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...ba href=/sleep/a/b," as his longtime friend, Republican lobbyist Ronald Kaufman, noted, the schedule took its toll.Colleagues said Card survived because he refused to stir up, or get drawn into, emotionally draining palace intrigues.

''He was not seen as being a faction leader," said Andrew Natsios, a fellow Massachusetts transplant who served as director of US Agency for International Development.

''He was a neutral arbiter who saw his job as getting the facts before the president."Card, who has served in the White House under three presidents, also has a reputation as an ''iron fist in a velvet glove," as Natsios put it.

First called to Washington by President Reagan to oversee intergovernmental affairs, he later became deputy chief of staff to George H.

W.

Bush, and carried out the task of firing his boss, John Sununu.

As chief of staff to the current President Bush, he has a reputation for being a stickler for rules and having an uncanny memory that he trained by applying the precepts of a 16th-century Italian Jesuit.''He has almost no paper on his desk," Natsios said.Card has been attached to the Bush family for a quarter-century, displaying a fierce loyalty that they in turn have rewarded with positions at the center of power.

''He keeps his mouth shut," said Bond.

''He's the ultimate loyalist."It was Card who was standing nearby when the elder Bush threw up on Japan's prime minister during a presidential visit to Asia.

And, on a grimmer note, it was Card who interrupted the...

...ba href=/sleep/a/b with one another, ba href=/sleep/a/b with teachers, want to ba href=/sleep/a/b with one another, and want to ba href=/sleep/a/b with teachers.

All last week's FCC controversy did was bring attention to the new series.Otherwise ''The Bedford Diaries" might have passed by relatively unnoticed, as just another go at a young TV demographic.

It's surprisingly sophomoric considering the reputations of the men behind it, filmmaker Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana of ''Oz" and ''Homicide: Life on the Street." The show takes the characters' angst and obsessions much too seriously, elevating their histrionics to soap-operatic levels when it should be flirting with satire.The students in Sexual Behavior and the Human Condition aren't given depth by the writers, so their tangled queries about love and sex aren't compelling.

No matter how honest and upfront these kids are, they're still pretty bland.

As instructed by professor Jake Macklin (Matthew Modine), they keep video diaries about their feelings, leading to grainy segments that are as fascinating as the confessionals on ''The Real World," which is to say, not very.

As the lives of the classmates and teachers become intertwined - bratty Richard (Milo Ventimiglia) even trysts with the professor's ex-wife - the diaries become even sudsier and more tragique.

Naturally, the students are unnervingly comfortable baring their souls on camera.Freshman Owen (Penn Badgley) and his overachieving older sister, Sarah (Tiffany Dupont), are part of the class.

He may have a crush o...

...ba href=/sleep/a/bing.Day 2 - Sunday, March 19 The hostel's chatty owner, Al, welcomes the crew to the South with a platter of fried apples, walnuts, honey, and butter.

Back in the vans, daylight reveals a riot of cherry blossoms, pansies, and daffodils.In Birmingham, Ala., the vans stop at Josh's house.

His mother, Beth, has prepared a huge Sunday dinner: platters of fried chicken, cheese grits, green beans, salad, rolls, and three kinds of pie.

His grandmother has stopped by with her inimitable cheese biscuits.

All of this is washed down by iced tea so sweet it makes your teeth ache.

It is dark when the vans reach the New Orleans area, and the students are quiet.

Even through the cloak of night, the devastation is apparent - darkened houses and apartments, abandoned strip malls, twisted trees, the flotsam and jetsam of Katrina everywhere.At Camp Algiers, the Boston group receives ID tags and a bag of bedding.

The women are in Tent 2, which holds 170 but is only half full this week.

The men are next door.

The rusty cots are lined up in close rows, military style.

That night, the wind whips up something awful, causing the flapping tarpaulin to shriek and impeding much-needed ba href=/sleep/a/b.Day 3 - Monday, March 20The tent city for volunteers runs smoothly.

There's a mess tent, showers and bathrooms in trailers, movies shown on weekends.On a signpost, previous volunteers have written the number of miles they were from home.

The Fletcher students are closer to Costa Rica (1,434 miles) than the...