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《华盛顿邮报》库茨传媒笔记：希拉里战争 The Hillary Wars By Howard Kurtz Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, June 10, 2003; 8:12 AM Five years and $8 million later, we finally learn that Hillary was mad as hell at her husband. Under the circumstances, who wouldn't be? But we just caught the New York senator on TV at a bookstore signing, saying that her husband helped her with the draft – presumably including the parts where she describes what a cad he was and how she wasn't sure she wanted to stay married to him and how the only family member who would hang with him was Buddy the dog. Is this getting weird or what? In order to peddle her memoir, the former first lady is pulling back the curtain just a bit, but no more. She knows she has to dish about the Lewinsky affair – she had NO IDEA that Bill was actually fooling around until the day he confessed to her – but never mentioned the former intern's name in her Barbara Walters lovefest. (Why did Walters practically apologize every time she had to ask an uncomfortable question? Hillary, after all, was putting herself out there to sell books.) With yesterday's first-of-three-parts Katie Couric interview and tonight's Larry King schmooze, the selling of Hillary is off to a high-powered start. But inevitably, it has unleashed yet another round of the Clinton Wars. The legions who don't like HRC predicted she wouldn't say much about the Lewinsky saga. Now that she has, they're attacking what she said. (She did look awfully cool and controlled with Walters, even when discussing the most emotional subjects.) The media, which deep down miss the sex scandals of those years – SO much more fun than covering WMDs – are happy to replay this again and again. And, of course, it enables them to endlessly speculate about Hillary's secret plan to recapture the White House (which conservatives also love to trumpet because it helps them raises truckloads of money). One thing the senator can no longer do is complain about her privacy being invaded. She wrote the book and mounted this media blitz, and the questions about her personal life are now fair game in a way that they wouldn't have been had she just tended to her legislative work. Here's part of what Hillary told Time for its cover story/excerpt: "I don't try to make any judgments about any other people's marriage, because it's a mystery – why two people are attracted to each other, why they love each other, why they marry, why they stay married. And in August 1998 I had to ask myself whether I would continue to stay married or not – whether I could under those circumstances. And that was a very hard decision." Dick Morris, who's become a leading Hillary critic, ramps it up in National Review: "Hillary's formula for defending herself and Bill had always been to challenge their accusers to prove their charges. In sexual cases, it always boiled down to his word against her word and no proof was possible. "Did Hillary believe her husband's denials? Come on. Get real. If Winona Ryder were caught running out of Bloomingdale's clutching an Armani dress with neither a receipt nor a bag, would you assume she hadn't shoplifted? "When Bill told Hillary that all he was doing with Monica was 'ministering to a troubled young girl,' how on earth was the First Lady supposed to believe him? When he added that she was blackmailing him, demanding that he have sex with her, or she'd go public claiming to have had sex with him, could a reasonable, sane person possibly buy his story? No. "Yet in her new book Hillary insists she had no inkling that her husband had lied to her about Monica until the day before his grand-jury testimony. "To buy this latest episode of Hillary's Fables, you'd have to accept that she believed him even after semen was found on Monica's blue dress – and after the FBI took a sample of his DNA, two weeks before his grand-jury testimony. You'd have to be a fool to buy all that." Newsweek's Howard Fineman says this may not be so hot for the Dems: "Before Bill Clinton confessed, Hillary blamed a 'right-wing conspiracy' for all the sex talk about her husband, the president. Now the chatter is back and so is the conspiracy. Only this time the driving force isn't the 'right wing' or the so-called mainstream media. It's the Clintons themselves. "Pity the poor Democrats, especially the ones running for president. They want politics these days to focus on questions such as: where are the weapons of mass destruction George W. Bush told us about? Where are the child-care credits everyone is supposed to get? But the media wants to ask different questions: what do you think of what Hillary Clinton writes in her new autobiography? Do you believe her version? What will Bill's book (out next year) be like? Does this mean Hillary is running for president in 2004 or 2008? "White House political guru Karl Rove couldn't have planned it any better. Just as the Democrats and their candidates are gearing up for the 2004 campaign (their first 'straw poll' is next week in Wisconsin), along comes the Clintons to steal the spotlight and send the party plunging back into an era of chaos and recrimination everyone (except Republican operatives) would just as soon forget. "Of course, there are positive things about the Clinton Years that Democrats want to brag about: 20 million new jobs, record run-ups in the stock markets, rapidly dwindling federal deficits and nearly a decade of entrepreneurial innovation. Al Gore's failure to run on that record is one of the reasons why he lost in 2000. But rehashing the impeachment era isn't a net winner for the Democrats, however much many (including many in the media) now regret the political harshness of that time." David Frum, Bush's ex-speechwriter, sees Hillary as part of a new Axis of Evil: "Lay aside morality for a moment, and consider the world from Hillary's point of view. You are an utterly opportunistic, wholly amoral person. You are married to Bill Clinton and are running for president in 2008. Now then – are your evil purposes better served by pretending to be a surprised, wronged wife who has at last forgiven Bill and 'hope[s] to grow old with him'? Or do you ditch the bum and run as an independent person in your own right? Hillary's betting on the first strategy, but I fear she's making a serious error. "The whole 'working on our marriage' strategy invites the voters to contemplate the prospect of a goatish 60-something Bill Clinton as an under-employed 'First Gentleman' wandering around the White House orientation program for new interns. No it's too horrible. Lose Bill now, let People magazine do its 'Hillary: Single – And Fabulous!' cover story, marry some respectable elderly widower with plenty of ultra-respectable money, and then run for president." Andrew Sullivan dares to doubt Clinton's sincerity: "I was glad to hear the senator from New York sit down with Baba Wawa for an hour. What struck me most was her absolute belief the she and her husband did nothing – nothing – of any substance to deserve the kind of scrutiny they got in eight years in office. Their only fault was naivete. I guess I'm not surprised by the rigidity of her denial and composure. But something in me hoped for a little more – maybe a real reflection on her choices, her decisions, her unelected power, her stonewalling of the press, her enabling of her husband's adulterous relationship with the truth, and so on. But nope. "And then there the sheer fakery of it all. I really wish the real Hillary would simply come out of her shell and be in public what everybody says she is in private: caustic, decisive, aggressive, witty, ambitious, smart. What we saw last night was some saccharine, perfectly-spun middle American home-maker turning literally every question into a perfectly formulated political bromide. Its phoniness made me gag. And at its center is an obvious, big, glaring fib: that she never had an inkling of her husband's long pattern of sexual abuse and harrassment until the August morning he told her of his latest victim. This stretches credulity beyond even Clintonite limits." The Washington Times looks in the index under S: "Independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr overlooked 'rules, procedures and decency' when leading a series of investigations against President Clinton and presided over 'a low moment in American history,' according to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's memoirs. "'I have not read the Starr report, but I've been told that the word sex (or some variation of it) appears 581 times in the 445-page report,' Mrs. Clinton, New York Democrat, wrote of Mr. Starr's investigation, which she also categorized as 'a Soviet-style show trial.'" She had a researcher counting the word sex? Roger Simon poses an interesting question: "If the Secret Service agents guarding President Clinton in 1998 had learned that Hillary Clinton 'wanted to wring Bill's neck' for cheating on her, as she says in her new book, what would they have done? "A: Wrestled her to the ground and arrested her for plotting to take the life of the president. "B: Looked the other way. "C: Helped her. "I am betting on C. I covered the Clinton White House during 1998, the 'Year of Monica,' and although it was often exhausting, it was never dull. Today, White House reporters are bored silly. There is tight control over the news and there have been no scandals. "But back in 1998, every day was Anything Can Happen Day. "The President of the United States was down in the Map Room giving 4 milliliters of blood from his right arm so it could be taken to the FBI lab and matched against the evidence on the little blue dress? "Sure, why not? Just another day at the Clinton White House." See? They miss it! They miss it! In Salon, Michael Alvear has an unorthodox take: "If letters to my sex advice column are any indication, gay people perceive Hillary Clinton's struggle with her husband's infidelities much differently than straight people do. "Gay men have the same questions as heterosexuals: What did Hillary know and when did she know it? Did she throw a hissy fit or was she calm, cool and collected? Was Bill Clinton sufficiently apologetic? Did she forgive him? Did she stick by him because she's a 'feminist doormat' or a forgiving Christian? Is their marriage a monument to political expediency or a testament to the resiliency of love? "But gay men also came up with a question that seems to have escaped most heterosexuals: Do Hillary and Bill have an open marriage? "The press has no problem writing about thongs in the Oval Office and cigars in oval orifices, but they get oddly uptight at the thought of unconventional marriage. That's because their readers – mainstream America – do not believe it's possible to be in a deeply loving, committed relationship and still have sex with other people." Now for some policy. David Firestone of the New York Times single-handedly made the GOP's botch of the child tax credit into a major issue, the Democrats jumped on it and now even the president is jumping on the bandwagon: "The White House all but demanded today that House Republicans quickly approve a Senate bill to increase the child tax credit for 6.5 million low-income families. "'Pass it,' said Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, when asked what President Bush would say to House Republicans who disagree with the bill. 