is hard to identify. He has supported drilling for oil in the Arctic, and is a supporter of gun-owners’ rights. But in other ways, he takes after moderate Republican Howard Baker, his old boss on the Congressional committee that investigated Watergate.

He supported campaign-finance reform and opposed tort reform. He doesn’t support gay marriage, but would still leave the issue up to the states rather than banning it outright. His position on abortion, while officially pro-life, can best be described as a work in progress.

And he supports some immigrant guest-worker programs.

It’s too soon to know whether his ideological squishiness will be a problem. But given the irrelevance of actual details this far into Mr. Thompson’s cinematic Presidential bid, maybe it won’t matter

Fred Thompson—well, he’s not Ronald Reagan,” said Mr. Keene. “But he’s done enough, and is well enough liked. He’s a fallback.”

The perfect role.

REV. AL DELAYS DEM BLESSING

March 30, 2007 -- REV. Jesse Jackson is already backing a presidential candidate, Barack Obama - but the Rev. Al Sharpton denies persistent rumors he's throwing his support to Hillary Clinton.
"I am unequivocally not endorsing Hillary or anyone else," Sharpton told Page Six.
As to a tip we got that he and Bill Clinton recently enjoyed cigars together in Clinton's Harlem office, Sharpton - in Las Vegas yesterday to address the Trial Lawyers Association - said, "I don't think he even smokes cigars anymore since his bypass." Insiders confirmed that Al and Bill met at the latter's smoke-free office about two weeks ago.
Sharpton will certainly not make any official announcement until Sen. Clinton, Sen. Obama, John Edwards, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden and even Dennis Kucinich address his National Action Network Convention at the Sheraton New York April 18-21.
"I want to hear all of them," Sharpton said.
Or, as one politico told us, "All the candidates have to come and kiss his a - -."
Sharpton's convention will also feature appearances by Bill O'Reilly, former Knick Allan Houston, Ed Koch, Spike Lee, Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean.
The high point could be the panel moderated by Mike Wallace on "Does the Media Fairly Cover People and Issues of Color?" with NBC's Brian Williams, ABC's Martin Bashir, CNN's Paula Zahn and ex-MSNBC-er Rita Cosby.
Jackson told the Associated Press that he was backing Obama. "He has my vote," the fellow Chicagoan said. Asked whether it was problematic to be backing Obama, given his history of supporting the Clintons, Jackson said, "It's not awkward at all. I don't owe a debt to any of them."
Jackson also said that Obama had not asked him to campaign for him and denied he was a member of Obama's inner circle of advisors. "I just have an appreciation of him," Jackson said.
One political observer said, "Al is furious that Jesse Jackson got on the Obama train before he could."

Hillary’s Mystery Woman: Who is Huma?

Senator Clinton’s closest aide, Ms. Abedin never sweats; Oscar de la Renta wants to dress her
By Spencer Morgan


Last June, under an oppressive sun, at a rally to save the Niagara military base at the University of Buffalo, all of New York’s top politicians—George Pataki, Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton—poured sweat.

Yet there was exactly one member of the wilting delegation who managed, somehow, to stay cool: Hillary Clinton’s mysterious, glamorous and eerily unflappable aide de camp, Huma Abedin.

“It was like 110 degrees outside,” recalled the source, a political aide who asked to remain anonymous. “We were all just pouring down with sweat. But I have this distinct memory of Huma traipsing in in this blue pantsuit—it was like this wool pantsuit—not a bead of sweat on her brow, not a hair out of place, with everything perfectly organized in her Yves Saint Laurent handbag.”

That sort of fantastical, supernaturally tinged tale is not unusual. Indeed, in the insular world of New York and D.C. politics, Huma Abedin has become a sort of mythical figure.

On a day-to-day basis, Ms. Abedin is responsible for guiding the Senator from one chaotic event to the next and ensuring that the many hundreds of situations that arise at each—the photo ops, the handshakes, the speeches—go smoothly. The job of “body person”—industry-speak for the catchall role of an omnipresent traveling assistant—is a notoriously grueling one, requiring unfaltering level-headedness and a zeal for multitasking. These folks are constantly on the move, juggling 20 different chores, and they consequently often appear slightly disheveled (or even sweaty).

By most quantifiable measures, Ms. Abedin has the most challenging of those gigs. In the last 10 days, she has accompanied Mrs. Clinton to more than 20 events, involving nine plane flights and several trains. At each stop, they were mobbed.

