Lieberman Alters His Values Script

LOS ANGELES -- Apollonia Kotero's recent films include "Anarchy TV," which features a group of teens taking over a TV station and broadcasting in the nude.

It's just the kind of thing Joseph I. Lieberman has been railing against for years. Yet there was Kotero - aka "Hot Tub Woman" in the film - at a swank Beverly Hills fund-raiser featuring the Connecticut Democrat, and praising him.

She acknowledged that his strong blasts at movie industry excesses once worried her.

Referring to Lieberman's criticisms of her industry, Kotero said that she "had been concerned all the talk could lead to censorship and labeling of movies, but now I think this dialogue is important."

But there was no such dialogue when the senator visited movieland this week. Lieberman, who badly needs California's money and voters for his 2004 presidential bid, was unusually silent on the subject of Hollywood excesses.

Instead, he had nothing but praise for the entertainment business. He told the 40 people gathered in the living room of a party loyalist that he was among "stars I admire," including, perhaps, "Hot Tub Woman," clad in a cleavage-revealing blouse.

Lieberman certainly has not given up on the issue of values. But if this week's trip was any indication, there has been a big change in his emphasis.

Dan Gerstein, a Lieberman spokesman, said the silence was rooted in several factors.

First, the fund-raiser was for California Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, and Lieberman's "there to celebrate Cruz Bustamante, not to promote his own agenda. It would be inappropriate at someone else's fund-raiser to be confrontational," Gerstein said.

Second, he said, there are other issues more on people's minds than they were 13 months ago, when Lieberman campaigned here against some Hollywood practices.

"You only have so much time at these events. You can't talk about all the issues all the time," Gerstein said.

In fact, strong values were an integral part of Lieberman's message here and everywhere, including the fund-raiser, but it's taken on a different, broader tone. Lieberman continues to talk about how morality and faith can make government, and thus people's lives, better.

"Values flow from faith," he told one Democratic audience in Los Angeles. "Democrats have to show more respect for people of faith than we sometimes have. Too often, Democrats have made the faithful feel uncomfortable in their own party. That has to end."

Lieberman's values drive is now taking on a different hue. Lieberman tells audiences that faith and family are important to him and explains how "the challenge is to put values into programs for people."

He preaches the need for opportunity and responsibility, how trying new approaches to education, or providing tax incentives to businesses to create jobs, all fit under the values rubric.

Lieberman's staff insists that the de-emphasis on entertainment is simply a lull, not a change in tactics or position. He will continue to closely monitor the marketing of sex and violence to children, and Gerstein said that initiatives are in the works that will focus on how parents can protect their children from too much sex and violence in the media.

"The tack he will take more and more is not just to chastise and shame, but to help educate parents and help stimulate more pro-educational and social material for kids," Gerstein said.

But Lieberman also knows that he's asking for political trouble when he does bring up the topic: It can tar him nationwide as a scold, and it could leave him open to charges that he aims to regulate content - which he has never endorsed. It also can hurt him locally among those whose livelihood depends on entertainment.

Lieberman has tried the smack-in-the-face and hand-in-their-pockets approach before, and he has been heavily criticized. In the fall of 2000, when he was Al Gore's vice presidential running mate, Lieberman bounced from ripping the industry at a congressional hearing to praising the industry at a big-money fund-raiser shortly afterward. He got bad notices, and they continue to sting.

Still, and perhaps due to his change in script, the Hollywood set seems far less concerned about Lieberman today than when he came here 13 months ago.

Today, Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, almost brushes off Lieberman's entertainment-bashing.

"You haven't heard much about movie ratings or problems like that in a while," he said. The events of Sept. 11 turned people's attention to more pressing problems, and entertainment has become an important escape.

The creative community now seems to regard the effort to tone down sex and violence as a worthy goal, but it no longer seems as worried as it once was that the government will force it to cut back.

"Ultimately, it's up to the parents to decide what children can watch," said Kotero.

Actress Maria Conchita Alonso had the same view, and she noted that like Kotero, she likes Lieberman because of other views; Alonso, a Cuban native, appreciates Lieberman's strong anti-Castro stance.

"I respect his opinions, and I hope he respects mine," said Alonso, who recently appeared in "Blind Heat," a film rated R for strong sexual content, violence and language.

"I wish I were rich enough so I did not have to act in violent movies," she said at the Beverly Hills fund-raiser. "But if you have to work for a living, what are you going to do?"

Some audiences find Lieberman's new approach refreshing. "He's voicing opinions others, particularly around here, are afraid to offer," said Lourdes Lopez, head of a multicultural advertising and marketing firm.

But others find the rhetoric hollow and even offensive. David Padilla, a Costa Mesa businessman, traditionally votes Republican, but he had thought that Lieberman's values pitch had some appeal.

"Then he threw it overboard," Padilla said, when Lieberman became Gore's running mate. "I understand that when you reach for a higher position, you have to make compromises."

She acknowledged that his strong blasts at movie industry excesses once worried her.

But now the girl is hip to what gets lots of Democrats elected: lie, lie, and lie
during the campaign, even if you have to speak in "code" to convince
voters you are "a different kind of Democrat".

Hey, it worked many times for Bill Clinton...

Today, Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America,
almost brushes off Lieberman's entertainment-bashing.

Of course, Valenti is a former buddy of LBJ (=Democrat).

I can't believe Valenti (and for that matter Gray Davis and Jimmy Carter) actually served in the US military.

Zell Miller is the greatest mystery of them all: Marine and Democrat who just can't
bring himself to do the right thing.

I always hated him more than normal Dems for his pro censorship crap I remember when he wanted to ban Mortal Kombat I hate liberals but when they mess with my videogames then it gets personal.

Surely the senate has something better to do than worry about what my kids watch on TV or at the movies. They can leave that to me and my husband.

Well he heeds the calls of the baby boomers whose whining to government is, "But but but.... we cannot earn the money to buy our 3rd beamer AND actually watch what our kids are getting into at the same time." My suggestion is that any variation of the words, "it's for the children or will somebody think of the children," being said in public by a member of Congress or the elected/appointed executive branch should result in a severe beating with a clue stick.

I've been saying since the year 2000 ( after looking at Holy Joe's financial disclosure statements ), I suspect he uses threats of Congressional action to "facilitate" bargain basement purchases of stock in the "threatened" corporations...always in small amounts that will slide beneath the ( not-too attentive ) Media radar.

Well, my kids are grown now, but we determined what they watched. We had a little game, called Socking the TV. When one of those statements were made, like 'it's for the children,' they were allowed to throw their rolled up dirty socks at the TV. It helped us raise conservative voters, but mostly it helped them learn the art of critical thinking.

It can tar him nationwide as a scold, and it could leave him open to charges that he aims to regulate content - which he has never endorsed.

That is bull, he has often spoke of "the need to intervene and regulate the entertainment industry". He uses the "for the children" line all the time, and has come up with numerious ways to have censorship (i.e. airwaves belong to the government, marketing towards children, fraud statues). Him and McCain had hearings over this. I agree with him about the entertainment issues, I do not agree with his solutions.

"I wish I were rich enough so I did not have to act in violent movies," she said at the Beverly Hills fund-raiser. "But if you have to work for a living, what are you going to do?"

Any relation to Stripper Mom?

Lie-berman has to get some values before he can alter the script ! Treasonous, globalist white trash..I hope Hellery sits on him !

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