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Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove on the Psychiatrist Couch?
Tweet Share on Facebook March 7, 2009 Comment (4)By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
When in Washington, carpooling the kids or schmoozing politicians and diplomats with her hubby, she simply refers to herself as "George's lovely wife." As in Mrs. George Stephanopoulos, spouse of the newsman who hosts ABC's This Week. But don't kid yourself. Alexandra Wentworth is fast proving to be a hot Hollywood property whose critically acclaimed cable TV show, Head Case, evenly competes with This Week for major star "gets." In her show, which resumes on Starz starting March 20, Wentworth plays an undisciplined Hollywood psychiatrist to major entertainment figures, including Jerry Seinfeld, Macy Gray, and Hugh Hefner, who amazingly agree to sit on the couch in an unscripted, semi-tongue-in-cheek session.
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Howard Dean, Not Sanjay Gupta, for Surgeon General?
Tweet Share on Facebook March 6, 2009 Comment (14)By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
Following Sanjay Gupta's surprise decision to withdraw from consideration to be the U.S. surgeon general under President Obama, allies of former Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean are dusting off a previous effort to win him the post. Associates say that the campaign is just beginning, and they believe that they have time since Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, sprang the decision only yesterday. Dean is a practicing family doctor who has proposed a major infant care program that he is looking to pilot in a New York school. He wanted to run the Health and Human Services Department but wasn't seriously considered by the president. Dean has expressed his disappointment at being passed over but has made sure not to disparage the president or his transition team.
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Howard Dean Says Terry McAuliffe Has a Chance to Be Virginia Governor
Tweet Share on Facebook March 6, 2009 CommentBy Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
Just retired Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean, a former Vermont governor, says that former party boss Terry McAuliffe has a good chance to win his Virginia gubernatorial race. "I think he's got a better chance than most people think," says Dean, a popular former governor who served as the party chief for four years. Dean is not picking favorites, however, praising the other Democrats in the Virginia primary. "There's good competition," he says. "There are three great candidates. I like all of those candidates. And it's a great race, and they all have good attributes, so it will be real interesting to see what happens." Dean would not say if he has given any advice to McAuliffe, whom he followed into the party chairman's job. The Rasmussen poll says that McAuliffe stands just a good a chance at winning as his two competitors.
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President Obama's Gray Hair or the Tanking Stock Market?
Tweet Share on Facebook March 5, 2009 Comment (11)By Nikki Schwab, Washington Whispers
The nation is at war, the economy is tanking, kids are failing school, and Congress is working hard to fix the ills of the nation. So you can imagine that there were some lawmakers today who thought it silly of the New York Times to devote Page 1 space to—drum roll, please—Barack Obama's graying temples.
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For Former Envoy L. Paul Bremer, Vermont Looks Better Than Iraq
Tweet Share on Facebook March 4, 2009 Comment (18)By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
Talk about a life change. L. Paul Bremer, the early U.S. administrator in Iraq, has gone artist. He just E-mailed his pals about his new venture—selling oil paintings of his fave Vermont scenes for $250 to $400. "I launched my website for my paintings this week, www.bremerenterprises.com. Most of the works on it now are scheduled to be in my next exhibition in Vermont at the end of the summer. Hope you enjoy them," he E-mailed. His paintings are classic Americana country scenes. "I only started two years ago. In terms of artistic description, you would call them landscape oils, mostly Vermont, and I'm sort of a realist school, I guess you would say," Bremer tells us. "I studied art history at college and have always been interested in art and particularly in the landscape painting in France at the end of the 19th Century and early 20th Century, and in California—the Impressionists, the American and French Impressionists. I've always loved their paintings. And it was just a question of finally finding the time available to do something I've always wanted to do, which was to learn to paint."
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GOP to Michael Steele: Quiet About Rush Limbaugh or You're Fired
Tweet Share on Facebook March 3, 2009 Comment (111)By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
Apology to Rush Limbaugh aside, new Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele is coming under fire from his own GOP troops to shut up and focus on his job of organizing the party and raising money, not fighting with his own political kind. Several Republican advisers to Congress and the previous Bush administration told Whispers that they are worried that the war of words is fracturing the party when it should be healing the division between conservatives and moderates in the wake of the 2008 election.
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Trent Lott's Car Choice: Mini Cooper
Tweet Share on Facebook March 3, 2009 Comment (1)By Nikki Schwab, Washington Whispers
He didn't need a car when he was the Senate majority leader, but now Trent Lott drives a black-and-silver Mini Cooper. "I didn't have a car because my wife had a 12-year-old Honda and, in Mississippi, I have a Nissan truck—we represent Nissan—but I love the Mini Cooper," says the lawmaker turned lobbyist. Despite its size, it fits his long legs and famously well-coiffed head. Don't fret, Mississippi: When Nissan starts producing electric cars there, Lott promises he'll get one.
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Team Obama's Review of Foreign Policy Reviews
Tweet Share on Facebook March 3, 2009 Comment (2)By Thomas Omestad, Washington Whispers
Foreign leaders are expressing frustration with the slow pace of appointing top diplomats, typical when a new administration begins. Now they reveal an additional problem. Not only is the White House reviewing old Bush foreign policies, but it's also reviewing its own reviews. With so many policy evaluations "piling up," a top European diplo tells us that Team Obama is trying to bring order to all the reassessing underway. How? "We're hearing about a review of the reviews that's going on," says the diplomat.
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Rush Limbaugh Vs. Michael Steele: Is Steele Asking for a Rush Attack?
Tweet Share on Facebook March 2, 2009 Comment (217)By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
Newly installed Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele is drawing sneers from some GOP advisers for his rap on outspoken conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. In a CNN interview, he called Limbaugh's approach "incendiary" and "ugly" and dubbed him simply an entertainer. "Steele is playing with fire," said one longtime Republican adviser close to House Republicans and both Bush families. Of concern is that Steele, the party's first black chairman, will be attacked by Limbaugh and other talk show hosts, further splitting the party.
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CIA Denies Helping Nazi Adolf Eichmann
Tweet Share on Facebook March 1, 2009 Comment (6)By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
A gripping new book about the hunt and seizure of Nazi Adolf Eichmann, implementer of the "final solution," includes this stunning charge: The CIA knew his alias and his Argentina address but didn't tell Israel. Hunting Eichmann by Neal Bascomb says the CIA balked to protect Nazis working for it. Not exactly, Langley tells Whispers: "CIA did not, contrary to legend, know Eichmann's precise alias or whereabouts. We even got a tip in the 1950s that he could be at large in Jerusalem!"
