Snacking a Broadway showstopper

From: Snacking a Broadway showstopper

NEW YORK (AP) -- Patti LuPone could not believe her ears.

"There was this woman in the first row, eating out of a paper bag, so loudly that even people around her were trying to get her to stop," an appalled LuPone said of the incident during her Broadway run in the musical "Sweeney Todd."

Another actor on stage used her prop -- a flute -- to nudge the woman to stop eating, reaching into the audience with the instrument and pushing down on the woman's bag of snacks, LuPone said.

"But the woman kept eating whatever it was -- things that came out in little balls."

Such encounters have become increasingly common in theaters up and down Broadway, where the sound of music is sometimes mixed with a symphony of snacking. More Broadway theaters are allowing people to bring drinks, candy, chips and even popcorn to their seats as they try to boost their bottom lines.

And the bottom line is -- the bottom line. Concession sales at the Hilton Theatre have more than doubled since refreshments were allowed into the shows about three years ago.

To eat or not to eat is an issue that has divided Broadway.

The Schubert Organization, which operates 17 theaters, does not permit food or drinks into performances. The Nederlander Organization allows snacks into most of its shows, especially venues that are staging family fare such as "The Lion King" and "Beauty and the Beast." Nederlander also allows people to bring in wine poured into spill-proof cups.

Nederlander Vice President Jim Boese defended the organization's selling of snacks.

"This is not an orgy of gorging -- it's just a recognition of reality," he said.

"We're trying to be responsive to consumers, and we've found that more and more parents and others are asking for certain kinds of snacks," Boese said. "We've served Twizzlers forever. This is about creating a broader array of things that people can eat."

Last year, the Nederlander added popcorn to its snack menu at the Neil Simon Theatre for the musical "Hairspray."

"Producers felt this show was fun," said Susan Lee, Nederlander's head of marketing. "Popcorn in the theater sets an environment, and the concession became a part of the entertainment."

She said Nederlander considers the nature of the show when deciding where snacks should be enjoyed.

For Eugene O'Neill's quiet, brooding "A Moon for the Misbegotten" -- opening in March at the Brooks Atkinson Theater -- "snacks inside are not appropriate," Lee said.

The ushers will ask theatergoers to refrain from taking them in, and signs will be posted to that effect.

Nederlander lobby signs also urge patrons to remove their noisy candy wrappers ahead of time.

But a theater cannot police what Lee called "the changing etiquette."

The spectacle of theatergoers loudly gobbling snacks, said playwright Paul Rudnick, does not reflect well on American audiences.

"It feeds into the caricature of Americans stuffing themselves at every opportunity," he said, deadpanning, "I feel you should be allowed to bring in a flat-screen TV and a Scrabble game -- if you're in such desperate need of distraction."

He said no actor he knows likes to perform in front of munching people.

"The actors are giving their all for your entertainment. Control those cravings," he said, adding that in Shakespeare's time, "you had the rabble tossing chicken legs at the stage. But those were cheaper seats."

When it comes to chomping in a Broadway theater, with tickets topping $100, even the cheap eats have a decibel hierarchy.

Fresh popcorn may be the worst offender -- between the rumpling of the bag and the chewing sounds -- and potato chips right behind. Twizzlers licorice are a quiet treat -- as long as you open the wrapper first. And gummy bears take the prize for silence.

But there is just no shushing popcorn -- or LuPone's outrage.

"People are slobs. Everybody leaves their junk for somebody else to pick up," she said.

LuPone said that if she returns to Broadway, "I'll sit down with the producers and ask them to ask people to please stop eating. If you're hungry, don't come to the theater."

Maine rejects Real ID Act

From: Maine rejects Real ID Act

update Maine overwhelmingly rejected federal requirements for national identification cards on Thursday, marking the first formal state opposition to controversial legislation scheduled to go in effect for Americans next year.

Both chambers of the Maine legislature approved a resolution saying the state flatly "refuses" to force its citizens to use driver's licenses that comply with digital ID standards, which were established under the 2005 Real ID Act. It asks the U.S. Congress to repeal the law.

The vote represents a political setback for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Republicans in Washington, D.C., which have argued that nationalized ID cards for all Americans would help in the fight against terrorists.

