(continued)

Winner: Sr. Cpo. MALCOLM NANCE (Ret.), a former Naval instructor who eviscerated the Administration's pro-torture policies on a News Hour debate against Sinner terrorism consultant Neil Livingstone, whose revolting arguments in favor of giving the president a "full toolkit" were made more so by his habit of licking his lips while describing his favorite torture techniques.

Winner: New latimes.com executive editor Meredith Artley, for convincing her bosses to add 12 slots so that she can revamp the site. Artley was poached from the International Herald Tribune's website; she's already getting rave reviews in Los Angeles.

BONDS OF FRIENDSHIP Imus, Russert

Sinners: When white boys are true asshole buddies: Tim Russert can't wait to go on Don Imus's new radio show, as long as Russert's NBC bosses don't object. "I know [Don Imus has] learned a lot from what happened," said Russert. "He told me as much."

Winner: Don't look for Tim at Gwen Ifill's dinner table any time soon. Gwen wrote what should have been the last word on the Imus debacle in the Times op-ed page last April. Unfortunately, it wasn't.

Sinners: Patricia Leigh Brown—and the 10 editors who read her story before printing it on the front page of the New York Times—for reporting that the AIDS epidemic started in 1990, and ended in 1995. (Even Andrew Sullivan didn't say it was over until 1996.)

Winner: Newsweek, for making everything old new again. When I was a boy, my favorite feature in the front of the book was "Where Are They Now." After an absence of several decades, it comes back as "Melting Into the Shadows." This week's melt: ex-congressman Gary Condit, who has become the operator of two failed Baskin-Robbins franchises in Arizona. Still, his father says he's "doing real good."

---

ON THE RECORD

Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the secret Pentagon Papers history of the Vietnam War, spoke at American University earlier this fall, where he echoed Craig Unger's warning about the last act of the Bush Administration. (Naomi Wolf made many of the same points in the Guardian last April.)

Ellsberg:

"I think nothing has higher priority than averting an attack on Iran, which I think will be accompanied by a further change in our way of governing here that in effect will convert us into what I would call a police state.

"If there's another 9/11 under this regime, it means that they switch on full extent all the apparatus of a police state that has been patiently constructed, largely secretly at first, but eventually leaked out and known and accepted by the Democratic people in Congress, by the Republicans and so forth.

"Will there be anything left for NSA to increase its surveillance of us? They may be to the limit of their technical capability now, or they may not. But if they're not now, they will be after another 9/11.

"And I would say after the Iranian retaliation to an American attack on Iran, you will then see an increased attack on Iran—an escalation—which will be also accompanied by a total suppression of dissent in this country, including detention camps."

Let's hope that turns out to be a slight exaggeration.

Must Read: Hendrick Hertzberg's hilarious recap of flying saucers, drivers' licenses, and the Hillary pile-up. Plus the answer to this week's bonus question: Which American president saw twice as many UFOs as Dennis Kucinich?

Another day in the glorious "almost exclusively male world of big-time journalism." —Tom Brokaw, Boom!

Best Guest: The magnificent Maya Lin, on This Week, talking about the 25th anniversary of her Vietnam Memorial—the only thing that came out of that ghastly war that everyone agrees is genius.

Box Score
Sunday, November 11, 2007

	Meet the Press (NBC–Russert)	Face the Nation (CBS–Schieffer)	This Week (ABC–Stephanopoulos)
White Men	1	3	14(!)
White Women	0	1	3
Black Men	1	0*	1*
Gay People	0	0	0
Asian Women	0	1	1

---

Charles Kaiser is the author of The Gay Metropolis and 1968 in America. He has been media editor for Newsweek, a member of the metro staff of the New York Times, and a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, where he covered the press and book publishing. He has also written for Vanity Fair, The Los Angeles Times, New York, The Washington Post, The New York Observer, Rolling Stone, Details, Interview, The Advocate, Vogue, and Salon. He has taught journalism at Columbia and Princeton. To find out more, visit charleskaiser.com
Research assistance: Thomas Rogers, Richard Vanderford