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6/28/05
His knee, not heart
Administration officials have stepped up their denials that Vice President Dick Cheney visited a heart doctor while in Vail, Colo., last weekend despite persistent reporting by Internet bloggers that he sought cardiac care. "It didn't happen. End of story," said an administration official.
The rumor started on Arianna Huffingtion's blog where she claimed he received an EKG at the Vail Valley Medical Center during a conference he and Huffington attended. The rumor has been picked up in other more mainstream media including today's New York Daily News. That has prompted an angry response from the administration. "Why is the press listening to and repeating a loon like her?" asked one insider.
Officially, the administration today said that Cheney made an appointment with his old knee doctor, Richard Steadman who lives in the area. Steadman is a famed doctor who has treated stars like Kobe Bryant. Cheney has experienced knee problems ever since high school, where he was injured during a football game. "There is no coverup," said the administration official. "Why has Arianna's spaceship landed on us?" begged the official. Cheney has suffered several heart ailments and his medical care has always fascinated the media. However this time, said administration officials, the reporting has been false.
6/23/05
No Mas Gonzales
Conservative activists working the Supreme Court nomination issue say that they're hearing Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is on the short list to replace Justice William Rehnquist and that they're angry about it. "He's a squish," says one activist. Conservative activists say Gonzales is not with them on key issues, and several have called the White House to complain that he supports affirmative action and is soft on parental notification of a child's planned abortion. Says one activist, "This would be 'read my lips,' take two. If the president nominates Gonzales, this would be a broken promise almost identical to the way in which former President [George H. W.] Bush . . . broke his tax pledge." While no announcement has been made yet, the administration expects Rehnquist and maybe another justice to retire next week when the court wraps up business for the summer.
Meet Alberto Gonzales: www.justice.gov/ag/aggonzalesbio.html
Brush up on the court: www.supremecourtus.gov
6/21/05
Shopping for heroes
Pack an extra $2 next time you go to Stop & Shop or Giant supermarket. Starting Sunday, the stores will be selling the cool "Hero Bands" to help the Coalition to Salute America's Heroes, a nonprofit that helps severely wounded or disabled veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars rebuild their lives. "Their sacrifices will last forever. So should our gratitude," said the coalition's founder, Roger Chapin. The Hero Band is different from others, which are generally one color: This band is blue and decorated with stars and stripes. And the package comes with a decal, too. All the money raised by the supermarkets will be given to the charity.
See the band here: www.donationreport.com
6/17/05
Coloring the court
With both sides girding for a summer and fall Supreme Court nomination fight, the White House is turning its direction to who should be appointed to fill a likely opening if Chief Justice William Rehnquist retires.
The latest thinking: Bush favors a Hispanic or black pro-life woman. One insider said Bush really wanted to put Janice Rogers Brown on the court, but the Democratic delay in approving her 2003 nomination to the appeals bench until just this month killed that option. Only after that's done will Bush then likely move to elevate Justice Antonin Scalia to the chief justice's post. Here's the fun part: If Democrats try to fight Scalia, approved 98-to-0 in 1986, look for the White House to hit them with a court version of that deadly line from Sen. John Kerry about the war: "I voted for him before I voted against him."
Working with the White House on court nominations: www.progressforamerica.com
Working against the White House: www.pfaw.org
6/14/05
The pink parade
A parade of Mary Kay's famous pink Cadillacs is headed to Capitol Hill Wednesday in an effort to promote reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, legislation backed by first lady Laura Bush. Mary Kay officials said this morning that the national sales directors of the cosmetics firm will lead the parade. The company is deeply involved in the issue through its foundation, which supports domestic violence shelters and underwrites PBS features. The legislation, first implemented in 1995, is set to expire in September, though it has lots of support on Capitol Hill from prominent lawmakers like Sens. Joe Biden, Orrin Hatch, and Arlen Specter.