"I have faith that the Democrats in Congress will hear this from many states and will find a way to repeal or amend this in the coming months," House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat, said in a telephone interview after the vote. "It's not only a huge federal mandate, but it's a huge mandate from the federal government asking us to do something we don't have any interest in doing."

The Real ID Act says that, starting around May 2008, Americans will need a federally approved ID card--a U.S. passport will also qualify--to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments or take advantage of nearly any government service. States will have to conduct checks of their citizens' identification papers, and driver's licenses likely will be reissued to comply with Homeland Security requirements.

In addition, the national ID cards must be "machine-readable," with details left up to Homeland Security, which hasn't yet released final regulations. That could end up being a magnetic strip, an enhanced bar code or radio frequency identification (RFID) chips.

The votes in Maine on the resolution were nonpartisan. It was approved by a 34-to-0 vote in the state Senate and by a 137-to-4 vote in the House of Representatives.

Other states are debating similar measures. Bills pending in Georgia, Massachusetts, Montana and Washington state express varying degrees of opposition to the Real ID Act.

Montana's is one of the strongest. The legislature held a hearing on Wednesday on a bill that says "The state of Montana will not participate in the implementation of the Real ID Act of 2005" and directs the state motor vehicle department "not to implement the provisions."

Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project, said he thinks Maine's vote will "break the logjam, and other states are going to follow." (The American Civil Liberties Union has set up an anti-Real ID Web site called Real Nightmare).

Pingree, Maine's House majority leader, said the Real ID Act would have cost the state $185 million over five years and required every state resident to visit the motor vehicle agency so that several forms of identification--including an original copy of the birth certificate and a Social Security card--would be uploaded into a federal database.

Growing opposition to the law in the states could create a political pickle for the Bush administration. The White House has enthusiastically embraced the Real ID Act, saying it (click for PDF) "facilitates the strengthening by the states of the standards for the security and integrity of drivers' licenses."

But if a sufficient number of states follow Maine's lead, pressure would increase on a Democratic Congress to relax the Real ID rules--or even rescind them entirely.

A key Republican supporter of the Real ID Act said Thursday that the law was just as necessary now as when it was enacted as part of an $82 billion military spending and tsunami relief bill. (Its backers say it follows the recommendations that the 9/11 Commission made in 2004.)

"Real ID is needed to protect the American people from terrorists who use drivers licenses to board planes, get jobs and move around the country as the 9/11 terrorists did," Texas Rep. Lamar Smith, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said in an e-mailed statement. "It makes sense to have drivers licenses that ensure a person is who they say they are. It makes the country safer and protects the American people from terrorists who would use the most common form of ID as cover."

Dobbs: Are you a casualty of the class war?

Original cnn.com link: Dobbs: Are you a casualty of the class war?

By Lou Dobbs
CNN

Editor's note: Lou Dobbs' commentary appears every Wednesday on CNN.com

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The Dow Jones Industrial Average has hit an all-time high and Wall Street firms are posting some of their best earnings ever. For the first time in our nation's history, the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans includes only billionaires. In fact, having only a billion dollars means you're not on the list. As a group, the Forbes 400 has a collective net worth of $1.25 trillion.

So the rich are doing well. But how about the middle class?

More Americans than ever are living in poverty, living without health care, paying more for housing and for the costs of our public education. And real wages are falling.

Real median earnings of full-time working males fell nearly 2 percent last year, according to the Census Bureau, while the real wages of working women fell by 1.3 percent. Despite that, real median household income did manage to rise slightly last year, though that small gain was the first increase in household income since 1999.

So what has been keeping our middle class afloat in the face of rapidly rising costs? American families have been living on, as well as in, their homes. More than one-third of homeowners are spending more than 30 percent of their income on the cost of housing, a level that pushes the edge of affordability. Nationwide median home values from 2000-2005 jumped 32 percent, and homeowners have been pulling equity out of their houses in order to keep up with escalating tuition bills, health care costs and energy costs.

