Seized Hiker No CIA Agent

By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers

A close friend of hiker Josh Fattal, seized with two others in Iran and charged with spying, tells Whispers that his pal is no spy. "Josh definitely did not work for the CIA," says Benjamin Smith, a fellow hiker and Tufts University senior. "His interests are mainly environmentalism and food." Iran arrested Fattal, 27, Shane Bauer, 27, and Sarah Shourd, 31, after they crossed from Iraq into Iran in July, apparently by mistake. In defending his friend, Smith says Fattal was a teacher of nonviolent communication. "He was not the type of person with ulterior motives," says Smith.

Tabloid in Pulitzer Pickle

By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers

Isn't a big scoop like John Edwards's extramarital affair and love child enough for Pulitzer judges?

Sex scandals win Pulitzer Prizes. Just ask the New York Times, which nabbed one for coverage of the Monica Lewinsky affair and another for stories about ex-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's romp with a hooker in Washington's Mayflower Hotel. So what about the sordid tale of former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, who fathered a child with an aide while his wife was fighting deadly cancer?

Nixon Manipulated From the Grave

By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers

They didn't call former President Richard Nixon "Tricky Dick" for nothing. Even in his death, it seems, he tried to pull a fast one, this time to aid the presidential campaign of 1996 Republican nominee Bob Dole.

In a new foreword of C-SPAN's Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb: A Tour of Presidential Gravesites, being reissued in time for next week's Presidents Day holiday, presidential historian Richard Norton Smith reveals Nixon's move to help Dole over one of his biggest hurdles: his horrible speaking style.

If you've forgotten, Dole was the odds-on fave to win the GOP nomination, and did so two years after Nixon's 1994 death. Dole had a choppy delivery and regularly talked in an emotionless and third-person style in his campaign against Bill Clinton, who easily won re-election in 1996.

Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck Top Tea-Party Picks

By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers

Sarah Palin might have been the pick of those attending the weekend Tea Party Convention in Nashville, but a new Washington Whispers poll puts Fox's Glenn Beck on top of those Americans would like to see as the movement's leader. But Beck edges Palin out by just a hair, 15 percent to 14 percent.

Shocking to political insiders, however, is the vast majority who haven't tuned in to the movement that had an impact in three tide-changing elections. Some 58 percent told our Synovate-eNation pollsters that they haven't heard of the movement.

Stop the Pope-Bashing, Catholics Urge Obama

Vatican defenders are calling for the resignation of a religious adviser to President Obama who this week reiterated a charge made last March that Pope Benedict XVI hurt people "in the name of Jesus" when the pontiff suggested that condom use increases the spread of AIDS in Africa.

The St. Michael Society, devoted to defending the pope, is distributing a petition calling for the resignation of Harry Knox from the president's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The White House had no immediate comment.

Eleanor Was No Hillary

By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers

Hillary Clinton, arguably the most activist first lady in recent history, has regularly been compared to Eleanor Roosevelt, seen by White House watchers as the copresidency model. But now FDR's grandson Curtis Roosevelt, who lived with his grandparents in the White House, tells us that's wrong. Where Eleanor wanted to maintain her "amateur status" in politics, rejecting policymaking or a bid for office, he says that Hillary "cut her own way. She was a distinctive first lady." Roosevelt, who writes about his ex­peri­ences of some 70 years ago in a new book, Too Close to the Sun, says that Eleanor "didn't wish to be a professional. Hillary Clinton is a professional . . . and that is a basic difference."

Never Forget: Mengele’s Diary to Live

By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers

Josef Mengele's diary, written in exile after he fled the Auschwitz concentration camp as Allied troops advanced in 1945, has been sold to the grandson of a camp survivor who vividly recalls how the "doctor" used to wear white gloves while pointing to prisoners as they arrived, indicating who would live and who would die.

Auctioneer Bill Panagopulos, who first revealed the document to Washington Whispers, would not disclose the final price or name of the buyer but told us he is confident the rare Mengele document would end up in a Holocaust museum. In a statement, he said, "The Josef Mengele document offered by Alexander Autographs has just been privately sold for an undisclosed sum to a U.S. East Coast Jewish philanthropist who wishes to remain anonymous. The buyer is the grandson of an Auschwitz survivor who personally encountered Mengele at the infamous death camp. He intends to donate the manuscript to a museum devoted to the Holocaust."

Comeback Kid Model?

By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers

The conventional wisdom in Washington has President Obama recovering in the polls, much as former President Clinton did after his disastrous start. Democrats like that model because it holds out hope the prez will see his ratings recover in time to win re-election in 2012. But there's an alternative model for Obama to look at: former President George W. Bush, who never recovered when his polls tanked in 2005. The reason, says a key congressional Republican: "Bush didn't back down like Clinton, who swung to the middle. Obama looks like he's hardening his position, too. Problem is, he's doing it before his re-election."