The film is called “Facebook IPO Roadshow,” and it runs a little over 30 minutes. The ingenious and disturbing film was conceived as the centerpiece of the dark-charm offensive that Facebook launched to beguile new investors. (Those investors, who didn’t feel properly courted by the canned appearance, soon began demanding to see Zuckerberg in person, presumably so they could touch the hem of his garment rather than watch a Facebook-produced video that any schmo could see.)

But as an ambitious propaganda piece that doubles as gloss on the current state of the digital everything, “Facebook IPO Roadshow” is well worth watching. The film is at pains to deny it’s a commercial. As the flat-affect movie puts it, its entire purpose is to “enable your investment decisions” and help “you get to know Facebook better.” Very Silicon Valley. You know there are tens of billions on the line when company leaders get this low-key.

Though several members of the Facebook brass show up, and the film is thick with groovy b-roll and data visualization, Zuckerberg, in his matte blue-gray outfit and matching eyes, steals the show—though he seems, as usual, to have turned in his performance by Facebook chat.

Never has a mortal seemed so laconic and blasé about a company he founded and now hopes to see valued at $100 billion. It’s almost as though, like any garden-variety Harvard kid, he feels entitled to any valuation he dreams up.

Sure, it would be nice, just for the moment, for Zuckerberg to pant for approval a little, and act like he needs us. We are the ones who put the “public” in IPO after all.

But there’s something in Zuckerberg’s disregard for his audience—that spoiled, half-sadistic style that David Fincher captured in “The Social Network”—that gives his company its mystique. Does the noli-me-tangere whiz-kid without a real, flesh-and-blood friend in sight seem like the future of social life online? Maybe. Maybe there’s something in his master-puppeteer demeanor that allows his company to perpetually outrun charges that it’s faddish and trivial. (On the eve of the IPO, a poll conducted on behalf of the Associated Press and CNBC found that fully half of Americans consider Facebook a flash in the pan!)

Zuckerberg reportedly will not come to New York to ring the NASDAQ bell on Friday. If you’re Mark Zuckerberg, evidently, you don’t genuflect toward the brutish trading floor. You ring bells from wherever you want; in his case, it’s remotely, from his new office in Menlo Park. If he’s using a bell-ringing app, you can be sure it’s got Facebook inside, like Pinterest or Quora or Spotify.

While Zuckerberg maintains his above-it-all style in the film, the onetime fencing champ does manage to pull off some elegant touchés and trompements at the expense of his competition. The richest one is in his opening lines:

You know, I grew up with the Internet, right, I mean when I had—When I was in middle school I was using search engines like Google and Yahoo.

I just thought that they were the most amazing thing. The thing that always seemed like it was missing was always just people, right. . .

Amazing. Google ends up in the rearview mirror (when Zuck was a preteen, no less) in the first 30 seconds of the speech. Zuckerberg goes on to rhetorically dominate mobile, where Facebook has been thought to be weak, when he prophesizes that all apps will one day be wrapped around Facebook.

And Sheryl Sandberg, the company’s captivating chief operating officer, shows how Facebook rules advertising, with a chipper presentation that lets her position herself as a consumer and user of the site—the way that none of the other company leaders successfully do in the film. (The company’s status as an advertising must-buy for companies looking to digitize came into serious question this week when General Motors announced that it would no longer buy ads on Facebook.)

In all, the film expresses cool triumphalism. On a broad, almost monstrous scale. It’s as though the prophecy has already come to pass; all investors and the public must do is yield to our fate.

Zuckerberg conspicuously name-checks his hacker ethos, which involves creating products with a “minimum” of features and, even more, a minimum of personal exertion. The word recalls the Zuckerberg character in Fincher’s film brandishing his A.D.D. for his interrogator: “You have part of my attention; you have the minimum amount.”