'His advice to the House Republicans is to pass it, to send it to him, so he can sign it.' "Mr. Fleischer's remarks were the strongest signal to date that the administration wants to extinguish a political brushfire that could damage one of Mr. Bush's most cherished domestic policy achievements – the tax bill that he signed last month." Joe Lieberman is having a hard time making the sale with one group, reports USA Today: "Some Jewish Democrats are ambivalent about a man who is more religious and more conservative than most of them. As proud as most Jews are of Lieberman, he's no longer a novelty and he's not bursting onto the scene on a national ticket. He's scrapping with eight other Democrats, some of whom have more appeal to Jewish liberals than the hawkish, values-oriented Lieberman does. "And he's running in a world beset by terrorism, Middle East violence, anti-Semitism and anti-American sentiment. The Israeli-Palestinian peace process sits at a delicate early stage. All that leads some Jews to wonder if it's the right time for a Jewish president. . . . "Lieberman's pollster, Mark Penn, says Lieberman has a 93% approval rating among Jews. But only about half that percentage pick him when asked whom they'd vote for in a Democratic primary." The rest of their votes remain in a lox box. Glenn Reynolds, on TechCentralStation, sees pressure from the Net as speeding along the Raines/Boyd resignations at the New York Times: "In the old days, if you didn't like what you read in the newspaper, you could either complain to your neighbors, or send a letter to the editor that – maybe – would be published days or weeks later, when everyone had forgotten the story you were complaining about. And if you worked at a newspaper, you couldn't even do that. Newspapers aren't very enthusiastic about publishing letters from unhappy employees. "For the Times, though, it became painfully obvious how that old system has broken down. From the outside, bloggers like Andrew Sullivan and Mickey Kaus, along with specialty sites like TimesWatch, kept up constant pressure. Every distortion and misrepresentation (and there were plenty, of course) was picked up and noted. The result was a steady diminution of the Times' prestige among the opinion-making classes, something that opened it up for criticism in a way that it once didn't have to face because of the quasi-mystical awe in which many journalists have traditionally held it. (And no, that's not an exaggeration.) "Meanwhile, the Internet also opened things up from the inside. Unhappy Times staffers in previous years could have grumbled to their colleagues at other papers, but such grumbling would have been largely futile. Now, on the other hand, thanks to email and websites such as Jim Romenesko's (and quite a few blogs that got leaked information), they could grumble to a major audience. They could also engage in that most devastating of insider activities, the leaking of sanctimonious and dumb internal memos from the bosses. (Note to bosses: If you distribute your dumb and sanctimonious memos on paper instead of via email, you'll face less of that because people can't just hit 'forward' and send them on. Of course, another approach might be to write memos that aren't dumb and sanctimonious . . . )." But that would spoil the fun. (R:211.150.247.20)

蒂娜·布朗：永远让自己身处困境 Tina Brown: 'I've Always Put Myself in the Hot Seat' The host of "Topic A with Tina Brown" says she plans to be low-key with the promotion of her new CNBC talk show, having learned from the ill-fated Talk magazine that "buzz can be harmful." By Patrick Phillips I Want Media, 04/30/03 Tina Brown is the host of "Topic A with Tina Brown," a quarterly roundtable discussion program featuring guests from the worlds of business, politics and entertainment, debuting tonight on CNBC at 9 p.m. ET. "Topic A" marks Brown's first foray into television, after editing such high-profile magazines as Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and finally Talk, which folded last year. Brown also contributes a regular column on politics and popular culture to the Times of London and Salon.com. The legendary editor and oft-described Queen of Buzz spoke with I Want Media about how "Topic A" is unlike other talk shows, why today's environment for magazines has never "been worse," and how she's managed to generate buzz throughout her career. I Want Media: So tell us about "Topic A With Tina Brown." What's the show about? What's the format? Tina Brown: The format of the show is bringing people together who I consider would have something to say to one another, to discuss aspects of our times and what's in the news in a way that simply creates a great conversation. In the first show I have Barry Diller in conversation with Malcolm Gladwell, the author of "The Tipping Point." The concept was to not put Barry with a businessman as to put someone with him who he would find interesting and didn't know. Malcolm is at the moment writing his next book, which is going to be about decision-making. And I thought that that would be very interesting, because Barry spends his life making decisions. In the next segment I've got Conrad Black, who owns the Telegraph newspaper in England, the Jewish Post, and he's a kind of major right-wing. And I have him in conversation with Howard Stringer, the boss of Sony. And I also have Queen Noor [of Jordan] with the historian Simon Schama. Given that Queen Noor has written a book and we now know more about her, I thought that Simon, who is so incredibly interesting with a historical slant on issues, would be a great person to be in conversation with her. IWM: How will your show be different from what's already on the air? Brown: I'm trying to bring people together who you wouldn't necessarily see together anywhere else. I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel. I'm simply trying to create a conversation that has information and interest. IWM: The war in Iraq got in the way of the debut of your show. Were you surprised that you were postponed? Brown: No. I wasn't. In the two weeks leading up to it, it was quite obvious that that might well happen. It was unsettling in preparation for it, because one was so aware that it might not happen. But you still had to proceed. IWM: What was going to be the topic of your debut show before it was postponed? Brown: Originally we were going to do a Hollywood show before the Oscars. And then I thought, well, maybe I'd better try to switch in case I have to go on the air during the war. And we did. We started to prepare a war show. But it became quite obvious that CNBC was going to make the decision to go live and have all war-related coverage. So that wouldn't have worked for us. I could not do my first show live. I think that it would have been a recipe for mayhem! [laughter] IWM: Doing a TV show is obviously quite different from doing a magazine. What do you find most challenging about doing television? Brown: The way you have to kind of multitask in so many different ways. I've spent a life worrying about words on a page. But with television, you still have to worry about the content, but you also have to worry about timing, the viewer, the fact the clock's ticking. All of the logistical stuff is actually very hard. When I think of people like Tom Brokaw who can do this stuff intuitively now, I think they're brilliant. But I'm enjoying the process enormously. I have tremendous support from my producer, Kathy O'Hearn. She's very helpful in getting me comfortable with the process of TV. IWM: Who would you really like to have on your show? Who's your dream guest? Brown: The show is really not about the individual guest; it's these interplays about just seeing people in conversation with one another. I'm more interested in a conversation that can happen between people. It's about finding one person who's interesting and then playing them against somebody else. IWM: Do you miss working in magazines? Brown: I miss being a journalist as such, being a journalist in the mix of the news. I keep thinking every day of articles that I would assign. And I keep thinking, why isn't anybody assigning Anthony Swofford, the author of "Jarhead," to go to Iraq? It seems to me mad. I would have done that instantly. I get ideas all the time for pieces that I would assign. So that's part of me. I'll never stop doing that. I'll probably do it in my sleep. Yes, I do miss that. But at the same time, I have really enjoyed getting back to writing [my column], which was my first kind of life, and which I did miss tremendously. And I only stopped writing because I had two kids, and I couldn't have magazines and kids and write as well. Now my children are just a little bit older, and of course I don't have the magazine. But I've really been enjoying the freshness of trying to master something new. It's been very, very nice to work in a new medium. IWM: I understand you're going to be a contributor to Radar magazine. Brown: I will certainly try and write something for Maer [Roshan, editor of Radar], whom I admire enormously. IWM: What types of things will you write for him? Brown: Something that will grab me. I couldn't do anything for the first two issues because the show was launching, and I've got enough multitasking as it is. But I'll come up with something for Maer. Something will hit me, or something will hit him and I'll find a way to write it. IWM: What is your impression of the first issue of Radar? Brown: I think it's terrific. It has a lot of freshness and energy. One of the most important things with a first issue is that you get a feeling of vitality and a feeling of attitude. And you get both in Radar. IWM: You wrote in your column that "Radar's defiant vitality is the first stirring of spring on the magazine world's dead planet." What did you mean?" Brown: I think there's not much new publishing flair right now because there is so much caution in the magazine world. Anything that's launching is very much niche magazines. And mostly there are no launchings; mostly it's been closings. So finally we've got something that was just an editor's love affair with something he wanted to do. And I