Entries for October 2006

Hats off to Hillary tracker Gregg Birnbaum and his site JustHillary.com for digging around to see if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has just found religion, as displayed by that little cross some have seen around her neck. The story seemed too good to be true, and it was. What Birnbaum—who went into the Hillary-online business after working for the New York Post—did was find pictures dating to 2001 of the New York senator wearing crosses to snuff out this little scandal. Dang those cameras.

There had been some concern that Bill Clinton would not attend the graduation of the first class of the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service. After all, he receives hundreds of graduation speech requests yearly, and the guy does stay busy promoting his AIDS and global warming issues and helping Democrats raise money. Really, how much time does he have? But his refusal to commit to being at the first graduation on December 13 was really starting to irk students at the Little Rock, Ark., school, our Suzi Parker heard. Well, she reports, everybody can rest easy now. The school's namesake will attend after all. But hurry up and get those graduation tickets. The Great Hall in Bubba's library isn't that big, and they don't plan to move the graduation to a larger venue.

Here's a lousy way to be outed in the national media: a newspaper correction. But that's exactly what happened to Virginia Sen. George Allen's campaign communications guy thanks to the Los Angeles Times. Naturally, Allen's team is angry and the LAT says it did nothing wrong.

It all started with an October 18 story headlined "Some Seek 'Pink Purge' in the GOP," which told of how the GOP's "big tent" might be getting too big by including gay political staffers whose views may conflict with the "party's powerful evangelical conservatives." It was a good story until about three quarters through it, where it said that Allen had a gay campaign manager. They never called Allen's guy, Dick Wadhams, about his sexuality–definitely hetero. That was so wrong that it was laughable. The paper ran a correction the next day. But in it, the LAT said Allen's communications director, who was never mentioned in the original story, was gay:

Gay Republicans: An article in Section A on Wednesday about friction in the Republican Party between gays and religious conservatives said Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) had a campaign manager who is gay. The Allen staff member who is gay is his communications director.

Making new news in a correction is rare. In fact, you could argue that the LAT should have just said it got the Wadhams angle wrong and left it at that. So how'd it happen? After getting the first story wrong, the LAT went back to the campaign with some old rumors and obscure reports that the communications aide was gay. He confirmed, but his sexuality was never mentioned in the original story, so it should have been left out of any correction, right?

So is there an LAT policy on outing gays? We asked our old pal Doyle McManus, the very able and respected Washington bureau chief and Washington Week star. McManus said, "Our policy is that we don't out people. If a gay person is out, i.e., if he/she acknowledges it openly, and it's germane to a story, we may mention it–but that's not outing. In this case, we didn't out anybody."

OK, everyone, all at once: Aw. We hear that Jeri and former Sen. Fred Thompson, who stars on Law & Order and fills in for Paul Harvey, just had a son, their second child. Joining 3-year-old daughter Hayden is Samuel Howard Thompson. He was born today at the very reasonable time of 10:17 a.m. He weighed in at 7 pounds 14 ounces and measured 20½ inches. We're told that the middle name is for Jeri's grandfather as well as their good friends Howard Baker and Howard Liebengood.

Talk about cajones: FreeRepublic.com's Kristinn Taylor's got 'em. How so? the conservative website led the outcry against the once popular country band Dixie Chicks when singer Natalie Maines screeched how she hated that President Bush hailed from Texas. Well, last week at the Washington premi ère of the Chicks' decidedly anti-Free Republic documentary, Shut Up and Sing, Taylor showed up. But he wasn't kicked out, reports our Elizabeth Green. The hosts at the lefty Center for American Progress invited him to join the group discussion, where he told the director the movie was a good one.

Why go? "This was a chance," he tells us, "to see it for free."

It's been a long five years for former U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson. Sept. 11, 2001, was his 61st birthday, and a bad one: His wife, Barbara Olson, was on the 9/11 flight that slammed into the Pentagon. And while that's still in his mind, he's belatedly celebrating his 66th birthday this weekend in Napa Valley, where he's marrying his new love, Lady Booth, a fellow lawyer and businesswoman.

Word is the shindig is taking place at the elegant Meadowood in St. Helena, known for its pampering, fancy weddings, and wine list filled with hard-to-get local bottlings. And that's a good thing. Friends say the two share a passion for vino. Olson told Legal Times that they met at the 2002 Kentucky Derby, horse-race watching being another common hobby.

So who's going to be at the wedding? We hear about 300 of the couple's closest friends. Among the guests are Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, Appeals Court Judge Laurence Silberman and his wife, Ricki, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and his wife, lawyers Robert Bennett and Brendan Sullivan, former Bushie and new Mitt Romney adviser Barbara Comstock, media legal pundits Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova, National Review's Kate O'Beirne, and current Solicitor General Paul Clement. Says one wedding-goer: "Most of the Washington legal establishment is trekking out here to toast the happy couple."