In a disclaimer before the movie, the word “speculation” is never used. Forward-looking statements is the preferred phrase. Speculation sounds flimsy and dangerous, evoking some 19th-century huckster with a high hat and the word “Diamond” in front of his name. Forward-looking, by contrast, sounds visionary. Clairvoyant, even.

It all looks very clean. I remember joining Facebook five years ago, not long after the collegians-only social network opened its gates to the genpop. A college kid insisted to me that Facebook people were wittier than MySpace people, so I decided to see for myself.

Maybe by witty he meant repressed. In those days, groovy, messy MySpace was dominated by dark, bruised-looking emo collages. Facebook seemed more buttoned-up, square, self-conscious—like an Ivy League kid applying to Goldman Sachs.

It still seems that way. In spite of the scandals surrounding Facebook, and the alarmist treatises about its effects on our lives, there’s something morally fastidious about the company. Like Apple, it’s almost prudish.

If this presentation looks like anti-sales, then, it might just be the blockbuster sales strategy of our age.

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/facebook%E2%80%99s-i-p-o--roadshow-movie-is-better-than--the-social-network-.html

An aide to Joe Ricketts, founder of TD Ameritrade, said the proposal to draw the Rev. Jeremiah Wright into the presidential campaign — and the issue of race, by extension — went too far.

The New York Times reported Thursday that Ricketts‘ Ending Spending Action Fund, a conservative super PAC, was considering a proposal for a $10 million TV ad campaign highlighting Wright’s sermons.

The blueprint, titled “The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama: the Ricketts Plan to End His Spending For Good,” was devised by a group of Republican strategists, one of whom confirmed its contents for The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss private working sessions.

Brian Baker, president of the super PAC, said Ricketts was not the author of the 54-page plan. Baker blamed consultants.

“Not only was this plan merely a proposal — one of several submitted to the Ending Spending Action Fund by third-party vendors — but it reflects an approach to politics that Mr. Ricketts rejects and it was never a plan to be accepted but only a suggestion for a direction to take,” Baker said in a written statement.

Romney had urged the independent group, which favors his candidacy, to abandon the Wright strategy and to focus instead on his bedrock issue, the economy.

“I repudiate the effort by that PAC to promote an ad strategy of the nature they’ve described,” Romney told the conservative website Townhall.com. “I would like to see this campaign focus on the economy, on getting people back to work, on seeing rising incomes and growing prosperity — particularly for those in the middle class of America.”

Obama campaign manager Jim Messina criticized the plan as a “campaign of character assassination” and accused Romney “reacting tepidly in a moment that required moral leadership in standing up to the very extreme wing of his own party.”

Messina noted that Republican Sen. John McCain, Obama‘s opponent in the 2008 presidential race, had rejected using Wright and Wright’s sermons against Obama.

Messina commented before Romney’s interview with Townhall.com, and issued no comment after Romney urged Ricketts‘ group to abandon the effort.

McCain made clear four years ago that he wanted to challenge Obama on his record, not on the words or deeds of those around him, and forbade adviser Fred Davis from incorporating Wright into their advertising plans.

But Davis, a colorful Hollywood consultant, clearly wanted another chance to go use the strategy against Obama.

“Our plan is to do exactly what John McCain would not let us do: Show the world how Barack Obama‘s opinions of America and the world were formed,” Davis’ proposal said. “And why the influence of that misguided mentor and our president’s formative years among left-wing intellectuals has brought our country to its knees.”

Davis’ firm said in a statement Thursday that the document — which called for “hitting Barack right between the eyes” — was only a proposal and did not win Ricketts’ approval.

Wright became a problem for Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign when videos of the pastor’s sermons surfaced. In a 2003 sermon, Wright said black people should condemn the United States.

“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people,” Wright said at the time. “God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”

Wright, who preached at the Chicago church Obama once attended, became such a distraction for Obama that he ended up delivering a major speech on race relations to try to quell the controversy. He also severed his ties to Wright.

For his part, Arizona Sen. McCain said he had no regrets over his handling of the Wright issue.

