Comedians Get Laughs at Front-Runners’ Expense

Are we there yet? Well then, can we have some laughs along the way?

The haute Hollywood fund-raiser/roast for gubernatorial candidate Arianna Huffington had a couple hundred paying guests trampling the grass at the home of producer Lawrence Bender to hear satirist-comedians Bill Maher, Rob Schneider and Harry Shearer deliver lines like: “A guy [Cruz Bustamante] who can make gambling casinos give him money is way ahead of the game.” “The reason Arnold chose Oui magazine [for a raunchy 1977 interview] over Swank is that Oui submitted the questions in advance” -- a dig at Schwarzenegger’s decision to take part in only one debate, the one giving out the questions in advance.

And again about Schwarzenegger: “The last time I saw someone who was that qualified for office, Arianna was married to him” -- a reference to Huffington’s ex-husband, Michael, the failed U.S. Senate candidate.

Senate Gets a Reminder About Politics of Movies

Politicians routinely deplore all that sex and violence in movies, but evidently some aren’t all that pleased about the politics in movies either.

With HBO in D.C. to shoot its new series “K Street” -- the boulevard where the capital’s lobbyists lavishly spread influence as thick as foie gras -- the Senate had to be reminded: “Filming involving or related to commercial ventures, including fictional movies, is expressly prohibited.” So said a letter sent to the Capitol Hill Hundred by the Senate Ethics and Rules committees. Some unnamed senator had permitted HBO to shoot inside his or her office, and only afterward had thought to check on the policy -- hence the stern memo. “This is not a movie set,” Mississippi Republican Sen. Trent Lott told Reuters.

Maybe what really unsettles them is the nature of the series -- an “experimental fusion of reality and fiction” -- and its cast members, such as Clinton advisor James Carville, former Cheney advisor Mary Matalin and onetime Reagan advisor Michael Deaver -- whose reputation as a producer-director of brilliantly staged White House photo ops rivals any in Hollywood. Deaver was convicted of perjury for lying to Congress about his lobbying activities -- a real-life K Street story line.

So just where, then, did they make all those political movies, if not in situ? The 1939 classic “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” ran its filibuster on a Hollywood set of the Senate chamber. But the 1961 film “Advise and Consent” was filmed in Capitol Hill interiors, and even hired real senators, staff and reporters as extras. The Senate’s associate historian, Don Ritchie, says the process was “so intrusive that the Rules Committee decreed no more interior shooting.”

L.A. City Hall has welcomed filmmakers for decades, at the pittance price of $300 per diem, plus damages, which can be considerable, and which don’t include the annoyance factor for city workers. Still, City Hall has cameoed as itself in productions such as “Dragnet,” and was destroyed by Martians in “War of the Worlds.” Its interiors have doubled as Congress and -- even more incredibly -- the Vatican.

Cybill Shepherd Came Face to Face With Davis

The wink-wink, nudge-nudge notoriety about youthful indiscretions revealed in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1977 Oui magazine interview -- in which he confessed to drugs (marijuana and hashish) and sex (group) but no rock ‘n’ roll -- completely eclipsed the modest declaration by actress Cybill Shepherd that a younger Gray Davis, whom she met on holiday in Hawaii, was quite a good kisser.

But Davis didn’t shrink from a bit of off-color experience, as recounted in “Brown,” the biography of Gov. Jerry Brown, by Orville Schell. Davis remembered running for state treasurer in 1974, and being stuck alone in Sacramento after his two aides had been bumped from an overbooked flight from L.A. On top of that, Davis arrived at his press conference to find ... no press. So “here I was with absolutely nothing to do. So I went over and saw ‘Deep Throat.’ I suppose if I’d told the press I was coming to Sacramento to see ‘Deep Throat,’ they all would have come over to a press conference.” And still would.

Some Reporters Uneasy About Bush ‘Keepsake’

White House reporters who travel with President Bush have to wear press tags made specifically for each trip, tags ordinarily bearing some image relevant to the destination. But when Bush came to the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar near San Diego last month, the tags bore a picture of the First Fellow himself -- a campaign-ready photo-op image from Bush’s landing on an aircraft carrier.

It made some journalists feel as if they were being used like sandwich-board ad men, which White House spokesman Scott McClellan pooh-poohed. He said a “nice keepsake” shouldn’t make anyone feel like “a propagandist for the president.”

Points Taken

* Who’s for whom: Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California has announced its opposition to the recall and its endorsement of the candidacy of Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante. And the National Women’s Political Caucus of California has announced its opposition both to the recall and Proposition 54.

* Job swap? Deputy L.A. Mayor Matt Middlebrook has taken up a new position at the politically muscle-bound consulting firm of Fleishman-Hillard, and Shannon Murphy is leaping from Fleishman-Hillard to be Mayor Jim Hahn’s communications director. At F-H, Murphy handled airport, port and water and power issues -- all major city issues.

* Jesse Jackson is scheduled to speak against Proposition 54 at a forum Wednesday night at Immanuel Presbyterian Church on Wilshire Boulevard in L.A.

* Former L.A. mayor and onetime gubernatorial candidate Richard Riordan and his daughter Kathleen are joining the Fund for Animals as hosts to a “Save the Tigers” benefit Saturday to raise money for new sanctuaries for rescued tigers. Many live tigers and 90 dead ones -- including 58 cubs in a freezer -- were found by authorities raiding a breeding facility in Colton.

* The former campaign manager for a Republican congressional candidate who lost to incumbent Democrat Ellen Tauscher of Pleasanton in 1998 has pleaded guilty to making false statements to the Federal Election Commission. A mailer sent to registered Democrats in the district just before the election was supposedly signed by Democratic Congressman George Miller on behalf of the “East Bay Democratic Committee,” and urged Democrats to vote against Tauscher. Phone calls to the same effect followed. The FEC says campaign manager Adrian Plesha stated that he didn’t know who had originated the letters and calls “when in fact Plesha himself” created, approved and financed the false mailers and calls.

* Former Laguna Niguel City Council member, Reform Partier and Orange County supervisorial candidate Eddie Rose has suggested prospective jobs for Gray Davis if he is recalled, among them: “Employee at DMV, where he can issue driver’s licenses to illegal aliens,” and “English teacher for Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

You Can Quote Me

“He is a great film star. But I find his idea to run for governor absolutely insane ... America should be governed by people who have a clue. I hope he doesn’t win.”

-- Dixie Chicks banjoist Emily Robinson, quoted in the German newspaper Abendzeitung about Arnold Schwarzenegger. After Dixie Chicks lead vocalist Natalie Maines announced in March that they were all ashamed that George Bush hails from Texas, their CDs were slammed and stomped on in a vivid demonstration of free speech vs. free markets.

Patt Morrison’s columns appear Mondays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is patt. morrison@latimes.com. This week’s contributors include Richard Simon.