Inside Scoop on Dinner in the Control Room

By JULIETTE ROSSANT Just got back from a special showing in the private screening room of the Motion Picture Association of America in Washington, DC, co-organized by David Chambers of the Middle East Institute and Rebecca Abou-Chedid of the Arab American Institute and moderated by Frank Smyth of the Committee to Protect Journalists. An elite, expert Washington crowd of diplomats, policy wonks, Showbiz folk, and journalists (and, somehow, I among them) watched CONTROL ROOM -- in which a big Foodie question came up. [Spoiler!] Do you remember the scene in which Al-Jazeera's Hassan Ibrahim invites CENTCOM's Lt. Josh Rushing over for dinner? Josh tells Ibrahim he'll have to check with his superiors, to see whether he can leave base to have dinner with the Sudanese Hassan and his Hebrew-fluent British wife. During the Q&A following the screening, a burning question was asked of director Jehane Noujaim and producer Rosadel Varela, two MTV UNfiltered veterans: did those two ever have dinner that night? And the answer is.... no! Ahhh, but... there is a happy ending. Three months ago, the two met up again in Los Angeles, according to producer Varela, and at last broke bread together -- details on what they ate to follow... Also present at the screening and available for Q&A were MSNBC Hardball's David Shuster and former CENTCOM colleague of Lt. Rushing's, Mark Kitchens, now deputy press secretary on security for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Together, the foursome recounted pieces of the story of Rushing's muzzling, affirming reports that Rushing would be out of the Marines by October 2004. Everyone agreed that the Marines were losing a good man -- and, according to Noujaim, that group includes many of the top brass over in the Pentagon, where an undisclosed number have seen Control Room tapes courtesy of Noujaim. Interestingly, not one word was said about Kerry adversary George W. Bush -- though there was an oblique reference via Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911, something about the simple plot and the single -- or was it also "simple"? -- character in that movie... (Rumor tonight had it, too, that CNN veteran journalist Tom Mintier had left the network, but, if so, his anchorman bio is still on CNN's website -- don't disappear, Tom!) A smoldering question flamed into a hot debate over the question of any US intention in the killing of Al-Jazeera reporter Tareq Ayyoub on April 8, 2003, as tracked by the Committee to Protect Journalists. In any case, don't miss CONTROL ROOM.