“I remain proud of our campaign and proud of what we were able to accomplish, and I would do it over again,” McCain told reporters Thursday at the Capitol. He said the matter seemed dead after Romney repudiated the proposal.

He shrugged when asked whether independent groups should take up matters such as Wright’s remarks.

“It’s a way for political operatives to continue to make money,” McCain said.

Another top Republican, House Speaker John Boehner, of Ohio, declined to be drawn into the debate.

“This election is going to be about the economy,” he said when reporters asked him to react to the proposed ad campaign. “I don’t know what these other people do or why they do it.”

Ricketts is the founder of Nebraska-based TD Ameritrade Securities and owner of the Chicago Cubs baseball team. He has been active in conservative politics for years, most recently in Republican Deb Fischer’s upset win this week in the Republican Senate primary in Nebraska.

___

Fouhy reported from New York. Associated Press writer Charles Babington in Washington contributed to this report.

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/billionaire-wont-air-obama-wright-campaign-ads-165806842.html

Wealthy Texas lawyer Fred Baron is one of two political supporters who combined gave about $1 million to help hide Edwards’ pregnant mistress Rielle Hunter as the politician sought the White House in 2008. Evidence introduced at the trial showed Baron was making regular deposits into Hunter’s checking account, the sum totaling $74,000.

The deposits began in June 2008 — several months after Edwards ended his White House run — and continued until December 2008, two months after Baron died. Edwards’ defense has argued any money spent after his bid cannot be a campaign contribution. Prosecutors claim Edwards was still seeking a vice presidential nomination or a spot as attorney general.

Edwards’ oldest daughter, Cate, could take the stand as early as Tuesday, two weeks after she ran out of the courtroom in tears during testimony about her cancer-stricken mother confronting her father about his affair with Hunter.

It’s not clear how her testimony could help her father’s defense.

Edwards has pleaded not guilty to campaign finance violations stemming from money his ex-aide Andrew Young and others used to support Hunter. Edwards faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

Edwards’ attorneys have also said he did not know about the money from Baron and wealthy heiress Rachel “Bunny” Mellon — and that even if he did, the cash was not a campaign contribution because it was intended to hide Hunter from Edwards’ wife, not the public.

According to financial records introduced Tuesday, the Youngs received $1.07 million from Baron and Mellon over 2007 and 2008. Tax returns showed they gave Hunter $191,000 during that time frame for private jets, stays at luxury resorts and a $20,000-a-month California rental mansion.

Defense attorneys argue the rest of the money was spent on the Youngs’ dream home in North Carolina.

Earlier Tuesday, Edwards’ former lawyer Wade Smith testified about conversations he had with Alex D. Forger, an attorney for Mellon. Forger had earlier testified for prosecutors, saying he told Smith that Edwards acknowledged some of the “Bunny Money” had been given for his benefit.

Smith said Forger misunderstood the conversation they had.

“I would not ever quote my client to someone else,” Smith testified, saying that would violate attorney-client privileged.

On Monday, Edwards’ attorneys began his defense by attempting to shift the focus away from the sex scandal to the technical issue of whether Edwards’ alleged behavior violated campaign finance laws.

Defense attorneys have not yet indicated if they will call Hunter or Edwards to testify.

Before winning a U.S. Senate seat in 1998, Edwards made a fortune as a personal injury lawyer renowned for his ability to sway jurors. But his testimony would expose himself to a likely withering cross-examination about his past lies and personal failings.

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/edwards-campaign-finance-chairman-paid-mistress-172609329.html

Apart from voyeuristic curiosity, these excursions into the past are justified because they are supposed to provide insight into the character of a president and his rival. That’s been a special focus of the political press ever since Duke political scientist James David Barber first published his ground-breaking work “The Presidential Character” 40 years ago, arguing that an understanding of a candidate’s psychological makeup was a guide to predicting presidential behavior.

