Movie More Than Meets the Eye?

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Past Promises

The Washington Post, mirroring what Democrats have said, reports Tuesday, "Bush Raises Threshold for firing Aides in Leak Probe." This comes after President Bush yesterday vowed to fire anyone who committed a crime in the leak of a CIA agent's name.

Democrats insist President Bush previously promised to fire anyone involved in the leak, whether it was a crime or not. But, in fact, at the outset of the leak investigation, President Bush said the law would be his threshold, saying, "if [a] person has violated law, the person will be taken care of." The year after that, President Bush said he would fire anyone who leaked the agent's name — something top aide Karl Rove seems not to have done. But at the time, the Post didn't characterize that as a shift in policy.

Speaking of The Washington Post, it reported yesterday that "President Bush, accelerating his search for a new Supreme Court justice, appears to have narrowed his list of candidates to no more than a few finalists and could announce his decision in the next few days..."

But just one day before, the Post reported, "More than two weeks since Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement, the famously disciplined Bush White House has yet to name a replacement, nor does it look likely to do so for another two weeks." Oops.

Movie More Than Meets the Eye?

Actor Tom Cruise might not have known it, but in his new movie "War of the Worlds" he's playing someone that the film's screenwriter thinks represents the Iraqi insurgents. Screenwriter David Koepp, quoted by the Canadian magazine Rue Morgue, said, "…the Martians [in the movie] ... represent American military forces invading the Iraqis, and the futility of the occupation of a faraway land is again the subtext." And, in an interview with USA Weekend, Koepp said, "You can read our movie several ways. It could be 9/11 paranoia. Or it could be about how U.S. military interventionism abroad is doomed by insurgency, just the way an alien invasion might be."

CBC: Avoid ‘Terrorism’ And ‘Terrorist’

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is prescribing guidelines for when the words "terrorism" or "terror" can be used: It seems to be never. In a memo to staff, the CBC cites the London bombings, the 9/11 massacre, the Madrid bombings, and the Bali bombing — all of which, it says, should not be called "terrorist acts"... unless that's attributed to someone else.

The CBC says, "Terrorism ... [is] a highly controversial term that can leave journalists taking sides in a conflict. ... Instead of reaching for a label ... try describing what happened." This, the CBC says, will "give our audience the information they need to form their own conclusions about what type of attack it was."

— FOX News' Michael Levine contributed to this report