Sorry, you snobs at the Washington Post, but this camo-wearing, gun-toting, deer-hunting, blackberry-growing, Cracker Barrel-loving (really good fried pork chops), reader is proud to be from RoVa!

You know you've done it—thrown your morning newspaper across the room in disgust. Well, I might have done it for the last time today. At least the Washington Post Style section. In fact, I'd bet a lot of us folk from Ol' Virginny did today after reading what has to be the most insulting, snobbish, and arrogant slap at those of us largely outside the Post's circulation area ever typed. And they wonder on 15th Street why the Post's circulation is sinking.

Here's what I'm talking about: On the Style front is a short column comparing liberal Northern Virginia, or NoVa, with presumably conservative Rest of Virginia, or RoVa. It could have been funny, in the same way Jeff Foxworthy is with his "You might be a redneck" jokes. But, no, the Ivy Leaguers slammed us like a Lexus SUV flattening a little fawn. You know the drill: NoVa is smart, urban, and cool. RoVa–which includes Charlottesville, Richmond, Norfolk, Lynchburg, and other pockets of liberal Democrats like the Posties–is home to a bunch of tobacco-juice-drooling hayseeds.

Here are a few examples of Post wit: "In NoVa, people spend their dough at Starbucks, shooting the breeze. In RoVa, people spend time in the breeze, shooting does and bucks." Ha-ha. Or: "In RoVa, people pick blackberries. In NoVa, people click BlackBerrys." Not laughing yet? How 'bout: "In NoVa, they listen to NPR. In RoVa, they listen to the NRA." (Um, the NRA is headquartered in NoVa, folks.) And this insult: "In NoVa, a lab is the family dog. In RoVa, a lab is the family meth business."

Now you can imagine why I'm at least a bit confused. I live 65 miles from Washington, just a few miles from the West Virginia border and Shenandoah River. That puts me on the NoVa-RoVa line. I work in Georgetown but hunt deer and geese (in my backyard, no less), own an old pickup and 1950 Farmall Cub (that's a tractor, Posties), grow and eat blackberries (the fruit), raise bees, have a lab (dog), eat at Cracker Barrel, and worse: My wife and I actually go to Friday night football games to watch our daughter play in the marching band. How RoVa is that? But I also like Calvert-Woodley liquors, Metro, and Butterfield 9.

So what's the answer? Anger or satisfaction that I might could be a NoVa-er? Should I declare my NoVa allegiance by wearing one of those pretty $39.35 WaPo (that's short for Washington Post, fellow RoVa-ers) microfiber wind-shirts or spray my Post with 12-gauge birdshot? I know, I know. Lighten up and move on, read the latest story on how Sen. George Allen's a fake cowboy or how opponent Jim Webb is a thoughtful redneck. Really.

Guess I'll just turn to the Sports section, which at least still treats us NASCAR fans with a bit of respect.

There's been a lot of political buzz about Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's 2008 bid for the Republican presidential nomination, and now I know why: In one swoop, his Commonwealth PAC this week hired what could be the A-team of political consultants.

The Dixie Chicks just won't fade away. First they're assailed after lead chick Natalie Maines tells a foreign crowd right as bombs are raining down on Iraq that she's embarrassed President Bush is from Texas. Then they try a do-over concert tour this year and find fewer fans in some cities, so they turn to Canadian towns to sing their new hits. Now they are bringing their woe-is-me tale to the silver screen with Shut Up and Sing. We've seen the trailer, and it's not bad, but exactly what you'd expect: The Dixie Chicks rule and Bush doesn't. Some love it; some don't.

Bravo for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi when it comes to the GOP urging Congress to fix the House page issue by scrapping the historic program for good. Her position: Keep it and fix Congress's oversight of the 60 to 100 kids here each semester to work as congressional gofers. Insiders tell me that she's been pushing back hard on panicky Republicans who think the best way to wiggle out of the Mark Foley-page-E-mail scandal is to get rid of the kids.

When I ran into Karyn McLaughlin Frist at MSNBC studios, where she talked about her new book, Love You, Daddy Boy, she had just handed out a package of her tissues, all wrapped up in red just like the book. I had to get a picture, of course, and she complied with a nice smile. Frist says she had 1,000 made up–the minimum order–to give to those who inevitably tear up when reading the book. It's also a great piece of marketing: It includes the website address for the book: www.loveyoudaddyboy.com

Here's that rare letter from JFK's widow asking author Jim Bishop not to publish The Day Kennedy Was Shot. It could bring over $7,000 at this weekend's auction. The Internet auctioneer, Alexander Autographs, has a great collection of political, criminal, sports, and Hollywood memorabilia for sale on Saturday and Sunday. Here's the site to bid: http://www.alexautographs.com/

Leave it to a governor of Arkansas to be the first one in the 2008 presidential pack to pen a book. Doesn't Mike Huckabee look presidential?