But not everyone is so lucky. The number of Americans without health coverage rose by 1.3 million last year, up to 46.6 million, according to the Census Bureau. What's worse, more than one in 10 American children are now uninsured. Fewer employers than ever are providing health care to their employees and those who are still lucky enough to receive employer-provided coverage are paying a much larger share: The Kaiser family foundation says the cost of family health insurance, in fact, is up 87 percent since 2000.

The same holds true at the pharmacy. Prices for the most popular brand-name prescription drugs this year rose substantially higher than the annual inflation rate, as has been the case every year this decade. The AARP concluded prices for the top 193 drugs climbed 6.3 percent over the last 12 months ending in June 2006, while inflation went up 3.8 percent. Generic drugs, however, rose 0.4 percent over that period of time.

The costs of higher education are also hurting middle-class families like never before. In this increasingly credentialed society, the total cost of tuition, fees, room and board at four-year public colleges and universities has ballooned 44 percent over the past four years. And the proportion of family income it takes to pay for college is growing for families everywhere. The biggest jump, according to the National Center for Higher Education, is in Ohio, where college costs now take 42 percent of the average family budget, up from 28 percent in the early 1990s.

Our dependency on foreign oil is also hamstringing working men and women. Gasoline prices are back on the decline (for now), but many Americans this summer were shelling out double what they used to pay to drive their cars. And gas prices now, while lower than at their peak in August, are still about 60 percent higher than in January 2001.

Perhaps one of our nation's leading business magazines would like to create something called a Forbes or Fortune 250 Million list, which would reveal the dire financial pressures that our public policies have produced for working men and women and their families. It's time for all of us to focus on that deep chasm we have allowed to open between the wealthiest Americans and the middle class and those who aspire to it.

Otherwise, there will be 250 million casualties in what has become nothing less than class warfare.

Radical Hollywood Star Inspires College Play

[Originally from Radical Hollywood Star Inspires College Play]

By: Christopher Flickinger
Posted 05/02/06
02:40 PM

A Hollywood left-winger inspires a Kansas college to perform his "educational" play.

Bethel College's spring drama was "Dead Man Walking" -- a 1995 film directed by Tim Robbins, which he later adapted to a stage play, according to a school press release. The work details Sister Helen Prejean's "walk" with a Louisiana death row inmate.

The school's website reports that "Robbins and Prejean started the Dead Man Walking School Theatre Project in an attempt to get voting-age students to engage in a dialogue about the issue of capital punishment." So, last week students participated in the "national theater program" after meeting the requirements issued by Robbins and Prejean -- schools must incorporate a discussion of the text or of the death penalty into various disciplines.

According to the press release, Robbins' work was incorporated into an English class where the book was used as text as well as in a Bible and religion class on "Nonviolence Theory and Practice." The school also held a "conversation about the death penalty" in its auditorium.

"When I read the information, I got excited about Bethel entering the nationwide dialogue on the death penalty," said John McCabe-Juhnke, a professor of communications arts at Bethel -- the oldest Mennonite college in North America. "This is the kind of theater we should be doing here."

Oh, I bet it is...

Let's review.

A Mennonite college puts on a play about the death penalty by a radical left-winger from Hollywood -- who, by the way, demands further dialogue about the issue "in an attempt to get voting-age students" engaged about capital punishment.

Ummm...

Mennonite college (conscientious objectors).

Tim Robbins (ultra-liberal, anti-death penalty advocate).

Yep, I'm sure the students at Bethel College got a well-rounded education on the death penalty and addressed it with an open mind, don't you think so?

Mr. Flickinger is the "dean" of Human Events U and founder of the Network of Campus Conservatives. He is a native of Pittsburgh, who graduated from Ohio University Scripps School of Journalism with specializations in political science and economics.

Iraq: more journalists killed "than during Vietnam war"

Original editorsweblog.org link: Iraq: more journalists killed "than during Vietnam war"

Thursday, September 1, 2005

Iraq: more journalists killed "than during Vietnam war" - watchdogs
According to Peter Feuilherade' analysis (BBC Monitoring Media Services), "The number of journalists and support staff killed in Iraq since the start of the war in March 2003 now exceeds the toll among the media during two decades of fighting in Vietnam from 1955 to 1975, according to separate reports from two international journalists' organizations.

