cover image IF YOU HAD FIVE MINUTES WITH THE PRESIDENT: 5 Minutes 55 Personalities 1 President

IF YOU HAD FIVE MINUTES WITH THE PRESIDENT: 5 Minutes 55 Personalities 1 President

Ron Reagan, . . HarperEntertainment, $19.95 (208pp) ISBN 978-0-06-076069-4

The more than 58 Hollywoodites push issues with aplomb even though they're given only a putative five minutes for lobbying a nonspecific sitting POTUS. Juliette Lewis decries the overmedicalization of children's development. Shoe man Kenneth Cole notes that 3.5 million Americans, 40% of whom are children, endure homelessness every year. Tom Arnold asks that "since there is no better word to describe bullshit than bullshit, please take that off the official forbidden words list." Minnie Driver checks in with a five-point check list ("trade, healthcare reform, education, the environment and the war in Iraq"). Morgan Fairchild concurs with the need to attack Afghanistan after 9/11 but "only wished that we could have truthfully said 'mission accomplished' before we tried to start the next [war]." The son of the 40th president tells of his work and board membership with the Creative Coalition, a nonprofit arts support organization that is the beneficiary of profits from the book. Hector Elizondo, Amanda Plummer, Matthew Modine, Mary Stuart Masterson, Chris Cooper, Janeane Garofalo and David Henry Hwang also offer their two cents in five minutes. Long on passion if short on time (and sometimes specifics), the stars come out fighting during their respective long rounds. (Aug. 10)