Entries for April 2008

Read my latest on whether the Pentagon will bring back the briefings for military TV pundits here.

Read my latest on the honeybee colony collapse here.

Read my latest on what Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer has to say about Colony Collapse Disorder, which is wiping out honey bees here.

Read my latest on former FEMA Director Michael Brown and his fast-growing Facebook page here.

No Whispering this week, sorry. I’m out on the streams testing out my new Orange Blossom fly on some brookies and will return next week. In the meantime, check out our blogs and news pages for the latest scoop. And don’t forget to take our Capitol Bobbles Poll at right.

I'll be back Monday, April 28.

ILLUSTRATION BY JOE CIARDIELLO FOR USN&WR

John McCain isn't fancy. While his Democratic presidential rivals like a little flash and color, McCain is comfy in Levi's and a sweat shirt stamped with an old family photo. And forget nuevo cuisine. In fact, forget hired chefs. This is a guy with a family that likes to pick out chow and cook it on the deck. From Costco, no less. McCainiacs tell us that the GOP presidential candidate and wife Cindy regularly stop at a Phoenix Costco to load up en route to their Sedona, Ariz., retreat, Hidden Valley Ranch. McCain recently raved about Costco's baby back ribs, though he likes the consumer warehouse's chicken quarters and brats, too. And that's not all: He recently upgraded his outdoor cooking area with a new gas grill from the store.

Showing his Costco card is a wise move politically, too, pollster John Zogby tells us. Zogby, who can chart trends simply by determining where voters shop, says Costco's mainstream customers are must-wins in a fall victory. "The key for someone like McCain is to be able to connect with these value shoppers," says Zogby, adding that Target shoppers are similar "centrists." While McCain also has to recover the more conservative Wal-Mart shoppers peeved at President Bush, Zogby says he more than Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton can authentically connect with Costco-ers to "display an understanding of the difficult times they are experiencing."

Nextel phone sales teams take note: The U.S. Secret Service might be interested in your chirping radios. That's because the agency charged with protecting the president has a big radio issue. Its radios are having an ever increasing problem talking to the White House radios. "We still are able to communicate," Mark Sullivan, Secret Service director, assures us. "Right now we are making it work, [but] there's a gap, and that gap is going to get wider." At issue: The White House Communications Agency, which runs West Wing radios, has upgraded its system to be Internet based while the Secret Service has not. The fix: some $54 million to play catch-up. Still, Sullivan isn't asking for money from Congress until 2010, prompting some members to consider cutting an earlier check to the agency.

Hanging with hookers hasn't been good for politicians. Consider reports about former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and sitting Louisiana Sen. David Vitter. Well, it turns out that there's a different choice pols could have considered, and thanks to a new thriller, Deception, everybody's about to get in on the secret. Director Marcel Langenegger says his movie, out April 25, tells of real groups in major metro areas that keep lists of up to 15,000 people ready to have free, anonymous, and legal sex—a mere phone call away. "The whole thing is a parallel universe," he tells us. His movie, starring Hugh Jackman, Michelle Williams, and Ewan McGregor, is about a lot more than just sex, but his research found Wall Street execs and politicians on "the lists." If you haven't heard of Deception yet, here's why. Williams was slated to do the preview press but canceled everything when her ex-boyfriend, actor Heath Ledger, died.

He bravely helps keep all those slings and arrows from fellow Democrats away from pal Sen. Barack Obama, but it's the sting of the little bee that keeps Sen. Robert Casey up at night. Obama's point man in the Pennsylvania primary fesses up that he's scared of honeybees. At Penn State University to look at bees, he put on a beekeeper's suit before walking near a hive. "I was scared to death," he says. "They were showing us a lot of bees, tame and not a threat to people like me, but I felt that I was threatened. At one point, a scientist said, 'Senator . . . you look afraid of them,' and I said, 'I am!' "

Asian-Americans have a different view from most when it comes to spending the federal tax refund and choosing a source for political news. Our friends at Synovate, the global research firm, have provided Whispers with a huge new poll on voting trends that finds that most of us generally agree on big issues. But Asian-Americans break on the refund check and political media. With most others aim to spend their check, Asian-Americans are frugal: Sixty-four percent plan to bank it. And while a large majority of the nation gets news from TV, techy Asian-Americans split their news source between TV and the Internet.

President Bush hit the trifecta by picking Dallas's Southern Methodist University to host his library and museum. According to the National Archives and Records Administration, which administers 13 presidential libraries, there's an unwritten rule to having the perfect and well-attended facility, and Bush seems to have nailed it. Archivist Allen Weinstein says there are three keys. First, "location, location, location." Here Bush picked a big city and a site near highways. Second, link to a big network, and SMU is one of the region's biggest. Third: "It helps to keep the president alive." Bush is just 61, and his parents are still with us.