“I think she has special powers,” said public-radio broadcaster Katia Dunn, who recently crossed paths with Ms. Abedin and Mrs. Clinton at a café on Capitol Hill.

Ms. Dunn explained that she had heard about the “cult of Huma,” but had never met her. “All of a sudden, I turn around and there was this woman I now know to be Huma. And it wasn’t just that she was gorgeous—she did just sort of have this presence. She stopped me in my tracks for a second.”

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“It’s not like she’s incredibly coiffed,” Ms. Dunn continued. “She just looked very composed and confident in her natural beauty. She momentarily arrested our progress. What’s amazing is that she didn’t even yell at us or anything—she didn’t have to.”

Representative Anthony Weiner, a swingingly single Brooklyn Democrat who has known Ms. Abedin since before Hillary Clinton was elected to office, talked about her ability to perform under pressure “preternaturally.”

“This notion that Senator Clinton is a cool customer—I mean, I don’t dispute it, but the coolest customer in that whole operation is Huma,” said the Congressman, who watched Ms. Abedin in action earlier this month at the internationally covered march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala.

Crossing the bridge was a logistical minefield: huge crowds to navigate, innumerable V.I.P.’s—including former President Clinton—to hand-hold, countless photo ops to facilitate and a strict timetable to keep. “There were a hundred things that could have gone wrong,” Mr. Weiner recalled. “And Huma was sort of the all-purpose trouble-shooter of first response. It was a tour de force, and what was most impressive is that she maintained a level head the whole time.”

He added: “In fact, I think there’s some dispute as to whether Huma’s actually human or not.”

But, Really, Is She?

Which gets at another facet of the cult of Huma: She’s something of a mystery, even to the people who have worked in her proximity for years.

Very little is publicly known about her, which of course leaves plenty to talk about. And the rumors abound. According to various accounts from Huma acquaintances interviewed for this story: She’s Lebanese, she’s Jordanian, she’s Iranian, she’s 26, she’s 36, she has two children, she lives with the Clintons.

“No one knows anything about her,” said one political aide. “She’s like Hillary’s secret weapon.”
In point of fact, many people from countless different corridors across the globe know something of Huma Abedin. But apparently she has a rare knack for letting people in without really letting them in.

“This might seem too over-saccharine, but I love Huma,” said Oscar de la Renta, who is a personal friend and intensely loyal supporter of the Clintons. The legendary designer was speaking to The Observer on the phone from his compound in the Dominican Republic. He has known her for nearly a decade. Indeed, he noted, Ms. Abedin has actually been a guest at his island home. He described her as “discreet,” “loyal,” “beautiful” and “half-Pakistani.”

“She is an unbelievably feminine and gentle person, but at the same time she can accomplish so much,” offered Mr. de la Renta. He recalled that she had great style, but hastened to point out that “she’s a Muslim” and “she’s very conservative.”

“I always say I don’t want to die without seeing [Huma] in a strapless dress,” he said, with a laugh. But did the dapper dressmaker know, say, where his dream girl grew up?

“I don’t really know much about her history,” said Mr. de la Renta, “because Huma is not such a talkative girl.”

Other political players with Clinton connections were just as effusive—and just as vague on the personal details.

“I’m so fond of Huma, if she were to run for office, I would volunteer for her campaign,” said public-relations man and Democratic super-fund-raiser Robert Zimmerman. Pressed for any biographical details about his prospective candidate, Mr. Zimmerman said, “I really don’t know much of her back story.”

The Huma Story

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The back story, as it were, begins 32 years ago in Kalamazoo, Mich., where Ms. Abedin, who declined to participate in this article, lived until the age of 2. Her family then relocated to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where she lived until returning to the States for college. She attended George Washington University. Her father, who died when she was 17, was an Islamic and Middle Eastern scholar of Indian decent. He founded his own institute devoted to Western-Eastern and interfaith understanding and reconciliation and published a journal focusing on Muslim minorities living in the diaspora. Her mother, a renowned professor in Saudi Arabia, is Pakistani.

Ms. Abedin recently bought an apartment in the vicinity of 12th and U streets in Washington, D.C. When she comes to New York, she stays with her sister, who has an apartment in Manhattan—not, as one popular rumor has it, in Chappaqua with the Clintons. She has no children and has never been married. She’s single.

