Drudge is reporting:
Several upcoming Hollywood films use the damaged Iraq veteran to raise questions about an ongoing war, the NEW YORK TIMES is planning to report on Thursday Page Ones, newsroom sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.
The NYT apparently thinks this story warrants Page One treatment. Such was their editorial board’s decision. It this reporting the […]

McKennedy’s presidential prospects are quickly approaching nil. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. From the WSJ:
WASHINGTON — Sen. John McCain’s well-known media team has resigned, an indication that his campaign shake-up is continuing to backfire and imperiling the Arizona Republican’s presidential candidacy.
Political ad-makers Russ Schriefer and Stuart Stevens, veterans of President Bush’s 2000 and […]

There is an excellent, lengthy interview with Michael Scheuer at Newsmax.
If al-Qaida does launch an attack inside the U.S., as the U.S. government suggests, “it will be much bigger than 9/11.”
This prediction of a nightmarish terror attack comes from Michael Scheuer, the retired CIA veteran who headed the agency’s secret unit dedicated to […]

Ulrich Muhe, the German actor and star of the Oscar-winning art-house hit "The Lives of Others," died Sunday at the age of 54. In "Lives" he played Gerd Wiesler, a pallid Stasi spook who gets emotionally involved with the theater couple whose surveillance he's overseeing. It was a memorable and touching role that introduced Muhe to international audiences after a busy decade and a half in German film and TV; after the Oscar win, his agent received numerous offers from producers in the U.S. and elsewhere. He was respected enough that German Chancellor Angela Merkel sent a public letter of condolence today to Muhe's widow, actress Susanne Lothar.

The cause of death was stomach cancer, but the Hollywood Reporter obit includes "Lives" director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's statement that the ailment stemmed from Muhe's experiences in the East German military in the 1970s, when he developed stomach problems after being ordered to shoot fugitives escaping over the Berlin Wall. (The Spiegel Online obit has further details.)

It's possible, then, that Gerd Wiesler's expression of pained sympathy was real. The character's final words in "The Lives of Others," responding to a novel dedicated to his Stasi code-name, are "Das ist for mich" -- "That is for me." Perhaps the role served a similar cathartic purpose for Ulrich Muhe. Or perhaps it was just his art.

Perhaps the most brutally frank assessment of the sad little implosion that is currently Lindsay Lohan can be read halfway through David Halbfinger's business piece in today's Times: "I believe she?s uninsurable. And when you?re uninsurable in this town, you?re done.?

That's Bernie Brillstein, legendary agent/manager/producer and a guy who once represented John Belushi and Chris Farley. So presumably he knows something about people who can't stop putting things up their nose. His statement gets to a nasty truth about Hollywood -- that no matter how people cluck their tongues in dismay or sympathy over a celebrity tailspin, it's finally all about business.

And Lohan's business is headed for Chapter 11. (If you haven't heard, the actress was arrested yesterday after apparently chasing her former personal assistant's mother in a SUV; she had a high blood-alcohol count and a small amount of cocaine in her possession. So much for Hollywood rehab.) The Times article also reports how Lohan's legal woes may pull the financing out from under the independent film "Poor Things," currently in pre-production. Sad that the presence in the cast of two Oscar-winning actresses, Shirley MacLaine and Olympia Dukakis, means less to investors than a train-wreck of a post-adolescent, but there you go. I'm not blogging about MacLaine and Dukakis either, am I?

Lohan's woes have also put a damper on the release of "I Know Who Killed Me" (photo above), which opens this Friday without benefit of critics' screenings. (I'll catch it at the first showing then and post my review here later in the day; it'll run in Saturday's paper.) We reviewers are used to this treatment -- not happy about it, but used to it -- when it comes to D-grade horror movies like "Captivity," but when a studio embargoes a film with a star this big, that means it's either unwatchable or they're embarrassed to be associated with her or both.

Judging from "Georgia Rules," I'm guessing the latter.