love that. I love the fact that it just reflected one guy's crazy passion. IWM: Have you offered any advice to Maer about launching a magazine? Brown: Oh my God, yes. [laughter] I mean, we've talked throughout the process. IWM: Radar, like Talk magazine, has generated a lot of early buzz. In a recent interview with I Want Media, Maer said that he learned from his experience at Talk that buzz can "cut both ways." Have you given him any advice on the subject of buzz? Brown: Yes, well, I did invite him to try to not overdo that. The trouble is that it has its own momentum. Obviously Maer wants to promote his first issue, but there was a lot of buzz before there was a first issue. And it wasn't actually coming from Maer. It was just that he was interviewing with lots of people and they created their own buzz. Buzz can be harmful. It certainly was in Talk's case. I mean, we gave an insanely huge launch party that really subscribed to the great David Brown theory of show business -- which is never give a party that's better than the movie. It's very difficult to maintain momentum with something new. And unfortunately we're in an age where there's not much patience. You're supposed to come out of the box completely perfect, as you see with these [quickly canceled] TV shows like Donahue and Connie Chung. I've done virtually no promotion for my show at all. In fact, CNBC wants to promote it like crazy and I've said I haven't wanted to do that. Because I don't really want to be shot out of a cannon with something when I know I'm still in a learning curve. IWM: In a speech at a gathering of magazine editors in London last summer, you said that Talk magazine could have been a success if it had been given more time. Do you believe that its backers, Miramax and Hearst, pulled out too quickly? Brown: I do. There's no question Talk became a very good magazine in its last six months. And there's no question that even in its early incarnation, when it was a bit of a visual jumble, some of the material we had was extremely good. We had a big piece on Osama Bin Laden in October of 2000. We had a lot of stuff that oddly looks even better when you go back in there. I definitely think that it was a waste to pull the rug out -- yes. But at the same time, where I'm sympathetic is that the 9/11 atmosphere was so dire, and the need for funds came up just at the time when 9/11 was in full cry. In all fairness again, the advertising recession proved not just to be a blip but very long and painful. The fact is, they would have had to be very, very hopeful and invest a lot to come out O.K. And our timing was off. It's interesting: most of the staff of Radar are the Talk people. We had at the end got together a group of fantastic people who are very, very talented. And there is no question that the team had developed kind of a flair and success. It did take longer than I wished to get it good. But it wasn't much longer than it took Vanity Fair. Anyway, it's water under the bridge. With my TV show, I thought, well, let's just do something in a very low-key way, because there's no question that I'm not going to be a fully-fledged Katie Couric in my first inning. IWM: In that same speech, you said that Talk had come to be the "favorite bloodsport of the press." Do you believe that when Talk folded the knives really came out? Brown: It was completely understandable. At the end of the day, Talk became this kind of hysterically over-inflated sort of media story. And it was fun for people to write about. I thought that it was a little excessive at times. But I'm kind of used to that at this point. I really am. And it was O.K. IWM: Several magazines have folded recently ? Victoria, Travel Holiday. How would you describe the current environment for magazines? Brown: It's really brutal for magazines at the moment, really brutal. With the dire advertising climate, the caution of media companies that are so frightened of doing anything and the kind of deadly conglomeratization of it all -- this combination suffocates creativity. So there's not much desire for flair journalism. It's really bad. I don't think it's ever been worse, actually. IWM: What are your favorite magazines nowadays? Brown: I love The New Yorker. It's still my favorite magazine, my old home. I like to get into The New York Review of Books, I like to get into Us magazine, I like to get into Vogue when it's around, I like to get into The Weekly Standard. I try to get myself a little clutch of stuff that satisfies different instincts. And of course I like Radar. IWM: What is your impression of the news media's coverage of the war in Iraq? Brown: I do think the New York Times' Nation at War section has been absolutely superb. I really do. They've written it brilliantly. I'm very impressed with that. And I think Ted Koppel did a great job. IWM: You are an infamous observer of popular culture. Is there anything that you find particularly unsettling in our culture nowadays? Brown: I think we're in a kind of paradigm shift moment where people can be led in any direction. And I think that leaders of intellectual property companies have a good chance now to lead people in a more quality direction, if they wish. It's depressing when they decide to take the other turn. The question is, how to package substance to make it reader and user friendly. But I don't think there's a need to go further and further down the trash route. I really don't. And I think that the conglomerates have the power -- which is all centered on three or four companies -- to lead us up, or they can lead us down. IWM: There has been more buzz surrounding you than just about any figure in media. You're often labeled the Queen of Buzz. Why is that? Brown: I didn't know -- all I know is that my favorite piece about me in London recently said: "We wish the Queen of Buzz would just buzz off!" [laughter] IWM: How do you account for the "heat" you've generated throughout your career? Brown: Oh, God. Well, I think I took on controversial titles. I mean, I took on Vanity Fair when it was ailing. It was a kind of "will it, won't it join the dance" kind of situation. And I took on The New Yorker when it was an icon. So I've always been in the hot seat. And then with Talk it was surprising to people that I left The New Yorker to try to do something on my own. I've always put myself in the hot seat, I think. I've run controversial stuff, and I've tried to be a journalist who stays sort of interesting in the things I've published. And I think if you're a woman you probably attract more attention than not. I have no idea, really. IWM: Well, now you're in a new hot seat in television, I guess? Brown: I suppose so. But I'm doing this in a low-key way. Remember that. I mean, look at the state of poor Connie Chung. IWM: You keep bringing her up. Is her canceled talk show always in the back of your mind? Brown: No, it's just that I thought her show really improved during its tenure. And I think [CNN was] absolutely ill mannered and sort of grotesquely premature in the way they handled it. IWM: You've worked in just about every form of media. You've done television, magazines, newspaper columns. I think you've done everything but your own Weblog. Brown: There's still time. [laughter] (R:211.150.247.20)

麦克·沃尔夫：作为媒体的互联网的失败 Michael Wolff: 'The Internet As Media Has Failed' New York Magazine's media columnist says the Internet works as "facilitating technology," not as a venue for media business. I Want Media, 02/01/01 Michael Wolff is the media columnist for New York Magazine and author of the book "Burn Rate," a candid account of his experiences in working on the Internet. He appears regularly as a guest commentator on television news shows and as a host of media forums. I Want Media asked Wolff for his thoughts on a variety of media subjects. I Want Media: You have said that you approach the subject of media in your New York Magazine column as a "human comedy." Can you elaborate? Michael Wolff: I think the media business is a funny business. It's filled with outsized people doing more or less show-offy things. And we've found ourselves in this comic situation in which the media business is the triumphant industry of our time. IWM: We hear you're writing a new book, "Autumn of the Moguls." What's it about? Wolff: It's actually about the comedy of the media business. And it's also about this condition wherein we have tried to consolidate the media business just as it is in the process of fracturing into a hundred million pieces. The book will be finished in about 18 months. IWM: One of the biggest media stories of the past year was the AOL-Time Warner merger. What will be the repercussions of this mammoth deal? Wolff: It's just happening now. I don't think anybody has remotely any idea of what it will be like. Will it be a success or a failure? I think it's all wait and see at this point. IWM: Do you think other media companies feel a pressure to merge in order to keep up? Wolff: Possibly, yes. But I think just as possibly they feel a pressure to deconstruct. We're at a point where media companies have grown so large that I'm not sure there is a next step to "largeness." And right now the imperative for these companies is to survive and increase profit margins. Ultimately, everybody is going to be open to all manner of corporate manipulations to achieve that, whether that means buying companies or breaking up existing companies. What we have seen concurrent with the AOL Time Warner measure is the imminent breakup of AT&T, which in some manner, shape or form is a media company. IWM: What were the other important media stories of 2000? Wolff: There were a lot of mergers last year. As I said, AT&T, which has become a reverse merger, was a profound story. The collapse of the dot-com business was a profound story, and actually probably a larger story than AOL Time Warner. The Vivendi story I find monumental and very interesting, reflective of the comedy of this business -- [the ideal of] a water company taking over a Hollywood movie studio. It's a hilarious story. IWM: Several media companies have recently announced layoffs and hiring freezes related to the advertising slowdown and difficulties at their Web sites. Are we over the hump, or is the worst yet to come? Wolff: We're just at the beginning of the hump. I think it's quite likely that if there is a slowdown it will hit the media business very hard. A lot of the growth in the media business over the past 24 months has been this dot-com stuff, and that has gone away. It's like we're beginning from square one. I'm not saying there's going to be a disaster in the media business. But I think very clearly there was a period of excess, and now a lot of companies are going to have to deal with that in some way. IWM: Recent studies say the