Ms. Abedin began working for Mrs. Clinton as an intern for the then First Lady in 1996. She was hired as a staff assistant to the First Lady’s chief of staff, Maggie Williams. For several years, she was the backup to Mrs. Clinton’s permanent personal aide, Allison Stein, and she officially took over as Mrs. Clinton’s aide and advisor around the time of the 2000 Senate race.

Her Presidential campaign title is “traveling chief of staff.”

‘Hoh My God!’

So she’s eminently qualified, and functions in the most visible position for the most visible candidate now running for President. Still, that’s only part of the explanation for why she has become an object of fascination.

“Have you seen Huma?” asked James Carville, the former advisor to President Clinton. “Her appearance is just like, ‘Hoh my God!’ She takes your breath away. She’s an unbelievably, stunningly gorgeous woman. Nobody in that position can be that good-looking; it just doesn’t happen.” He added that she is also “damn smart.”

Ms. Abedin is 5-foot-6 but invariably wears high heels—even to the multitude of parades she is obliged to walk in. She has full lips and long auburn hair, always worn down. And, despite a penchant for cheeseburgers and a schedule that doesn’t allow much time for Equinox, she is fashionably trim
According to a friend, her favorite designers are Mr. de la Renta, Catherine Malandrino, Charles Nolan and Prada. “And she has a weakness for Marc Jacobs bags,” said the friend. “She is known for her bags.”

Robert Barnett, the Clintons’ longtime attorney, said that in 11 years of knowing her, he has never seen her wear the same outfit twice. He also said he holds Ms. Abedin’s intellect in the highest regard. “She has extremely good instincts and extremely good judgment,” he said. “She is also gorgeous and the most terrifically dressed young woman you will ever encounter.”

A Special Category

It’s a relatively small world of high-level Muslim officials and aides in Washington, and the subgroup of females who fit that description is even smaller.

Assistant Secretary of State Dina Habib Powell is a fellow member of that exclusive club, and has become fast friends with Ms. Abedin.

Ms. Powell, a 33-year-old who was born in Cairo, is also a Muslim, also speaks fluent Arabic and is also uncannily stylish—she says she has been told on many occasions that she is Ms. Abedin’s Republican doppelgänger. She had some insights into what her colleague is really passionate about.

“[Huma] certainly feels a deep responsibility to encourage more mutual understanding between her beliefs and culture and American culture,” said Ms. Powell. “I think you will see Huma coming out of that role in the background.”

“I think she’s going to emerge as a woman to watch,” she added.

It may have happened in the background, but Ms. Abedin has indeed become a trusted advisor to Mrs. Clinton, especially on issues pertaining to the Middle East, according to a number of Clinton associates. At meetings on the region, they say, Ms. Abedin’s perspective is always sought out.

And more and more, she’s becoming known for that expertise as well.

“She is a person of enormous intellect with in-depth knowledge on a number of issues—especially issues pertaining to the Middle East,” said Senator John McCain, in a statement relayed by one of his aides.

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“Huma is an example of why more people, particularly in Washington, need to understand the rest of the world, need to recognize what an asset it is to have cross-cultural experiences,” wrote Queen Noor of Jordan in an e-mail. “She is loyal, intelligent, diplomatic, energetic and brings a broader understanding to the table—one that I wish there was more of in the world. It is this sensibility that has contributed to her being an enormous asset to Hillary in Washington and New York and now in this next endeavor, and I am proud of her.”

And so, apparently, is the boss.

“I’d call Huma one in a million,” said Mrs. Clinton’s press secretary, Philippe Reines, “but that would mean there are 5,999 others in the world just like her, and there simply aren’t. She is truly one of a kind, one in a billion. We are all in awe of her poise, grace, judgment, intellect and her seemingly endless reserve of kindness, patience and energy.”

Special powers, definitely.

BARACK HARD FOR HILLARY TO $HAKE

By IAN BISHOP Post Correspondent
Click to enlargeApril 2, 2007 -- WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton shattered presidential fund-raising records by raising $26 million over the last three months - but even that mountain of money could not shake Barack Obama, who is expected to report at least $20 million raked in.

Clinton's first-quarter fund-raising haul was pushed to $36 million by a $10 million rollover from her Senate war chest.

Her aides revealed her tally during an afternoon conference call and press release touting the performance as "staggering."

Yet she just narrowly raised more than Obama during the last three months even though she had already developed a national donor network during her 2006 re-election campaign and had access to her husband Bill's fund-raising factory.