The Brussels-based International News Safety Institute (INSI) said in a press release on 29 August: "Eighty-one members of the news media have died since the war began in March 2003, according to figures compiled by the Institute. More than half - 50 - were murdered by insurgents and other unidentified gunmen and bombers. American firepower is the next most significant cause of death. There is no firm evidence that US forces have deliberately targeted the news media. But there is widespread suspicion that American troops do not take adequate precautions to try to ensure the safety of journalists. None of the other Coalition forces has killed any journalists."

The Paris-based organization Reporters Sans Frontieres on 28 August reported that Khalid was the 66th journalist or media assistant to be killed in Iraq since the conflict started in March 2003. "A total of 63 journalists were killed in the Vietnam war, which lasted from 1955 to 1975," RSF added.

The International Federation of Journalists, meanwhile, has sent a letter to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan calling on UN leaders to establish an independent inquiry into the killings of media staff at the hands of US and Coalition forces.

"The number of unexplained media killings by US military personnel is intolerable," said Aidan White, IFJ general secretary. "Media organizations and journalists' families face a wall of silence and an unfeeling bureaucracy that refuses to give clear and credible answers to questions."

"The toll is appalling, but the fact that 18 of these deaths are at the hands of US soldiers and that there are still questions to be answered more than two years after some of the incidents is particularly shocking," said White.

... Another media watchdog, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), puts the media death toll in Iraq at 74, comprising 53 journalists and 21 media workers.

A CPJ press release on 29 August said in part: "The circumstances surrounding several of these deaths suggest indifference on the part of US forces to the presence of civilians, including members of the press, according to CPJ's analysis of the killings."

Source: BBC Monitoring

Wounded ABC crew hospitalized in Germany

Original cnn.com link: Wounded ABC crew hospitalized in Germany

Anchor, cameraman suffered 'very significant' injuries in Iraq
Monday, January 30, 2006; Posted: 8:50 a.m. EST (13:50 GMT)

LANDSTUHL, Germany (CNN) -- ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff and his cameraman suffered "very significant injuries" but are in stable condition a day after they were wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq, the commander of the U.S. military hospital said Monday.

Woodruff, the 44-year-old co-anchor of "World News Tonight," and cameraman Doug Vogt, 46, arrived in Germany on Monday morning to receive treatment for wounds they suffered Sunday near Taji, Iraq, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Baghdad.

Col. Brian Gamble of Landstuhl Regional Medical Center said he could not give details on their injuries until doctors had consulted with their families.

"They are under the care of our trauma and critical care team that we have up there, undergoing further evaluation, consultation with specialty consultation," he said. "... the next few days and weeks really will be important to determine how they do."

Landstuhl is the largest U.S. military hospital outside the United States, but Gamble said the goal was to send Woodruff and Vogt to a medical facility in the United States.

Both journalists were listed in serious but stable condition Sunday after both sustained head injuries, the network said. Woodruff also suffered shrapnel injuries to his body, and Vogt has a broken shoulder, ABC said.

ABC News producer Kate Felsen said she spoke with both men. "Doug was conscious, and I was able to reassure him that I was getting them care," she said. "I spoke to Bob, also."

The two men had been embedded with the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division. At the time of the blast, they were traveling with U.S. and Iraqi security forces in the lead of an eight-vehicle convoy of U.S. armored Humvees, ABC said.

The network said the men -- wearing helmets and body armor -- were standing, videotaping a log of their trip, in the rear hatch of the vehicle when the bomb was detonated, apparently by a hard-wire connection. The blast was followed by small-arms fire from three directions, ABC said.

An Iraqi soldier was also wounded in the attack, Iraqi officials said.

Within 37 minutes of the attack, the men had been taken by helicopter to a combat-support hospital in the capital's heavily fortified Green Zone, the network said. (Watch the challenges of treating wounded at military hospital -- 3:29)

There, doctors determined the men needed surgery, and they were taken -- again by helicopter -- 50 miles north of Baghdad to the U.S. military hospital in Balad. The hospital is the most technologically advanced in Iraq.

