Cursor's Media Patrol - 10/10/05

The Louisiana Katrina Reconstruction Act, whose price tag "exceeds the high end of estimated costs of the storm," reportedly includes "billions of dollars' worth of business" for clients of lobbyists who sat on an advisory panel as the Act was being crafted. And Paul Krugman wonders: 'Will Bush Deliver?'

A GOP pollster is quoted as saying that a "recruiting chill" among potential Republican contenders for House and Senate races can be attributed to the fact that the non-candidates "aren't stupid. They see the political landscape." Plus: 'GOP feels sting of candidates' rejection.'

Dowd refers to Robert Bork's Borking of Harriet Miers, whose nomination he called "a slap in the face to the conservatives who've been building up a conservative legal movement for the last 20 years," and Frank Rich predicts that Miers' nomination "will be remembered as the flashpoint when the faith-based Bush base finally started to lose faith in our propaganda president ..."

Columnist Trudy Rubin says that Bush delivered "an amazing speech" last Thursday in which "he left out almost everything you need to know." And Norman Solomon annotates the speech, characterized by another commentator as 'George Bush meets the phantom empire.'

In an excerpt from her book "Alleluia America!," Irish journalist Carole Coleman describes her interview with Bush and the subsequent dressing down from his handlers, quoting one as saying, "You were given an opportunity to interview the leader of the free world and you blew it."