long-term outlook for media is robust. So could these cutbacks be short term -- or shortsighted? Wolff: It depends. There will be more media, more people in the media business and fewer industries that will not characterize themselves as in the media business. At the same time, it's going to become a hard living. It is becoming increasingly less clear how you make a substantial amount of money in the media business. There's significantly more competition. Every day there are new forms of media, which are all competing with the older forms. And there is enormous technological uncertainty. So it becomes less and less clear how to make advertising work in an efficient way. And it has always been hard to find and retain subscribers. IWM: What do you think is the long-term prognosis for content sites like iVillage, Salon and TheStreet.com? Wolff: I think it's dead. I think it's over with; it's gone. There is no long-term prognosis. The patient has died. There is no future. IWM: So do you see these sites possibly shutting down some day? Wolff: I do. IWM: Is content no longer king? Wolff: Well, I don't think content was ever king. I think it just didn't work. It's more fundamental than whether it's content or distribution or whatever. The Internet as media has failed. It wasn't interesting to any of the parties involved, essentially. People didn't want to pay for content, and there was no way to generate money out of content. It didn't work for advertisers, and it's not going to work. The Internet works as an infrastructure that moves lots of different kinds of information. But in terms of being "the media business" per se -- forget about it. IWM: So for newspaper and TV station sites, for example, do you see the Web as more of a promotional outlet than as a place to produce revenue? Wolff: Conceivably, sure. IWM: Inside.com, the widely publicized media news operation, has been up and running for several months now. What's your opinion of it? Wolff: I think they do an inestimable job. I think they're terrific. IWM: But in light of what you just said, does their outlook appear cloudy? Wolff: Well, the outlook isn't good for anybody who is trying to create media products in this medium. Obviously, they know that and have taken steps to create a traditional media product [a print magazine]. But it's a real competitive area. Even on the offline side, there is not a monumental advertising base, certainly. And so you're into the subscription business, and the subscription business is a hard business. IWM: Are e-books ever going to take off? Wolff: I think the e-book is a smart and attractive notion. And it does have some inevitability to it. In other words, you can create cheaper books. Remember, the book market is big. There are tons of reference stuff that would be significantly more useful if it were in searchable form. If you can create a technology that allows you to transfer information in a significantly more economical way, it's very powerful. IWM: What do you think of NBC's plan of adding 10 minutes to "Friends" to fight CBS's "Survivor"? Wolff: I guess adding 10 minutes to an old hit show is easier than creating a new hit show. But there's a broader question that has to do with the change of the television market, especially prime time. We still have a three-network model. The assumption is still that you have a 90-plus percent share of the market. And that is falling day by day. So what do you do about that? Ultimately, you have to produce cheaper shows. The true triumph of "Survivor" and "Millionaire" and this kind of stuff is that they're cheap to make. And on top of that they're wildly popular. But even the most popular show at the moment is just a pale reflection of what top-rated shows were in the heyday of the three networks. ... And I'm not sure how popular this "reality" stuff is. It's a novelty at this point. I think that part of why it's popular is just "give me something new." IWM: Oprah and Martha Stewart have inspired very successful magazines. Rosie's is coming soon. Why are celebrity-branded magazines appealing? Wolff: When you create media products, one of the most difficult things is to rise above the clutter. It's obviously easier if you start with a concept that a lot of people know. Add to that, these people come with a built-in promotional mechanism. How did Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh become best-selling authors? Part of the reason is that they had radio shows. But these things work once, then they work twice, then they don't work anymore. IWM: The Internet's golden days apparently are gone, at least for a while. What do you think the future holds for the Net? Wolff: I think it will be a powerful infrastructure that all businesses will take advantage of. All businesses will in some sense build themselves around it. But the notion of the Internet as a discrete business is gone. It is merely a facilitating technology. Think of it as like the telephone. It does its job, but we don't credit it with special properties of its own. IWM: How can traditional media make the Web work for them? Wolff: Number one: it's potentially a way to move your product faster and cheaper. Number two: it's probably a relatively efficient way to create a closer relationship with your audience. I think it will be an effective kind of collateral media. IWM: But as a stand-alone media business, there's no future? Wolff: None. Forget it. IWM: So I suppose content sites need to have a print counterpart if they expect to be around? Wolff: Can they be around as a specialized product that's available in electronic form? Yes, I think that they can. But we're talking about a very, very, very small operation. (R:211.150.247.20)

《经济学家》:再思民主市场化社会 CAPITALISM AND DEMOCRACY Jun 26th 2003 Give freedom a chance 给自由一个机会 THESE are melancholy times, to borrow a word from James Wilson's 1843 essay that gave birth to The Economist. The world's big economies are growing sluggishly, if at all, with price deflation a fact in Japan, a fear in western Europe and a danger in the United States. The brightest economic lights, in China and the rest of East Asia, have just been dimmed by fear of a new respiratory disease, SARS. The two big driving forces of the past few years, technology investment and American domestic demand, both look unlikely to provide much new stimulus any time soon. Meanwhile arguments continue to rumble over the war in Iraq, optimism about peace in the Middle East is as rare there as lush green fields, even after George Bush's recent summit in Aqaba, and al-Qaeda's terrorists have again proved themselves capable of bringing death and fear. Yet the pessimism is overdone. Some of it is the inevitable result of fear, especially of war and terrorism. Much, though, is caused by impatience. When a financial-market boom has been as extreme as the one that took place in the rich countries during the late 1990s, and is followed by a bust as extreme as the one that started in 2000, it always takes time for economies to adjust. Excess capacity built up during the boom has to be scrapped or somehow absorbed; corporate and consumer debtors have to cut their spending and increase their saving in order to avoid bankruptcy; and those who lost billions in the crash—mainly pension funds and life-insurance firms—have to come to terms with their new circumstances. The good news is that, unlike in previous stockmarket crashes, there have been no commercial-bank collapses to deepen the recession. This means the losses have been spread widely among many investors, mainly in America and Europe, which has reduced the pain but will probably prolong it. The other, even better news is that the crash and slowdown in growth have not so far set off a big retreat from liberalism. There have been steps in the wrong direction, notably America's steel tariffs and extra farm subsidies, and the European Union's decision to shy away from cutting its big, trade-distorting common agricultural policy. Thanks to depressed stockmarkets and worries about jobs, privatisation programmes have ground almost to a halt in the rich countries, and deregulation in over-rigid Germany and Japan is proving painfully slow. So far, though, the political debate is not about whether to do these things but when. And the pressure from the developing world, especially China, is arguing for sooner rather than later: fast growth there and continued liberalisation are intensifying competition for many firms and, on balance, reinforcing the case for deregulation and technological innovation in the rich world. However, as long as this adjustment period lasts, the political climate for open markets will get icier in both Europe and America. Al Gore ran on an anti-business ticket in America's 2000 presidential election, in response to the perceived excesses of pay and profits during the 1990s, and had he been a competent campaigner he would surely have won. In 2004 any Democratic opponent of George Bush will make much of unemployment, tax cuts for the rich and the failure to deal decisively with corporate wrong-doing. Mr Bush might well be tempted to protect some more old industries against “unfair” competition, just as he already has for steel and farms, in order to lure his share of working-class votes. The same dynamic will apply to congressional races. In Europe the idea that trade liberalisation does not help the poor and has led to growing inequality is already popular and could gain further ground. Tensions with America over Iraq, the Middle East and elsewhere have eroded the fragile support in continental Europe for what are seen as American policies of free markets and shareholder capitalism, as well as making it less likely that the EU will change its mind and agree to cut farm subsidies as part of a new round of trade negotiations in the WTO. International politics add to that danger. The foreign policy that America has embarked upon since the atrocities of September 11th consists of a concerted attempt to solve some long-term problems inherited from the cold war and even the second world war, especially in the Middle East, which have helped make America the target of messianic terrorists. But since the solutions involve change, and change risks instability as well as conflict, that policy is causing widespread nervousness and even opposition among America's European allies. Some cack-handed American diplomacy and implementation of the policy (especially in Iraq immediately after the military victory) has not helped. Nor has an associated perception that the Americans are deserting the multilateral organisations they helped set up after 1945: the UN (over Iraq), and perhaps in future the WTO, given America's new liking for bilateral trade pacts. The underpinnings of progress in the world remain