Coming as it did in 1972, just as the obsessions of Richard Nixon planted the seeds of his destruction and after the tormented presidency of Lyndon Johnson, Barber’s advice helped redirect the energies of two generations of political journalists. Put aside the position papers, went the post-Barber wisdom, and tell the voters what makes these men and women tick.

Fair enough, I guess. Maybe we can see the seeds of Obama’s detachment in the musings of a long-ago love. Maybe Mitt Romney’s failure to grasp the malicious nature of his teenage “hijinks” opens a door to a greater cluelessness.

But I wonder: Are we really confident that we–or for that matter anyone–can divine the likely performance of a president by gathering such evidence?

Think about one of the most powerful influences on a young child’s life–the absence of a father figure. Look back on recent presidents, and you’ll find an absent, or weak, or failed father in the lives of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Is there really much that these five presidents have in common? (And no, the desire for public affection doesn’t count, because that’s a desire that comes with the job).

Did Lyndon Johnson’s rage at the humiliation he felt when his father’s failures drove his family into poverty ignite the venality that led him to amass a fortune while on the public payroll? Or did it ignite a passion for improving the lot of the poor? Both?

Did Richard Nixon’s youth shape the calculating mind that opened the door to diplomatic relations with China? Or the paranoid distrust that led to Watergate? Both?

To add to the sense of uncertainty, take a look back at two other presidents–both named Roosevelt–and you’ll find yourself even more puzzled at what conclusions can be drawn from a public figure’s younger days. Theodore Roosevelt was a wunderkind. By the time he left Harvard, he’d published impressive studies or ornithology and botany, and his book on the Naval War of 1812, published shortly after his graduation, was acclaimed as an instant classic in the field. And Franklin? His family was so unimpressed by his devotion to the niceties of social life that his initials, they said, stood for “Feather Duster Roosevelt.”

Both became transforming presidents. With the first Roosevelt, his youth might be said to presage his later triumphs. With the second? Hardly.

Or consider the endlessly debated issue about what the “private life”–by which we almost always mean the sexual adventures or misadventures–tells us about a president’s public performance.

By every measure, John Kennedy’s sex life was compulsive and reckless. At one level, it had clear public consequences. Knowledge of Kennedy’s behavior gave FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover absolute job security, as well as the potential power to derail Kennedy’s re-election had he survived assassination.

But did JFK’s behavior offer insight into how he conducted himself when–quite literally–the future of the world was at stake? During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy again and again resisted the reckless entreaties of his military advisors, and many of his top civilian aides, to launch air strikes at the Soviet missiles in Cuba. Again and again, he looked for alternatives to military action, kept trying to put himself in Soviet leader Khrushchev’s shoes, tried not to box himself or the Soviets into a position where force was inevitable. It is more than likely that because of his prudence, hundreds of millions of lives were saved.

Or take a more recent example: By every account, the shaping influence on John McCain’s life was the time he spent in captivity as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. For five and a half years–many of them spent in solitary confinement, with frequent beatings and threats of execution–McCain endured conditions unlike any experienced by a major American political figure. Perhaps that life-changing experience gave McCain the freedom from political constraints to buck his party on issues ranging from tax policy to campaign finance reform. Perhaps it also freed him from the constraints that would have led most presidential nominees to conduct a lengthy, intense vetting process for a running mate.

There’s no question that voters are entitled to know as much as possible about the men and women who might hold the power of life and death over them. And in a nation of 300 million, it’s both likely–and reasonable–that different people might take different lessons from the same accounts of a candidate’s youth. (“Is Mitt somewhat of a bully? Better a bully than a doormat!”)

But when we seek to examine the early life of a potential president, we should remember that one of the most dangerous traits a leader can possess is hubris. We’d do well to leave ours at the door.

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/romney%E2%80%99s-bullying--obama%E2%80%99s-girlfriends--and-the-character-test--what-can-we-know-about-a-president.html

Sullivan arrives on Capitol Hill to testify before the House Homeland Security Committee hearing on a White House …

The chairmen of the Senate and House Homeland Security Committees leading a probe of the Secret Service said on Sunday that they plan to hold a May 23 Congressional hearing on the prostitution scandal that rocked the agency in April.