Experienced journalists

Last month, Woodruff and Elizabeth Vargas were named to replace the late Peter Jennings as "World News Tonight" anchors. They started the job this month. Vargas anchored the news Sunday night. (Full story)

Woodruff, an attorney and former law professor, began his career in journalism as a translator for CBS News in Beijing during the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, he was embedded with Marines on the front lines.

Vogt has been with ABC News for 15 years and has covered global hot spots from Bosnia to Gaza to Iran.

Both men were experienced in war zones, ABC correspondent Martha Raddatz said.

The White House has offered to help "in any way we can," spokesman Trent Duffy said.

"It is terrible news, and we are praying for full and speedy recovery," he said. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to them."

Reporting from the Iraqi war zone is a dangerous proposition. According to Reporters Without Borders, 79 journalists and assistants have been killed in Iraq since the United States invaded in March 2003. Two CNN employees -- translator Duraid Mohammad and driver Yasser Khatib -- were killed two years ago.

CNN's Chris Burns contributed to this report.

Robertson suggests God smote Sharon

Original cnn.com link: Robertson suggests God smote Sharon

Evangelist links Israeli leader's stroke to 'dividing God's land'
Friday, January 6, 2006; Posted: 5:33 a.m. EST (10:33 GMT)

(CNN) -- Television evangelist Pat Robertson suggested Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution for the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, which Robertson opposed.

"He was dividing God's land, and I would say, 'Woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the [European Union], the United Nations or the United States of America,'" Robertson told viewers of his long-running television show, "The 700 Club."

"God says, 'This land belongs to me, and you'd better leave it alone,'" he said.

Robertson's show airs on the ABC Family cable network and claims about 1 million viewers daily.

Sharon, 77, clung to life in a Jerusalem hospital Thursday after surgery to treat a severe stroke, his doctors said.

The prime minister, who withdrew Israeli settlers and troops from Gaza and parts of the West Bank last summer over heated objections from his own Likud Party, was breathing with the aid of a ventilator after doctors operated to stop the bleeding in his brain.

In Washington, President Bush offered praise for Sharon in a speech on Thursday.

"We pray for his recovery," Bush said. "He's a good man, a strong man. A man who cared deeply about the security of the Israeli people, and a man who had a vision for peace. May God bless him."

Daniel Ayalon, Israel's ambassador to the United States, compared Robertson's remarks to the overheated rhetoric of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (Full story)

He called the comments "outrageous" and said they were not something to expect "from any of our friends."

"He is a great friend of Israel and a great friend of Prime Minister Sharon himself, so I am very surprised," Ayalon told CNN.

Robertson, 75, founded the Christian Coalition and in 1988 failed in a bid for the Republican presidential nomination. He last stirred controversy in August, when he called for the assassination of Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez. (Full story)

Robertson later apologized, but still compared Chavez to Hitler and former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in the process.

The same month, the Anti-Defamation League criticized Robertson for warning that God would "bring judgment" against Israel for its withdrawal from Gaza, which it had occupied since the 1967 Mideast war.

Robertson said Thursday that Sharon was "a very likable person, and I am sad to see him in this condition."

He linked Sharon's health problems to the 1995 assassination of Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin, who signed the Oslo peace accords that granted limited self-rule to Palestinians.

"It was a terrible thing that happened, but nevertheless, now he's dead," Robertson said.

Rabin was gunned down by a religious student opposed to the Oslo accords. The killer, Yigal Amir, admitted to the crime and was sentenced to life in prison.

Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, criticized Robertson's comments Thursday, saying the televangelist "has a political agenda for the entire world."

"He seems to think God is ready to take out any world leader who stands in the way of that agenda," Lynn said in a written statement.

"A religious leader should not be making callous political points while a man is struggling for his life," he said. "I'm appalled."

Ralph Neas, president of liberal advocacy group People for the American Way, said "it is astonishing that Pat Robertson still wields substantial influence" in the Republican Party.

"Once again, Pat Robertson leaves us speechless with his insensitivity and arrogance," Neas said in a written statement.

According to The Associated Press, Robertson spokeswoman Angell Watts said of people who criticized the comments: "What they're basically saying is, 'How dare Pat Robertson quote the Bible?'"