Obama, a Senate rookie who largely started from scratch and who said only, "I think we'll do pretty well," is reported to have raised $20 to $22 million this year - just a star-studded fund-raiser or two from being dead even with the former first lady's $26 million.

His smashing success on the fund-raising circuit forced Camp Clinton to scrap its initial plans, in place as recently as last week, to keep her Senate money in the bank as insurance - needing instead to convert the cash to pad what was a razor-thin lead.

Financial reports for the January-through-March period are due to the Federal Election Commission on April 15. Obama's camp declined to officially announce its totals, enabling Clinton to soak up the news cycle.

The pressure on Camp Clinton to far exceed its self-appointed $15 million fund-raising goal was enormous - as evidenced by its online push to raise $600,000 in the last 36 hours of the reporting period and an $800,000 cash bash Saturday night at rap-music mogul Timbaland's Miami mansion.

Ex-President Bill Clinton said in recent weeks that the first quarter of fund-raising was "the first primary" - an opening test of national appeal and staying power.

Some political pros warn that Hillary Clinton may have hit her high-water mark for fund-raising this quarter by maxing out with fat-cat Democrats, leaving her to forage online for cash from small-money donors in future months.

Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson declined to reveal how much money Clinton had spent in three months of campaigning or how much was left in the bank, insisting that those figures were still being tallied.

The Democratic front-runner's total take included $4.2 million raised through the Internet and another $1.8 million culled from old-school direct mail.

The campaign reported collecting cash from more than 50,000 donors from all 50 states, while Obama aides said he had more than 83,000 donors.

Wolfson declined to specify how much of the $36 million was available only for the primary election and how much could be used just in the general election.

ian.bishop@nypost.com

Clinton Camp Turns to a Star in Money Race

Concerned about Senator Barack Obama’s presidential fund-raising, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign has dispatched former President Bill Clinton to attend 16 fund-raisers in the last six weeks and to lead conference calls and Internet appeals to donors, in some cases assessing Mr. Obama’s positions on Iraq.

More Politics NewsDemocrats close to the couple say that Mr. Clinton’s efforts on his wife’s behalf were just beginning and that they were likely to accelerate after he finishes writing a book this spring. Several donors said that Mr. Clinton’s role was even greater than they originally expected after Mrs. Clinton announced her candidacy on Jan. 20.

The early deployment of Mr. Clinton highlights the continuing concerns in the Clinton camp about the strength of Mr. Obama’s candidacy and his fund-raising prowess. The Clinton camp has tried to stop any drift of Democratic donors to the Obama camp, since the campaign finance reporting period ending tonight is seen as a huge test of the campaigns’ money-raising abilities as they gird for a crush of early primaries.

When Mrs. Clinton announced for the presidency in January, the former president was mentioned in meetings as one of several fund-raising surrogates for her.

In short time, he helped raise about $2 million at small dinner parties in Manhattan, sometimes staying far later into the night than planned, and is now ending March with a flourish. After a gala last night headlined by Mrs. Clinton that raised $1 million, Mr. Clinton was scheduled to join her for a cocktail party this evening with the music producer Timbaland in Miami, and a second party where event chairmen were hoping to raise $100,000 each.

Even as Mr. Clinton pursues his tasks with gusto, Clinton donors and Democratic allies say that the campaign has also been sensitive about using him too much, for fear that he might overshadow his wife or come to be seen as an overused or exploited asset.

This sensitivity has been evident recently. While Mr. Clinton’s schedule has been hectic at times, with some days layered with two fund-raisers, Clinton advisers have tried to minimize his role and his desire to trounce Mr. Obama in fund-raising for the first three months of 2007.

Still, John Catsimatidis, a New York fund-raiser who held an event at his apartment with Mr. Clinton on March 3, recalled that at a meeting of fund-raisers in Manhattan soon after Senator Clinton’s announcement, the former president came up briefly in conversation and was not a focus of the fund-raising strategy. But his recent burst of money-raising tells a different story.

“It’s a lot more than anyone expected two months ago,” Mr. Catsimatidis said. “President Clinton is a competitive guy, and he has said himself that the March 31 fund-raising deadline was the first primary.”

The Clintons’ fund-raising zeal, however, has left some donors bristling. Jim Neal, a North Carolina investment banker who supported Gen. Wesley K. Clark and then, in 2004, Senator John Kerry, said he was alienated by the effort “to put absolutely unprecedented expectations and pressure on donors,” like proposing that some fund-raisers would yield more than $1 million for Mrs. Clinton.