strong, but the chillier political climate is putting that progress at risk The underpinnings of progress in the world remain strong, but the chillier political climate is putting that progress at risk. Some of what needs to be done to kick liberal capitalism back into acceptability has been outlined in this survey: moves to punish corporate wrong-doers and to fill the power vacuum that is leading executives to line their bank accounts; moves to separate business and government in order to preserve government's role as an arbitrator and counterweight, rather than as a corporate poodle. A wider and equally important hope is that politicians and policymakers will keep their eyes on the long-term, wealth-creating benefits of liberalism and avoid the temptations of subsidy and trade protection, which so often end up by eroding economic freedom gradually but powerfully. Hope seems a frail reed on which to rely. But there is strong evidence of the gains that liberalism brings, in terms of higher living standards and the reduction of poverty, providing ammunition for the constant and vigorous campaign that is needed if freedom is to be preserved and enhanced, and the hope fulfilled. That evidence is particularly convincing in the developing world, where Asian successes act as a fine example to others. Where rich-country campaigners—and, even more important, rich-country governments—need to work harder is in distinguishing the real problems of the third world from those sweepingly claimed by anti-globalisation campaigners. Poverty is being reduced, thanks to globalisation, as is inequality; but neither is being reduced rapidly enough, and the process is leaving plenty of people behind. A right and proper task for liberals is to shine the light of hope on the un-globalised and un-developed parts of the world, which particularly means Africa. That is desirable in its own terms, but it would also help strengthen support for liberalism at home, which is sapped by the sight of unresolved, and in some cases worsening, poverty abroad, and the mistaken association of that in many people's minds with trade and freer markets. The evidence from Asia suggests that the main solutions to African poverty lie in Africa itself The evidence from Asia suggests that the main solutions to African poverty lie in Africa itself, and particularly in its governmental institutions. Whatever the magic of markets, they cannot work effectively without the rule of law, the protection of property rights, stable and socially acceptable regulations, and stability of public finances and the national currency. Rich-country liberals can do little directly to provide those, beyond attaching incentives for their creation to overseas aid. They can, though, push for two big things which would give local activists for democracy and market capitalism in Africa a better chance of success. The first would be to press governments to double—no, treble—the sums they are giving to help fight the diseases that are plaguing so much of Africa and undermining its social and political institutions. These are, principally, AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. The United Nations has a “Global Fund” established to channel donors' money into research and treatment for those diseases, and the strengthening of health-care systems in afflicted countries more generally, in order to supplement and co-ordinate bilateral efforts. The value of life In total, more than 20m people have died from AIDS already. Some 2.4m Africans died from it last year alone, and nearly 30m Africans are thought to carry the virus that causes it. Each year about 2m people die from tuberculosis (some because they also have AIDS) and at least 1m from malaria. Given that toll, you would have thought that the necessary billions would be forthcoming. They have not been. Bilateral aid for these diseases last year amounted to about $1.2 billion. Rich-country governments have pledged a mere $4.6 billion for the UN's Global Fund since it was established in 2001 as a six-year programme. Some of that is coming from the United States, as the multilateral part of a mainly bilateral $15 billion effort expanded by President Bush in February and just confirmed by Congress, and about $2.5 billion from the EU countries—which has been rising, to match America's effort. But all these amounts, welcome as they are, remain too small for the task. There are plenty of good reasons to doubt that overseas aid has been effective in the third world. Much has been stolen or wasted. It seems to work only when it is well targeted and monitored by outsiders, and when it is not simply a substitute for local money. Dealing with these diseases fits all those bills. Overseas aid seems to work only when it is well targeted and monitored by outsiders, and when it is not simply a substitute for local money If the European Union, Japan and the United States were to treble the combined sums they donate to the Global Fund and in bilateral disease-related aid to, say, $15 billion a year, their taxpayers would have to stump up about $30 per head. That does not seem a lot for saving millions of lives and shoring up crumbling societies. Nor is it much compared with the other things on which rich countries spend their money. America shells outs $400 billion a year on defence, for instance. The 30 members of the OECD spend more than $330 billion a year on supporting their farmers, both through direct subsidies and through higher prices for consumers. Cut that by 5%, and you will have found enough money to treble the rich world's current official donations to fight AIDS. Farm support should, though, be cut by much more than 5%. Dismantling the EU's common agricultural policy, America's lavish system of farm support and Japan's protections for its domestic producers of rice and other foods is the second big thing that rich-country liberals must fight for in order to give market capitalism a chance in the poorest countries. Freeing farm trade is a wearying campaign, for it has gone on so long—160 years, indeed—and to so little effect. It is tempting to give up, accepting that lavish farm support is bound to remain a permanent feature of the developed world, and a continuing slap in the face to the farmers of Africa and the rest of the third world. That, however, would be a terrible mistake—a betrayal of the poor, in the rich countries as well as in Africa. Making their garden grow If farm subsidies and trade barriers were to be reduced and eventually eliminated, the biggest beneficiaries would be the developed countries themselves and especially their poorest citizens, for they spend more of their income on food than the rich do and so would gain most from lower food prices. They also suffer most from the worsening of food quality that has resulted as agriculture tries to cope with high prices, restricted trade and dear land by becoming ever more industrialised. Farmers themselves would lose out if support were to be reduced, but mainly the bigger ones. In the EU, the largest 25% of farms get 70% of the subsidies. The CAP is an inefficient way to bolster farm incomes anyway: nearly half of the cost to taxpayers and consumers is reckoned to go into higher rents or land values. And, before you start believing the popular argument that these inducements are needed for environmental reasons, think of the pollution from fertilisers and pesticides, the loss of wildlife habitats, the heavy use of water and the high energy bills for glasshouses, all of which result from the intensive agriculture that subsidies encourage in Europe, Japan and America. Third-world farmers would gain from reduced farm support in rich countries because new markets would open up for their produce Third-world farmers would gain from reduced farm support in rich countries because new markets would open up for their produce. European farm ministers try to deny this by claiming that African produce does not compete with that of European farmers, but that is, as it were, a chicken-and-egg issue: African farmers do not compete with European ones because high tariffs and low quotas prevent them from doing so. What they would gain most of all from the opening up of agricultural trade would be choice, the chance to try to grow and sell new crops or livestock. Third-world food-processing businesses would also benefit, for the tariffs on processed food are often even higher than on the unprocessed sort. Coffee producers, for example, are currently suffering from a big slump in prices, thanks to rapid increases in production in Vietnam and elsewhere. If more coffee farmers had the option to switch to other foods and crops that are currently protected in the rich world, or to move upmarket by processing more of their crop, the slump could be dealt with. Mike Moore, the New Zealander who has just retired as director-general of the WTO, writes of another example, cotton, in his new book, “A World Without Walls”. In 2001, American cotton producers received $3.4 billion in government subsidies, which went to a total of 25,000 farmers whose net household worth averaged about $800,000. The IMF and the World Bank reckon that removal of those American subsidies would increase the incomes of cotton-producing countries in West and Central Africa by $250m a year. Complete liberalisation in agriculture is a remote prospect. But the process can be started, just as it has been in other sectors during the past half-century. It is supposed to be at the centre of the current Doha round of trade negotiations. Getting the process of freeing farm trade under way should become one of the great campaigns for liberals during this decade, just as the corn laws were in the early years of The Economist. In his polemical prospectus for his new free-trade publication in the summer of 1843, 160 years ago, James Wilson ended with these words: And we hope to see the day when it will be as difficult to understand how an act of parliament could have been made to restrict the food and employment of the people, as it is now to conceive how the mild, inoffensive spirit of Christianity could ever have been converted into the plea of persecution and martyrdom, or how poor old wrinkled women, with a little eccentricity, were burned by our forefathers for witchcraft. Here's still hoping. 