James Hirsen
Tuesday, April 13, 2004

Hollywood’s interest in the book “Against All Enemies” evidently has Richard Clarke’s agent and publisher feeling flabbergasted.

Clarke’s business associates were apparently unaware of the amount of antipathy that Tinseltown has accrued toward President Bush.

Clarke’s literary agent, Len Sherman, told the New York Times that he was shocked at how far the book had gone in such a short time.

“He wrote the book to get the story out; he wasn’t really thinking about the movies,” Sherman disclosed. “Even the publishing house [Free Press, a subsidiary of Simon & Schuster] wasn’t thinking that this would be a movie. It’s a nonfiction, policy-driven book. But it became an inevitability.”

Actually, there’s a simple explanation for why cinematic hearts in Tinseltown are aflutter. The book slaps the president around in a major way.

Ron Bernstein, Clarke’s film agent, was deluged with requests from executives, agents and producers for copies of the book.

“A million people called,” Bernstein explained, including “almost every studio” and “every major production company.”

Although HBO and a division of Universal wanted the rights to Clarke’s manuscript, Sony Pictures Entertainment ended up making the deal.

Sources indicate that Clarke sold the story for an amount in the low six figures.

Hollywood film companies often buy the rights to books, which might or might not make it to the screen. But because former Sony chairman John Calley is slated to develop and produce the celluloid Bush-basher, it’s likely to become a reality.

Calley is experienced with politically lopsided films when, as an executive at Warner Brothers, he oversaw the production of “All the President’s Men.” The Left Coast Report suggests that a good working title for the screen version of Clarke’s book would be “All the President’s Turncoats.”

Don King Stars in GOP Online Game

Looks as if a political reality star has been born. He’s the effervescent guy with the vertical tresses, Don King.

The Republican National Committee’s Web site has tapped the boxing promoter’s vocal chords for an online game called “Kerry vs. Kerry.” The game is a virtual boxing match where both opponents are the same Democrat presidential candidate.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Kerry versus Kerry, the battle for the Democratic Party,” King’s voice intones. “In one corner, hailing from Massachusetts - 350 votes for higher taxes, votes to eliminate important intelligence funding - Sen. John Kerry. In the other corner, also hailing from Massachusetts - Sen. John Kerry.”

The Left Coast Report says it sounds like a fight to the flip-flop finish.

Think Pink Tulip

Pink isn’t thrilled with the way the public views her.

“People see me like the prostitute, the crackhead, the junkie, the convict, the runaway, the girl with the attitude,” she tells the Age, an Australian newspaper.

“I want a Mandy Moore role. I want to be sweet and innocent. I want to be a petite tulip.”

One obstacle to Pink becoming a petite tulip might have to do with her stage show. Her recent European tour featured mannequins, mirrors, trapezes, simulated sex, near-nudity and pole dancers.

In one sequence, she simulates oral sex on a blow-up doll that resembles Christina Aguilera. The singer pins the doll to the floor while performing a version of an Aguilera tune.

The Guardian, a U.K. publication, gave the performance four-and-a-half stars and gushed that the concert was “one of the most detailed, choreographed pop shows ever to hit a British stage, which makes Pink's achievement of establishing her own individuality within it even more extraordinary.”

The Left Coast Report thinks getting the public to see Pink as a petite tulip is like trying to pitch John Kerry as a bloomin’ petunia.

The Beastie Boys’ Bush Blast

In its latest 15-track album due out this summer, the Beastie Boys set their ornery sights on the Bush administration.

The group is reportedly going to lyrically call on listeners to vote President Bush out of office.

The words to “That It’s That All” convey the muddled message that “cause George W’s got nothing on me we’ve got to take the power from he.”

Also included on the album is some of the left’s mandatory mythology. In the tune “Time to Build,” Adam Yauch raps, “We’ve got a president we didn’t elect / the Kyoto treaty he decided to neglect / and still the U.S. just wants to flex.”

The Left Coast Report played the Beastie Boys and can rightly say that it’s nothin’ but noise.

Meathead Outloops Teddy Kennedy

Because of the way he feels about President Bush, “Top Gun” and “Black Hawk Down” producer Jerry Bruckheimer described himself recently as a member of the Tinseltown minority.

According to the New York Daily News, Bruckheimer said that “eventually we’ll realize that we did the right thing by removing a brutal dictator. I know I’m in the minority, but I like Bush.”

On the other side of the Tinseltown spectrum, the majority view in Hollywood was on display at a Beverly Hills party, which was thrown to toast Arianna Huffington’s latest piece of liberal prattle, “Fanatics and Fools: The Game Plan for Winning Back America.” Lefty stalwarts such as Bill Maher, Norman Lear, Albert Brooks and Larry David showed up to pop “progressive” cork and clink socialist glasses.

Rob Reiner took the opportunity to air his disagreement with Sen. Ted Kennedy's recent proclamation that Iraq was Bush’s Vietnam. Reiner said, “I think this is worse than Vietnam.”

The celebrity activist defended his kooky conjecture by saying: “In Vietnam you could pull out. In Iraq, we’re stuck in a situation we’ve created.”

The Left Coast Report notes that only in Hollywood could someone be more politically loopy than Teddy Kennedy.

The Left Coast Report is put together by James L. Hirsen and the staff of NewsMax.

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