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Clooney isn't joining
Dubya's gang
George Clooney says President Bush would fit in just fine with New Jersey's favorite crime family.
"The government itself is running exactly like the Sopranos," he tells Charlie Rose tonight in a full-bore assault on Dubya's foreign policy.
The "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" director says Bush has cut deals with France and Russia so the UN Security Council won't complain when "we go into a war [with Iraq] and kill a lot of innocent people."
Quips Clooney: "[Bush says,] 'France, you're getting the pipelines.'
"Are we going to try and talk [to Saddam Hussein] ... without jumping in and killing people first?" asks Clooney. "I don't believe we're going to wait until the last resort to do it. That's what bothers me."
Speaking of "Three Kings," his sardonic 1999 movie about Operation Desert Storm, Clooney tells Rose, "you couldn't get [that] made now."
No one may be more pleased to see Rose letting Clooney vent than Richard Gere. Last week, when he appeared on the talk show with "Chicago" co-star Renee Zellweger, Gere accused his pal Rose of editing out his past rants about Henry Kissinger.
"That's not true," said Rose, who counts Kissinger as a regular guest.
Chiming in, Zellweger kidded Rose: "I've never seen your cheeks turn pink. [Richard], you made Charlie Rose lose his composure for the first time."
Having promised a full investigation into Gere's censorship claim, Rose told us he has "never willingly or purposefully taken out" a Gere dig against Kissinger.
Rose also promises to broker a dialogue about China and Tibet between the "American Gigolo" star and the man who called power the ultimate aphrodisiac.
Will Kissinger come to the summit? Says Dr. K through a spokeswoman: "I haven't been asked yet."
Building interest
Richard Meier is brushing off claims that he's a spotlight hog for a design for Ground Zero on which he collaborated.
Co-workers of the renowned architect complained recently that their names were left out of press releases about the project.
"It's not about a press release," Meier told us. "It's about what we're making."
That design, which some have likened to a giant tick-tack-toe board, has been criticized for not including enough park space. But Meier told us, "The buildings occupy less than a quarter of the site. The rest is open public space. People have to look at what's really there, and not take a superficial view. This is a possibility for the greatest public space in New York City."
Meier was more gregarious about a private space he designed - in which Nicole Kidman just bought an $8 million apartment. "I love Nicole!" he crowed.
Going off half-cocked
An editor who sent an alarm about a Fox TV show out to every newspaper in the country need not have panicked.
Casey Seiler, the entertainment editor of the Albany Times Union, E-mailed the entire membership of the American Association of Features Editors that Fox had used an obscene double-entendre title for its episode of "Fastlane" Friday.
"The plot concerns the main characters' effort to infiltrate a lesbian crime ring," Seiler wrote, "and the network has been relentlessly promoting a hot-tub soul kiss between Tiffani Theissen and Jaime Pressly. All well and good, but the episode is titled 'Strap On.'"
Fox spokesman Patrick Hogan said Seiler was perhaps reading more into it than writer Kim Newton intended. "Strap on means 'take your gun with you,'" Hogan told us. "The episode is kind of heavy on guns." And hot tubs.
Seiler never returned our E-mail for a comment.
Hachette job?
Hachette Filipacchi CEO Jack Kliger is not happy about the TV movie "America's Prince: The John F. Kennedy Jr. Story."
Kliger told us he doesn't like the way his company, which published Kennedy's magazine, George, was depicted, "I don't think we were portrayed negatively, positively - or accurately."
Nor does he like the way Kennedy, who died in a plane crash in 2000, was portrayed.
"The way I knew John, he was courteous and responsible," said Kliger. "He never mixed business with his personal life. But he wasn't portrayed like that in the movie. It was not very good."
(Singer Jackson Browne also expressed disgust with the film last week, demanding that TBS remove scenes suggesting he assaulted his former girlfriend, actress Daryl Hannah, before airing it again.)
And Kliger was a bit disappointed at the restaurant Daniel after the Winter Antiques Show's opening Thursday night as he dined with Chanel President Arie Kopelman and Elle Decor editor Margaret Russell - but not because of the movie.
The Hachette exec collects antique weather vanes, and Kopelman had outbid him on one.
"He got the rooster," Kliger sniffed.
Daughters know best
Elliot Spitzer's daughters keep his ego in check.
When a magazine recently put a menacing picture of the New York State's Attorney General on the cover with the title, "The Enforcer," he proudly showed it to his daughters, Alyssa, 13, Sarabeth, 10, and Jenna, 8.
"They burst into laughter," he told a gathering of the Adirondack Council supporters Wednesday night.
Spitzer got a round of applause when he added that he'd spent the day in court fighting Midwestern companies he believes pollute the Adirondacks with acid rain.
He was preaching to the choir. His audience included environmentalists - including host John Ernst, president of Bloomingdale Properties, Wicks Group co-founder Carter Bales, and Liza Cowan, a descendant of Bob Marshall, the founder of the Wilderness Society.
Side dishes
Things may have cooled between NBC White House correspondent Campbell Brown and Saudi official Adel al-Jubeir, we hear. The two stepped out several times recently in Washington. "They were hanging out a while ago," says a source, "but they're not anymore." Campbell's rep described them as "just good friends" ...
Talk about yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Patrons at the Honolulu gay bar Hula's almost stampeded when someone on the balcony spotted Liza Minnelli leaving the fast-food joint next door. She "flashed that great smile when we called her name," a spy tells the San Francisco Chronicle. We guess she's off the diet: Liza was seen taking a bag of Jack in the Box snacks into the back of her white Humvee limo ...
Debbie Harry may have shot to fame with her Blondie hit "Heart of Glass" in the mid-70s, but few can accuse her of having had an ego of glass when she started out. "In 1968, I was in a band called Wind in the Willows that set the all time low for worst sales," she tells Webster Hall curator Baird Jones. "There were actually more unsold returns than albums shipped out to stores! Not only had no records sold, but apparently some music critics had managed to sell back their unopened review copies!"
Surveillance
Dust off the annual rumor that Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn are finally engaged. Russell spent $50,000 on a 20-plus-carat diamond-encrusted emerald ring at Caribou Jewels in Aspen ...
Single-again Mike Piazza dined with a couple of friends at Halo. Judging by ladies stopping by his table, the Met star won't be stag for long ...
Anastacia isn't in "Chicago;" she is on the soundtrack. For that, she can thank Denise Rich. The unpardonably vivacious songwriter convinced the pop princess to record "Love Is a Crime," co-written with Damon Sharpe and Greg Lawson. It's due to be released as single soon.
With Suzanne Rozdeba
and Ben Widdicombe
Originally published on January 20, 2003
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