Secret Service director Mark Sullivan and Charles Edwards, acting inspector general of the Dept. of Homeland Security, will be present at the hearing, Senate Homeland Security Committee chairman Joe Lieberman told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Lieberman said the hearing will address three questions: “One, is the inspector general satisfied with the investigation of what happened at Cartagena that the Secret Service did? Secondly, were there indications before the Colombian scandal of behavior by Secret Service agents off duty, on assignment, that should have been a warning that this was coming? And then, third, what are you going to do, Dir. Sullivan, to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again?”

“This is really a heartbreaking incident, and really a dangerous incident,” Lieberman added. “We really have got to make sure it never does happen again.”

Hotel El Caribe in Cartagena, Colombia, April 19, 2012. (Pedro Mendoza/AP)

But those looking for Sullivan to lose his job may be out of luck. Peter King, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he believes the incident that implicated at least 12 Secret Service agents was isolated, and reiterated his support of Sullivan.

“I believe this was the exception,” King said. “I don’t believe it was tolerated. I have known Mark Sullivan for a number of years, and I just think the way he has carried out this investigation has been very forward, from what we’ve been able to–first of all, working closely with the Secret Service, but also using our own sources–it seems that everything that the Secret Service is saying about what happened is what happened as we compare it with other sources and the other information we’re getting.”

King also said he declined an offer to meet with the prostitute at the center of the scandal.

“My office got a call from the lawyer from the prostitute … asking to come and meet with me in Washington,” King said. “We’re not going to do that. I think that would just add to a circus atmosphere.”

King added: “This is a very, very outstanding agency, the Secret Service.  We have to not tear down their reputation while getting at the truth of what happened.”

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Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/secret-sex-scandal-congressional-hearing-set-may-23-172209753.html

Her father had her beloved show horse killed for insurance money. An ex-boyfriend used her as his muse for the “cocaine-addled, sexually voracious” narrator of one of his novels. She went to Hollywood to become a star and left about a decade later with only a few bit parts.

Through it all, Hunter considered herself a truth-seeker.

“For as long as I can remember, I had a relentless desire for truth,” she said on her personal website in the mid-2000s.

Then she met John Edwards in the bar of a New York hotel in 2006. Hunter said they had a connection the instant their eyes met, and a few hours later she was spending the night in the Democratic presidential candidate’s room.

Their relationship led to a landslide of lies.

First, they had to hide their relationship. She stayed silent as Edwards publicly professed his love for his cancer-stricken wife, Elizabeth, and the two renewed their wedding vows.

When she got pregnant with Edwards’ child, she agreed to protect his presidential ambitions by letting the candidate’s devoted right-hand man claim paternity. Then she had to listen on TV as Edwards said it was impossible for him to be the father.

Whether Edwards is telling the truth or not is now at the center of his campaign finance trial, under way in North Carolina. Edwards’ lawyers said the candidate had no idea nearly $1 million from a pair of wealthy benefactors was being spent to hide Hunter and keep her away from the tabloids during Edwards’ run for the White House. Prosecutors said Edwards orchestrated the cover-up.

Prosecutors rested their case Thursday without calling the 48-year-old Hunter to the stand, despite granting her immunity. They refused to say why. But legal experts said she can be flighty and unpredictable and could have proved dangerous to the government’s case.

Edwards’ lawyers have not said whether they will call her to testify, but she could be hazardous to the defense for the same reason. Also, legal experts said, her appearance on the stand might only hurt Edwards with the jury by emphasizing his cheating and lying.

Hunter was born Lisa Jo Druck. Her father was a prominent lawyer, and she lived a privileged life growing up in Florida. Hunter, who adopted her new name in 1994 while out in Hollywood, said both her parents cheated in their marriage.