贪婪、付帐与强权（Pigs, pay and power） THE litany of scandals is by now familiar. Around the globe, Enron and WorldCom are household names, and who will soon forget the $15,000 umbrella stand bought for Tyco's already extravagantly paid boss, Dennis Kozlowski, with his employer's money? In America there are also Adelphia, HealthSouth, ImClone, Global Crossing, Xerox, Qwest, the hundreds of public companies that re-stated their accounts in recent years and the Wall Street investment banks accused of conflicts of interest and shady practices. In Europe there are the false accounts of Royal Ahold, a large Dutch food distributor and retailer, the controversial payments to the German bosses of Mannesmann when they accepted Vodafone's takeover bid in 2000, the troubles of Vivendi in France and Marconi in Britain, and the bribery and other legal cases surrounding Italy's richest businessman, Silvio Berlusconi, who happens also to be its current prime minister. In Japan, ever since the stockmarket crashed in 1990 there has been a steady flow of corporate and banking scandals, over perks or cover-ups or huge debts or simple incompetence. Incomes Data Services and Business Week report on executive pay in Britain and America respectively. The Corporate Library is a governance-monitoring service. See also the Business Roundtable. Is this not proof that markets cannot be allowed to rampage freely, driven as they are by greed? Well, much of this mess is cyclical, the sort of thing that happens whenever bust follows boom. As Alan Greenspan, the chairman of America's Federal Reserve, has said, in the 1990s there was no increase in human greed, just an increase in the opportunities for greedy behaviour. Japan's experience, though, following its share and property bubble in the late 1980s, is that cleaning up the mess can take a long time and a strong stomach—and that vested interests in continued corruption can delay or even prevent the clean-up. On that analysis, the basic task is to ensure that existing laws are vigorously enforced and that any loopholes in them are closed—much more rapidly than Japan has managed. The sight of once-high-flying executives being carted off to jail ought, as in previous periods of scandal, to deter wrong-doers for a time. In America, the process is proving a little slow, but it is under way and is certainly outpacing the Japanese precedent. The table shows the progress so far in enforcing laws and tightening them up. The problem does not, however, stop there, because a large part of it is structural, not merely cyclical. And that part has less to do with law enforcement and more to do with the way companies are owned and run. Levels of executive pay symbolise the issue, for they show what has occurred entirely legally. Those who attack pay levels are often accused of “the politics of envy”, or of failing to recognise the role of incentives. That is unfair. It is better thought of as the politics of astonishment, a tale of misdirected incentives and misdelegated power. Golden carrots How big a gap should there be between the pay of an ordinary worker and that of the top executives? Once upon a time, a popular benchmark was that the boss should be paid no more than about 20-30 times the level of a lowly toiler. In America the gap has long been larger than that, though not outlandishly so. According to Fortune magazine, in 1970 real annual compensation averaged $1.3m (in today's money) for the top 100 chief executives, which was about 39 times the pay of an average worker. By the end of the 1990s, however, the average for Fortune's top 100 was $37.5m, or 1,000 times the level for ordinary workers. Much of the explosion in the pay of top executives was accounted for by grants in shares and (especially) share options, which soared in value during the stockmarket bubble. Share prices have slumped since mid-2001, so has executive pay slumped too? Not exactly. Admittedly, the days when massive, jaw-dropping sums were taken by a few stars—Michael Eisner of Disney, Larry Ellison of Oracle—have gone. Business Week's annual survey of the pay of America's 365 top bosses showed that the highest-paid executive in 2002, the late Alfred Lerner of MBNA bank, took a mere $194.9m, much less than the 2001 winner, Mr Ellison, who got $706.1m. Thanks to fewer such huge cash-ins, the average package for the 365 fell by a third to $7.4m. But the median pay actually rose by 5.9% to $3.7m. In Britain, although pay levels are lower, there has been a similar process of inflation, partly under America's influence. And British executive pay has also been remarkably resilient in the face of the stockmarket's slide and of a domestic economic slowdown. A research firm, Incomes Data Services, reported in May that the basic pay of chief executives at FT-SE 100 companies rose by an average of 11.2% in 2002 and their overall earnings rose by an astonishing 23%. The longer-term result, most noticeably in America, has been a rapid increase in incomes at the top end of the scale. Inequality as a whole has been gradually increasing for two decades, a trend generally attributed to the effects of technological change on the wages of unskilled workers. But there has also been a concentration of big gains in income and wealth for the top 1%, and within that for the top 0.1% or even 0.01%. Estimates quoted by Paul Krugman, a Princeton economist, in the New York Times Magazine last October showed that as of 1998, the latest figures available, the top 0.01%, a mere 13,000 taxpayers, received more than 3% of all income in America. Those 13,000, which will have included rich share-owning families, mega-entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates and many of the top executives featured in Business Week's survey, then had an income of at least $3.6m and an average income of $17m. In the following few years, those figures will have ballooned even more, before sagging in 2001-02. The really damaging perception is that many of these mega-incomes have been gained through the abuse of power Does this matter? Not as such. The extremes of wealth are so remote from the lives of ordinary people that they rarely have a political impact. And America has long been much more tolerant of unequal incomes and wealth than have other countries, many of which were politically sensitised by a history of hereditary aristocracy. As long as people have felt that most of the rich earn their wealth on merit, or at least without abuse of power, and that it remains possible for ordinary people to join their ranks, inequality has mattered little. But there lies the crucial point. The really damaging perception now is that many of these mega-incomes have been gained through the abuse of power—and that, in some cases, they are also being preserved by the use of that moneyed power in politics. Worse still, the perception is largely correct. Egalitarians v plutocrats Broadly, there were two contradictory trends in Anglo-American corporate culture during the 1990s. One, which grabbed the imagination during the internet boom, could be called egalitarian: it became fashionable to spread ownership widely around a company by issuing shares and share options, hierarchies were flattened, dress codes torn up and workplaces made livelier with fish-tanks, scooters and pizza. The other, though, amounted to plutocratisation: managers' interests were to be aligned with those of shareholders through options and other performance-related pay in order to ensure that companies were run to maximise “shareholder value”, but that alignment was to be concentrated on the few at the top who could really “make a difference”. A recent book, “In the Company of Owners”, by Joseph Blasi, Douglas Kruse and Aaron Bernstein, tracked the difference between these two approaches. Egalitarianism has mainly been a feature of high-tech firms, though not only of start-ups: the authors compiled figures on 100 big high-tech firms and found that on average employees owned 33% of those companies' equity, of which 14% was held by the top managers and 19% by other employees. Microsoft, for example, has enriched Mr Gates and his top managers hugely, but it has also created thousands of millionaires among its employees. The book compared that list with a sample of 100 large traditional firms listed on the New York Stock Exchange. There, top managers also owned 14% of the equity on average, but other employees held a mere 2%. Moreover, this was more typical across the whole economy. Although the open-necked shirts of egalitarianism hogged magazine covers during the internet boom, plutocratisation was actually the dominant trend. This was not much noticed at first, despite the hoopla about aligning interests and creating value for shareholders, because quite a lot of the plutocrats' pay was hidden. Stock options did not have to be counted as expenses in companies' profit-and-loss accounts, and their value did not become apparent until they were exercised. Boards also lent executives huge sums of money, sometimes to buy shares in their firms but often with no specified purpose, and repayments were later waived. A lot of pay was deferred, in the form of lavish pension schemes confined to top executives. And the divorce proceedings of Jack Welch, the long-time chief executive of General Electric, showed that commitments were made to carry on providing perks to bosses well after their retirements, such as the use of corporate jets and ritzy apartments. Robert Monks, a private investor and shareholder activist, has aptly described all this as “stealth compensation”. Why did it happen? One answer is that it is just the market at work, a market for top executives in which demand is high and supply limited. A typical riposte is that the market is rigged: pay is set by board committees comprised of other chief executives or friendly directors dependent on the chairman, advised by pay consultancies hired by the managers themselves. Both are true: pay, stealthy or overt, has been bid up between companies, making it hard for individual firms to jump off the pay escalator even if they wanted to (which few did). That is also why there has been no link between pay and performance: lacklustre firms followed the escalator too, perhaps in order to attract good managers, or out of pride, or because their shareholders failed to prevent it. The fact that this is a market outcome does not sanctify the result Yet the fact that this is a market outcome does not sanctify the result. It is a market driven by conflicts of interest, swelled by covert deals and protected by successful lobbying to prevent stock options from having to be accounted for as an expense, hurting reported earnings. And it has reached into the heart of government. John Snow, who is now President Bush's treasury secretary, was previously a notably well-paid boss of a notably under-performing railway company, CSX. In 1997-2001 he was paid a total of $37.4m, according to the Corporate Library, a governance-monitoring service. He also had a Jack Welch-style post-retirement deal giving him jets, country clubs and cars. Nor was he just a lucky, passive recipient. In 1994, when he chaired the Business Roundtable, that body of big-firm chief executives lobbied the Senate to rule that options should not be treated as costs. The Senate obliged by 88 votes to nine. These high earners drove their own pay inflation and protected it with their corporate and personal political lobbying. But how did they get the power to do so? The answer is that shareholders gave it to them, voluntarily. (R:211.150.247.20)