“It’s almost like a shakedown — you’re either with us or you’re not,” said Mr. Neal, who participated in an early conference call involving the Clinton campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, but is not seen as a major player in the Clintons’ world.

“I just find the squeeze, this early, to be quite vulgar,” Mr. Neal added. “This idea that you should try to K.O. other candidates by simply overwhelming them with the amount of money you have in the bank. It’s a bullying tactic.”

Mr. Neal said he supported Mr. Clinton in 1992 and 1996, but did not plan to support Mrs. Clinton.

A spokeswoman for Mr. McAuliffe and campaign officials declined to respond to Mr. Neal’s comments.

With tonight’s fund-raising deadline comes major questions for Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama about the size of their war chests, their ability to raise money online and nationwide, and what advantage, if any, Mr. Obama enjoys among antiwar Democrats, with whom he is popular.

Mrs. Clinton, as a veteran of her husband’s two campaigns and her own two Senate races in New York, started off with a far larger donor database and greater name recognition than Mr. Obama, of Illinois, and she had been widely expected to do significantly better than him in fund-raising for this period.

One donor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he said the Clintons would not like his speaking openly, said the Clinton campaign had been trying to lower fund-raising expectations because of a concern about a surge by Mr. Obama, who has shown broad appeal among black, female and young Democrats and has captured some big-money donors like Orin Kramer, a former Clinton supporter

“The Clintons thought the nomination would most likely be theirs, barring some major disaster, and they are having to work harder and earlier for the nomination than either Clinton expected,” said the donor, who said he had talked about Mr. Obama with Mr. Clinton. “This was not how things were supposed to go, and they are obsessed with beating Barack in fund-raising.”

More Politics NewsAt some fund-raisers, Mr. Clinton viewed part of his job as “explaining Hillary and Barack” to donors, in the words of one fund-raiser who talked to him — laying out the rivals’ positions on Iraq, for instance, in a manner that minimized their differences and made Mr. Obama appear less-than-consistently antiwar.

On a recent conference call with donors, too, Mr. Clinton gave a point-by-point analysis of the candidates’ positions on the war in Iraq.

Jay Carson, Mr. Clinton’s communications director, who is also a member of Senator Clinton’s campaign, was asked in an interview if Mr. Clinton was motivated at all by Mr. Obama’s candidacy or by voters’ comparisons of the rivals on Iraq.

“He quite obviously believes that his wife is the best candidate, would make the best president, and he is focused on making sure that people understand that,” Mr. Carson said.

Obama campaign officials said that Mr. Obama’s opposition to the war has been consistent from the start, and that his success at fund-raising has less to do with famous surrogates than with the appeal of his message.

“The Obama campaign isn’t about dollars raised,” said Bill Burton, a spokesman. “It’s about the thousands of people who have shown they want to get involved and be part of this effort to transform our nation.”

Officials in the Obama and Clinton campaigns expect each of them to raise far more than past candidates for the Democratic nomination in comparable time periods — the $9 million that Vice President Al Gore raised in the first quarter of 1999, and the $7.4 million that former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina raised in that period in 2003.

While any predictions are extremely unreliable and subject to the campaigns’ expectations-setting, the Obama and Clinton camps expect to double those amounts at the least, Democrats close to them say.

Mrs. Clinton, as a former first lady and a two-term senator, has a far larger database of donors than does Mr. Obama, who was first elected in 2004. Clinton advisers say she has more than 250,000 people in her database, while Mr. Obama’s campaign Web site says he has about 78,000.

In interviews, several donors, fund-raisers and advisers in and around the campaign expressed genuine concern that the size of Mrs. Clinton’s fund-raising margin over Mr. Obama may not be as great as donors initially expected in the early, exuberant days of her candidacy in late January and early February.

At the same time, donors and Democratic allies say they have not seen Mr. Clinton so engaged politically in years — suggesting countless ideas to his wife and two top campaign officials, Mr. McAuliffe and Mark Penn, her chief strategist and Mr. Clinton’s former pollster, and enthusiastically taking questions and staying late at her fund-raisers even after attending hundreds of these sorts of events for years.

“What’s interesting is how on time he is, how into it he is, and how late he stays,” said Robert Zimmerman, a New York fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton. “He is into this heart and soul.”

Mr. Zimmerman added, only half-jokingly, “I don’t remember him being so on time when he ran.”