She loved horses, especially her show horse Henry The Hawk, which her father bought for $150,000. But in 1982, he was short on cash. He had an insurance policy on the animal worth $150,000 and taught a man named Tommy “The Sandman” Burns how to electrocute a horse so that it would look like a death from natural causes.

Hunter found her beloved horse dead in its stall, and her father later confessed to the scheme, according to a Sports Illustrated story on Burns, who eventually went to prison for his role in a string of horse killings. Hunter’s father died in 1990 before any charges were brought against him.

Hunter spent her early 20s in New York. There she met writer Jay McInerney, best known for his novel “Bright Lights, Big City,” about the 1980s party scene in the city. They dated for several months, and McInerney modeled the sexually aggressive narrator of his 1988 novel “Story of My Life” on Hunter. Hunter has said the portrayal of her in the book was quite exaggerated, but she still thinks McInerney is a great guy.

She was later married to a lawyer for nearly a decade and went to Hollywood to become a star, or at least a writer. The Internet Movie Database lists just four acting credits, all brief parts, and a writing and producing credit for a 20-minute short. It also lists her 2003 appearance on the game show “Lingo,” where she split $500 with her partner.

It was her relationship with Edwards that would net her biggest show-business payday. Despite Hunter’s lack of filmmaking experience, the politician arranged a $250,000 contract for her to make a series of behind-the-scenes documentaries from the campaign trail.

Though Edwards’ aides quickly grew suspicious and derided her work as shoddy and unprofessional, the job gave her a reason to travel with the candidate while his wife was home in North Carolina fighting breast cancer.

Word of the affair got back to Elizabeth Edwards and Hunter lost her job. But the candidate continued to arrange for his mistress to meet with him on the road. She became pregnant in the summer of 2007.

As her belly began to show, tabloid reporters tracked her down in New Jersey. She fled to North Carolina and moved in with one of Edwards’ most loyal aides, Andrew Young, his wife and the couple’s three children. Within weeks, the Youngs set up Hunter in a $2,700-a-month rental home not far from the Edwards estate in Chapel Hill.

That December, in an attempt to contain the scandal, Young issued a statement claiming the baby was his.

Then Hunter went on the run with the aide and his wife. Edwards’ campaign finance chairman let them stay at his vacation mansion in Aspen, Colo., and paid for them to live in a $20,000-a-month manor in Santa Barbara, Calif. Hunter chose the location because it was close to her New Age spiritual adviser, Bob McGovern.

Hunter so relied on McGovern that when an Aspen restaurant served her a Reuben sandwich with the wrong sauce on it, she made an angry call to him to ask him to fix it, according to testimony at Edwards’ trial.

Her daughter, Francis Quinn Hunter, was born in February 2008, a couple of weeks after Edwards suspended his campaign because of poor showings in early primary states.

Hunter told Oprah Winfrey in an August 2010 interview that the decision to have Young claim paternity was the biggest mistake in her life. She said she had banked on Young’s wife rejecting the idea.

“It was a horrid time, Oprah. Devastating. Devastating,” Hunter said.

She deflected questions about whether she hurt Elizabeth Edwards, who died of cancer in December 2010. She vehemently denied she was a home-wrecker.

“I believe the problems exist before a third party comes into the picture,” she told Winfrey.

Hunter now lives in Charlotte with her daughter, now 4. She has spoken little about her relationship with Edwards since his wife’s death.

Before the trial, Hunter vowed through a spokeswoman to tell the truth if called to testify. In her interview with Winfrey, Hunter spoke about the unusual turns her life had taken.

“Being a person who’s committed to truth and living a life where you’re not hiding, it’s almost like a cosmic joke to fall in love with someone who’s living a big lie,” she said.

___

Collins reported from Columbia, S.C.

Follow AP writer Michael Biesecker at twitter.com/mbieseck

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/john-edwards-mistress-led-tabloid-grade-life-162633650.html