《经济学家》：呼吁停火 Calling for a ceasefire Jun 18th 2003 From The Economist Global Agenda An international effort is under way to save the Middle East peace plan, with pressure on Palestinian militants to cease fire in return for an Israeli pullback THE American-backed “road map” to Middle East peace, which President George Bush persuaded the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to accept earlier this month, is splattered with blood following a week of tit-for-tat attacks by Palestinian militants and Israeli security forces. In an attempt to salvage the peace plan, Mr Bush has sent a senior diplomat, John Wolf, to meet the Israeli and Palestinian leaders (to be followed on Friday by Colin Powell, the secretary of state), while Egyptian mediators have had talks with Palestinian militant groups. Though a ceasefire has not yet been agreed, there is at least a glimmer of hope, following several days in which the prospects for peace looked bleak. On Tuesday June 17th, after his talks with Mr Wolf, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian prime minister, met leaders of 13 militant factions. He did not persuade them to call an immediate ceasefire, and shortly after the meeting Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a car in Israel, killing a seven-year-old girl. However, comments made after the meeting by Hamas, the militant group involved in most of the recent attacks and counter-attacks, were more encouraging than hitherto. Ismail Abu Shanab, a senior Hamas leader, said a ceasefire was “still under discussion” and that Hamas might have further talks with Mr Abbas on Wednesday. This is in sharp contrast to comments made before the talks by his colleague, Aziz Rantisi—whom Israel had tried to assassinate last week by blowing him up in his car. Mr Rantisi had said a ceasefire was “a call in the wrong direction”. The Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority provide news and information on the peace process. Ha'aretz and the Electronic Intifada report on events in Israel and the occupied territories. See also the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Israel Defence Forces. The White House publishes statements by President Bush. The US State Department's Middle East section and its Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs provide news and background information on the peace process. See also the UN's Middle East section and the EU's information. The Federation of American Scientists and the Council on Foreign Relations' “Terrorism Answers” gives information on Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al-Aqsa Brigades. In a further hopeful sign, on Wednesday Israel was reported to have agreed to stop targeting Palestinian political leaders such as Mr Rantisi as part of a ceasefire deal, though it would continue trying to kill fighters from the militant groups if it suspected them of preparing suicide bombings or other attacks. In the talks between the Egyptian mediators and the Palestinian militants, which may be resumed in Cairo later this week, the militants were asked to cease fire in return for a withdrawal of Israeli forces from some sensitive spots in the West Bank and Gaza. In parallel with these talks, Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs have been meeting to discuss an Israeli pullback in return for a Palestinian pledge to clamp down on militants. Mr Bush gave Israel a rare public rebuke last week, after its attempt to kill Mr Rantisi (he escaped but three other Palestinians were killed). Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, also faces severe criticism from his own people over his assassination policy. Much of the Israeli press has condemned it, and opinion polls show a clear majority of Israelis want Mr Sharon to end it, to give Mr Abbas a chance to consolidate his position. When Mr Sharon and Mr Abbas shook hands on the road map earlier this month, the understanding was that Israel would hold back and give Mr Abbas time to reorganise the Palestinian security forces and try to reach a ceasefire deal with the militants. Mr Bush’s rebuke seemed to reflect his annoyance that, by targeting one of Hamas’s political leaders, Israel had undermined the chances of a ceasefire and thus risked destroying the peace process. However, America changed its position drastically after Israel sent an intelligence dossier to Washington, which it said showed Mr Rantisi’s direct involvement in planning Hamas's suicide-bombing of a bus in Jerusalem last week, which killed 17 people, and other attacks. On Sunday, Mr Bush said the world must “deal harshly” with Hamas, and Richard Lugar, the chairman of the Senate’s foreign-relations committee, raised the possibility of sending American troops to deal with the militant group. Last week, Britain’s foreign secretary, Jack Straw, called on the European Union to declare Hamas a terrorist organisation. However, other EU foreign ministers think this might undermine the efforts to reach a ceasefire. So, at a summit in Luxembourg on Monday, the ministers decided not to blacklist Hamas but to keep open the possibility of doing so. The United Nations secretary-general, Kofi Annan, has revived a proposal, which he first made three years ago, for an international peacekeeping force in the occupied territories. Until now, the Bush administration has been against the idea of American participation in such a force. As recently as Friday, Mr Bush’s spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said the administration was against the idea. However, Mr Lugar said in a television interview on Sunday that the possibility of sending American troops was in fact being considered, either unaccompanied or as part of a UN or NATO force. France’s foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, has raised the possibility of an EU peacekeeping force. So far, Israel has resisted the idea of having foreign peacekeepers in the occupied territories, while the Palestinians have been in favour. However, the Palestinian foreign minister, Nabil Shaath, told Monday's summit of EU foreign ministers that such a force would not be needed if the current efforts towards a ceasefire succeeded. So the EU decided not to adopt the French proposal, for the time being at least, though it will offer to send monitors to observe the implementation of the road map. A ceasefire by the Palestinian militants, however partial and fragile, is essential to save the peace process. Even if one is agreed, though, Mr Sharon and Mr Abbas will each continue to face great difficulties in implementing his side of the agreement. Mr Sharon is under attack from the Jewish settler movement and its political backers for starting to dismantle some of those outposts constructed since he came to power in March 2001, as the peace plan requires him to do. Some settlers are threatening to build several new outposts for each one dismantled, and there are reports that they have indeed begun to do so. Mr Abbas, in turn, is under attack from his hardliners. They accuse him of a sell-out for failing to demand Israel’s full withdrawal from all the territories it occupied in the 1967 war and for not insisting on the right of return for Palestinian refugees who fled in 1948 when Israel was created. At best, even if the current round of violence is now brought to an end, it is likely to have been only the first of several sizeable bumps along the road to a lasting peace. (R:211.150.239.22)

Too Soon to Tell By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN there was a nice little story out of Iraq the other day. An Irish businessman sent his private jet to Baghdad where it picked up eight Iraqi mentally handicapped athletes who wanted to take part in the Special Olympics, which open this week in Ireland. What makes the story even more poignant is the fact that Saddam Hussein's twisted son Uday had been the head of Iraq's regular Olympic Committee, and was known for torturing Iraqi Olympic athletes who did not perform well. At the Special Olympics everyone counts, and everyone is a winner, just for trying. In the old Iraq it was dangerous to be an Olympic athlete if you did not win. Will it be possible to create a new Iraq where it is safe to be a Special Olympics athlete, where it is safe to be vulnerable? It's too soon to tell. Indeed, it is too soon to tell anything conclusive about Iraq. In a fluid situation like Iraq, there are 10 things happening every day. All you want is that 6 out of the 10 be positive and moving upward ?unlike Afghanistan, where only 3 out of 10 are positive and moving downward. Right now, talking to U.S. officials, I'd say the score in Iraq is about 5 to 5. On the positive side, street life is coming back all over, restaurants and shops are reopening, Baghdad is getting about 18 hours of electricity now, and gasoline lines, a mile long four weeks ago when I was last in Iraq, are now virtually gone. Security has improved, but it still has a long way to go. Schools have been operating. Newspapers are exploding and political parties forming. The regional news is also net positive. The student uprising in Iran, the stutter-step movement toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace, the ferment within Saudi Arabia, yesterday's elections in Jordan, are all trends that were enhanced by the downfall of Saddam's regime. Far from the Arab street, or press, rising against the U.S., the Arab media are replete with introspection and even self-criticism of how the Arab world mishandled Saddam. On the negative side are two huge unresolved issues. Contrary to the blather of the Bush team, we have not finished the war and we have yet to establish an interim Iraqi political authority that can eventually work together to govern Iraq ?instead of Saddam's iron fist or ours. The war ended too soon. Because there was no battle for Baghdad, Falluja, Tikrit and the other Sunni Muslim strongholds that were the base of Saddam's power, many elements of Saddam's regime and two divisions of Republican Guards just melted into the woodwork ?instead of being killed or captured. (There are also disturbing signs lately that the Iraqi Sunnis, who have dominated Iraq forever and are not eager to see Iraqi Shiites rule, are recruiting Sunni Arab fighters from around the region, particularly from Wahhabi groups in Saudi Arabia, to join the battle against the U.S.) The Sunni Saddam loyalists have reconstituted themselves as the "Party of Return," and