Mary Kay's site: www.mkacf.org
Read up on the Violence Against Women Act: www.ojp.usdoj.gov
6/10/05
Hunted down, this Fox bites back
Let the media war begin. What started with a Newsweek column imagining the Watergate scandal today has turned into a delicious fight. Last week Jonathan Alter's column took a dig at the Fox News Channel, suggesting that Fox boss Roger Ailes would have banned the word "Watergate" on air, choosing instead the pro-Nixon "Assault on the Presidency." Funny stuff to lefties. But not to the folks at Fox, who saw nothing but sour grapes: Alter, it seems, had once sought a job from Ailes, but ended up working for rival MSNBC.
After we told Alter of the Fox reaction, Alter went on Arianna Huffington's blog, lashing out at "the bullies at Fox." and taking another shot at Ailes. "Mr. Dish It Out apparently can't take it," Alter wrote. He also claimed that Ailes, when writing op-ed articless about Republicans, routinely fails to note that he once worked for President Nixon.
That was enough for Fox. It turns out that Ailes had wanted to keep the argument private, writing a confidential retort to Alter on June 7. It was only after Alter started blogging that the Fox people decided to air the conflict, releasing Ailes's letter to Whispers. "I was was disappointed by your recent cheap shot about me in Newsweek," Ailes wrote to Alter. "In nine years of the Fox News Channel, I've never banned any word, phrase, or story," he said. Yes, Ailes said, he did work for Nixon, but it was "for about five months as a tv producer. I had no editorial control. I was 28 years old."
Then came the twist of the knife: Apparently referring to media scandals like Newsweek's retracted story of U.S. troops abusing a Koran, Ailes wrote, "The Fox News Channel didn't report something that just got people killed, nor have we fired our executive editor, our top producers, our anchors, and we don't have a former attorney general investigating our journalism." Ouch. And of Alter, Ailes wrote, "You've done some good work in your career. I wish you'd get back to that."
The Fox Letter
June 7, 2005
Jonathan Alter
Newsweek
251 W. 57th St.
New York, NY 10019
Dear Jonathan,
I was disappointed by your recent cheap shot about me in Newsweek. First, you didn't disclose that you have been paid by MSNBC, our competitor. Second, you have no basis in fact for what you said. In nine years of the Fox News Channel, I've never banned any word, phrase or story, and in fact have often said the inclusion of everybody's point of view is necessary to avoid bias. I did work for Richard Nixon's campaign over 37 years ago for about five months as a TV producer. I had no editorial control. I was 28 years old.
You've done some good work in your career. I wish you'd get back to that. The Fox News Channel didn't report something that just got people killed nor have we fired our executive editor, our top producers, our anchors and we don't have a former attorney general investigating our journalism. I thought you were a better man and a better journalist.
Roger Ailes
Chairman & CEO
FOX News Channel
Alter's Newsweek Column: www.msnbc.msn.com
Alter's blog on The Huffington Post: www.huffingtonpost.com
6/9/05
Clintons on Canvas
It's hard to believe, but the man who painted the former first couple's official White House portraits says it's true: Neither Bill Clinton nor Hillary Rodham Clinton bullied him into making them look good. In fact, says artist Simmie Knox, he made sure to put that big smile on Sen. Clinton's face in her painting. "I think what you are trying to do when you paint a portrait is capture that moment when that person is alive at her best. And that is what I think when I think of her—that smile," he says. In the new issue of White House History, published by the White House Historical Association, Knox adds that Bubba didn't do much other than ask that he be in a setting that was obviously the Oval Office. "One thing he told me that he wanted in this portrait—something that was not in any of the presidential portraits in the White House—was to have the feel that it was taking place in the Oval Office." What he do? Knox included the American and presidential flags along with those telltale Oval Office gold curtains.
Besides that order, Knox says that Clinton asked nothing more. "No, he had given me his feelings about it being in the Oval Office, and from then on, it was my responsibility to compose it."
Check out the White House Historical Association: WhitehouseHistory.org
6/8/05
Hastert: Hola, