Putin, or person portraying Putin?

By Jennifer J. Foster

Did Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin “interrogate” President Ronald Reagan 20 years ago?

Then-and-now White House photographer Pete Souza says yes.

Souza has a photo that he says shows Putin, then a KGB agent, disguised as a tourist in Red Square. Reagan was walking through the area with then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbechev when the pair “happened” on the “tourists”—who then questioned the American president about such things as human rights in the United States.

At least one Russian historian disputes Souza’s claim that the man pictured in the photo is Putin.

But he sure does look like the man who later came to be known as “Pooty-Poot.“

What do you think? Click here to see the pic.

Help for newspapers?

By Jennifer J. Foster

Attorney General Eric Holder signaled this week that he might be open to reviewing anti-trust laws governing newspaper ownership—if a “modern” reading of those laws could help the struggling industry.

From Reuters:

(Holder) was responding to a call by House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, urging the Justice Department to give newspapers more leeway to merge or combine operations ...

Some struggling newspapers in multiple-newspaper cities have limited antitrust immunity under the 1970 Newspaper Preservation Act, allowing them to combine business activities while maintaining separate news operations.

Pelosi, a Democrat whose California district is served by Hearst’s The San Francisco Chronicle, urged Holder to take a broad view of newspaper competitors under antitrust law and include “electronic and digital” outlets.

Such a view could make it easier for a paper such as the Chronicle to merge non-news operations with a company such as the Bay Area News Group, which owns papers in nearby San Jose and Oakland ...

“I’d like to think 20, 30, 40 years from now people will still be reading the newspaper,“ Holder told reporters. “I think it’s important for this nation to maintain a healthy newspaper industry. So to the extent that we have to look at our enforcement policies and conform them to the realities that that industry faces, that’s something that I’m going to be willing to do,“ he said.

OK. I’m as big a fan of newspapers as anyone. I’m the fifth generation of my family to work in the print journalism industry. I don’t want to see newspapers die.

But, like talk of a government bailout of the industry a couple of months ago, relaxation of anti-trust rules is not the way to go.

Follow me here for a minute.

First of all, since when do we “conform” enforcement policies to the realities facing the industries those policies are supposed to regulate? Wouldn’t the better course of action be to rewrite the policies themselves?

Secondly, while a relaxation of the NPA might help newspapers’ bottom lines in the short term, it’s just delaying the inevitable—a complete revamp of the business model upon which those newspapers are based. Wouldn’t it be more helpful to encourage the development of that new business model?

Finally, as long as we’re considering regulation and consolidation of a major American industry, I think it’s fair to consider what sort of results those principles have produced in other major American industries.

Hmm ... a major American industry that has enjoyed 10 or 15 years of deregulation and consolidation ... where have we tried that before?

Oh, right ... financial services.

Yeah, that worked out great!

Beware Germans in thong underwear

By Jennifer J. Foster

From the Associated Press:

The actor best known as “Borat” tricked the Alabama National Guard into allowing him onto a post, giving him a military uniform and briefly letting him train — all, supposedly, for a German TV documentary.

The ruse, which included comedian Sacha Baron Cohen exposing his thong underwear while changing clothes, was going well until a young cadet recognized Cohen and notified older officers who weren’t familiar with the actor.

The incident occurred at the Alabama Military Academy, which trains officer candidates from across the nation, at Fort McClellan in Anniston. Staff Sgt. Katrina Timmons told the press that they believed Cohen was a foreign journalist who was from “a German affiliate of a TV station doing a documentary on what it was like to be in officer candidate school,“ said Timmons. “They wanted to know if they could come here and embed one person for a few hours up to a day.

“(Cohen) was treated like a member of the media and escorted around. He was put in a uniform like he requested to allow him to get a taste of what it was like to be an officer candidate,“ she said.

As it turns out, Cohen is working on a project ... but it’s not a documentary, and it isn’t about officer candidate school. The AP reports that the Cohen plays “Bruno,“ a gay Austrian fashion writer, in “Bruno: Delicious Journeys Through America For The Purpose Of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable In The Presence Of A Gay Foreigner In A Mesh T-Shirt.“

Timmons delivered the understatement of the week.

“It’s an embarrassment to the Alabama National Guard,“ she said Monday. “Since then we have put in protocols to make sure this doesn’t happen again.“

Hmm ... protocols. What could that mean?

One thing AMA officials could have done would have been to call the supposed “TV station” and speak with someone in charge.

Also, it isn’t clear whether the Alabama National Guard staffers were operating under the assumption that German men regularly wear thong underwear and mesh T-shirts. If so, they might reconsider this notion.

In all seriousness, the whole idea of embedding journalists could probably use some tweaking. For example, what business is it of German documentarians what American military officer candidate school is like, anyway?

Obama does Leno

By Jennifer J. Foster

President Obama appeared on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” last night.

For the most part, he did a great job. The interview was informative without being wonkish, and the president was in good humor.

... Perhaps a little too good humor.

Right near the end, Leno was chatting up the president about his NCAA bracket, as we discussed here yesterday, and conversation turned to Obama’s well-documented and admittedly horrible bowling skills.

What followed  was an unfortunate attempt at humor that sent the president’s aides scrambling:

MR. LENO: Now, are they going to put a basketball –- I imagine the bowling alley has been just burned and closed down.

MR. OBAMA: No, no. I have been practicing all –- (laughter.)

MR. LENO: Really? Really?

MR. OBAMA: I bowled a 129. (Laughter and applause.)

MR. LENO: No, that’s very good. Yes. That’s very good, Mr. President.

MR. OBAMA: It’s like—it was like Special Olympics, or something. (Laughter.)

MR. LENO: No, that’s very good.

MR. OBAMA: No, listen, I’m making progress on the bowling, yes.

In fairness, I’m sure he didn’t mean anything malicious with the Special Olympics remark. It was an off-handed comment made at a moment when he clearly meant to insult only himself. 

But that didn’t stop his communications team from issuing a “clarification” aboard Air Force One following the show:

“The President made an offhand remark making fun of his own bowling that was in no way intended to disparage the Special Olympics,” Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton told reporters. “He thinks that the Special Olympics are a wonderful program that gives an opportunity to shine to people with disabilities from around the world.”

My only problem with this is that Obama should have addressed the remark himself. At the least, he should come out and say for himself what he really thinks of the Special Olympics and speak directly to those athletes and their families. It would be a tremendous opportunity to bring awareness to their efforts and offer them a word of encouragement. The “clarification” simply rings hollow, like a citation from the PC Police, coming from a flunkie.

And here’s a question: We got lots of advance info on Obama’s Leno appearance. And by “lots,“ I mean even to the point of describing how the president seated himself (“He then sat with right leg crossed over left leg,“ The New York Times’ Caucus Blog told us).

But there was no hint of the Special Olympics gaffe:

The president joked that it was mere coincidence that his Final Four picks were all from swing states, and revealed he has been working on his bowling in the White House, recently rolling a 129. But most of the discussion was devoted – perhaps for the first time in the show’s history – to in-depth discussions of tax policy, as well as macroeconomics and finance.

Why?

On an unrelated note, country music superstar Garth Brooks followed the president on Leno last night. But watching his performance was like something out of a time warp: Garth looked and sounded just like he did 10 years ago ... he even sang a song that is about that old.

Why? I know he has newer material—and different clothes.