the message they have been sending around Iraq is that Saddam is coming back ?and when he does he will cut out the tongues of anyone who supported America. This has frozen many Iraqis, which is why the war has to be finished and Saddam & Sons brought in dead or dead. Right now we need to find Saddam much more than his nukes. And this leads to the challenge for L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. official in Iraq, who's off to a good start. Can the U.S., working with Iraqis, pull together a moderate, legitimate political center that will bring Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds and other Iraqi factions into some kind of self-sustaining governing coalition? The plan is for Mr. Bremer, by July, to form a "political council" of Iraqis that will serve as a shadow cabinet, appoint Iraqi interim ministers, and oversee the writing of a new constitution, educational reform, legal reform and privatization. This needs to happen soon. People in Iraq need to feel self-government taking hold. It will make America's stay much easier. If you see Iraqis starting to work together in a centrist coalition, and security being consolidated by a rebuilt Iraqi police force, then you can be just a little bit optimistic. If you don't see that happening, you can start worrying. If I were President Bush, though, and my political life depended on Iraq being a success, I would already be worrying. I would have double the number of U.S. troops there and be throwing so much food and investment into Iraq that people there would think they've won the jackpot. Why the president is not doing that beats me, and it could end up beating him.?/p> (R:211.150.255.205)

纪思道：为戏弄干杯 Cheers to Jeers By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF I came to Iraq to see if I could help the coalition forces find those pesky weapons of mass destruction. It would make a great column if I could bring back my own nuke. No luck so far. But I did find something just as elusive: paradise. That's right. This city of Qurna, nestled where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers come together, claims to be the ancient site of the Garden of Eden. Qurna residents even venerate an ancient tree that they call Adam's Tree, and some say it is the very tree that grew the fruit that got humanity evicted from Eden. But even this spot, as close to paradise as one can find in Iraq, is a mess, and people are getting angrier about that all the time. The people of Qurna were mostly thrilled when American and British troops rolled through town this spring to oust Saddam. But nearly three months later, the cheers are turning to jeers, for very practical reasons: electricity and water services still haven't fully resumed, factories and schools remain closed, banditry rules, and people are even hungrier than before. "We became angry that there is no government, there are no jobs, and life is worse than before," said Jabbar Sabeeh, a 68-year-old security guard. "Electricity goes out for two days at a time now." Unless life improves or the Americans leave, he warned, anti-American violence will erupt across Iraq. The mood in Iraq has gotten uglier since I was last here during the war and its immediate aftermath. My fear is that having won the war, we may now be blowing the peace. Many ordinary Iraqis are enraged at the collapse of security, and we need to act much more quickly and decisively to establish order ?or Iraq could slip through our fingers and fragment. "The Americans are useless," exclaimed Ahmed, a taxi driver in Basra who wouldn't give his last name because he's afraid that the occupation is falling apart and Saddam will return. He showed me a wound in his hand where bandits had stabbed him and added, "Some of my passengers say that although they hated Saddam, now they wish he would come back, because at least under him we had security." That's a minority view, and there is also exhilaration at the democratic freedoms: thriving new newspapers, political demonstrations, ubiquitous banners erected by political parties. But insecurity casts a huge shadow over all of Iraq. Few people dare go out at night, and even in the day there are carjackings and armed robberies. On the highways, bandits sometimes rake cars with automatic weapons so that they can plunder them. On my first night back in Iraq, I sat outside my little hotel in Basra, trying to make my satellite phone work and listening to gunfire erupting around the city. At Basra General Hospital, Dr. Abdul Wahhab frets that the medical situation is worse than before the war. There is no functioning health ministry to procure drugs, water shortages have led to cholera as families drink from rivers that are also sewers, and Unicef calculates that 7.7 percent of Iraqi children under 5, almost twice the rate before the war, now suffer from acute malnutrition. On top of all that, Dr. Wahhab really got fed up last week when a gang of bandits attacked the hospital's infectious diseases unit, firing automatic weapons and hurling grenades as doctors and patients scattered. The bandits were after the air-conditioners. The insecurity is wrenching even small cities like Qurna or, further north, Al Kut. "In Al Kut, homes of former Baath Party members are blown up on a nightly basis, and there is gunfire on the streets every night," said Cassandra Nelson, an American aid worker based there for Mercy Corps. "The most important task now is to restore law and order in Iraq and to demonstrate to the people that . . . the U.S. is committed not only to defeating regimes it sees as threats, but to providing security and good governance." So it will take tremendous concentration and effort ?including thousands more ground troops ?for us to rescue the Iraqi peace and turn places like Qurna back into anything approaching Eden. Oh, in any case, even if this was the Garden of Eden, I doubt that Adam's Tree really produced the fruit that tempted Adam. The problem is, it appears to be a cedar. I goofed. In my last column, I referred to comments by Condoleezza Rice on a Sunday television show but misstated the show. It was "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." Mea culpa. (R:211.150.211.232)

Passion for Peace By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN For years I believed that when it came to Middle East peacemaking, America couldn't want peace more than the parties themselves. I no longer believe that. In fact, I now believe just the opposite. For there to be any progress, America must want peace more than the parties themselves ?in Israel and the West Bank, and in Iraq. And the question I have going forward is whether that will be the case with President Bush. First a word about Mr. Bush. He deserves a tip of the hat for having his principles right. His conviction that getting rid of Saddam Hussein was necessary to build a different Iraq and a different Middle East ?which are both critical for drying up terrorism ?was right. And his convictions that the Palestinians had to move beyond Yasir Arafat to a responsible leadership and that the Israelis had to come to terms with the inevitability of a Palestinian state and an end to settlements, if there was to be any progress toward peace, are also right. But ?you knew there was a "but" coming ?the question I always have about members of the Bush team is, How good are they at translating principles into practice? When it comes to breaking things they are very, very good ?whether it is the ABM treaty, the Kyoto accord, Afghanistan, Iraq or the old way of Arab-Israeli peacemaking. The Bush people believe in power and are not afraid to wield the wrecking ball. But how good are they with a hammer and a nail? How good are they at the detail work of building real alternatives ?to Kyoto, Saddam or the Arab-Israel peace process? This is still the most important unanswered question about this administration. Can it reap the harvest of the principles it has sown? Don't get me wrong ?ultimately it is up to Israelis, Palestinians and Iraqis to liberate themselves. They have to want it. But at this stage, we have to use our power to help create the context for them to do it. And that is hard. It means taking hits politically and militarily, which is why if we are to do it right we really have to want it bad. "In both Iraq and the Arab-Israeli conflict," says the Middle East expert Stephen Cohen, "there is such a struggle of wills within the competing parties, and between the competing parties, and the forces for and against change are so evenly balanced, that only a third party ?with a clear vision ?can swing things toward compromise. That is America's role. [Also] the parties themselves are always going to be focused on the immediate costs of doing something because the positive outcomes seem remote or even unlikely to them. Which is why they'll need our push." In Iraq, it's still not clear to me how much the Bush team wants to do nation-building there. The Rumsfeld doctrine of small-force, high-tech armies may be great for winning wars, but you need the Powell doctrine for winning the peace: a massive, overwhelming investment of soldiers, police and aid. We should be flooding Iraq with people and money right now. Start big and then build down ?not the other way around. Ditto on the politics side. In destroying the Iraqi Army and Baath Party, we have destroyed the (warped) pillars of Iraqi secular nationalism. We need to start replacing them, quickly, with alternative, progressive pillars of Iraqi secular nationalism; otherwise, Shiite religious nationalism will fill the void. We will have to do the same in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, has said some remarkable and important things lately, most notably: "You may not like the word but what's happening is occupation. Holding 3.5 million Palestinians is a bad thing for Israel, for the Palestinians and for the Israeli economy." The newly elected Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, recently gave a talk detailing what a disaster the last two years of Palestinian uprising had been ?an uprising encouraged by Yasir Arafat. But translating these changes in Israeli-Palestinian principles into real changes in quality of life, for both communities, will be a full-time job for the Bush team. Because for both Israelis and Palestinians, forging a two-state solution will require some level of civil war within each community ?between moderates and extremists. And we should want that more than they do (or at least as much), because if we've learned anything since 9/11, it's that the spreading flames of Middle East conflicts have, in a world without walls, begun affecting our quality of life. Their madness has become our metal detectors ?and we've had enough of it. ? (R:211.150.211.211)