"This is what the word of God says," Watts told the AP. "This is nothing new to the Christian community."

Robertson: U.S. should assassinate Venezuela's Chavez

Original cnn.com link: Robertson: U.S. should assassinate Venezuela's Chavez

State Department says comment 'inappropriate'
Tuesday, August 23, 2005; Posted: 5:27 p.m. EDT (21:27 GMT)

(CNN) -- Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson has called for the United States to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, calling him "a terrific danger" bent on exporting Communism and Islamic extremism across the Americas.

"If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson told viewers on his "The 700 Club" show Monday. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war." Watch video of Robertson's comments

Venezuelan Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel accused Robertson of making terrorist statements and demanded that the United States take action, according to The Associated Press.

"The ball is in the U.S. court after this criminal statement by a citizen of that country," AP quoted Rangel as saying. "It's huge hypocrisy to maintain this discourse against terrorism and at the same time, in the heart of that country, there are entirely terrorist statements like those."

Another Chavez supporter in the Venezuelan parliament, Desire Santos Amaral said "This man cannot be a true Christian. He's a fascist." (Full story)

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that Robertson is a private citizen and that his views do not reflect U.S. policy.

"We do not share his view and his comments are inappropriate," he said. "And as we've said before, any allegations that we are planning to take hostile action against the Venezuelan government are completely baseless and without fact."

Robertson, a contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988, called Chavez "a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil, that could hurt us badly."

"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said. "We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

Robertson accused Chavez, a left-wing populist with close ties to Cuban President Fidel Castro, of trying to make Venezuela "a launching pad for Communist infiltration and Muslim extremism all over the continent."

"This is in our sphere of influence, so we can't let this happen," he said.

While Chavez has sought closer links with Cuba -- and was in Cuba when Robertson made his statement Monday -- Chavez was elected democratically.

Robertson did not explain how Venezuela was to be used by Muslim extremists. The U.S. State Department Web site says 98 percent of the population are Roman Catholic or protestant.

Chavez has said he believes the United States is trying to assassinate him, vowing that Venezuela, which accounts for more than 10 percent of U.S. oil imports, would shut off the flow of oil if that happens.

The Unites States has denied such allegations in the past.

Executive orders issued by presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan banned political assassinations.

Robertson's controversial history

Robertson's comments Monday were the latest in a string of controversial remarks in recent years by the religious broadcaster and founder of the Christian Coalition.

Last October, during the heat of the presidential race, Robertson told CNN that during a meeting with President Bush before the invasion of Iraq, the president told him he did not believe there would be casualties. The White House strongly denied the claim.

In May, during an ABC interview, Robertson ignited a firestorm with his response to a question about whether activist judges were more of a threat to America than terrorists.

"If they look over the course of 100 years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings," he said.

Defending his remarks in a letter to Sen. Frank Lautenberg, Robertson insisted he was not being cavalier about the 9/11 attacks. But he also refused to apologize, saying Supreme Court rulings on abortion, religious expression in the public square, pornography and same-sex marriage "are all of themselves graver dangers in the decades to come than the terrorists which our great nation has defeated in Afghanistan and Iraq."

In October 2003, Robertson, criticizing the State Department during an interview on "The 700 Club," said "maybe we need a very small nuke thrown off on Foggy Bottom to shake things up," referring to the nickname for the department's headquarters in Washington.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher called the remark "despicable."

In July 2003, Robertson asked his audience to pray for three justices to retire from the Supreme Court so they could be replaced with more conservative jurists. "One justice is 83 years old, another has cancer and another has a heart condition," he said.

Robertson insisted he was only calling for prayers for the justices to retire and was not asking his followers to pray for their demise.

In November 2002, Robertson charged that the Muslim holy book, the Quran, incites followers to kill people of other faiths and disputed Bush's characterization of Islam as a religion of peace.

"It's clear from the teachings of the Quran and also from the history of Islam that it's anything but peaceful," Robertson said in a subsequent interview with CNN. "Of course there are peace-loving Muslims. But at the same time, at the core of this religion ... is jihad, and it is to subject the unbelievers either to forced conversion or death. That's what it teaches."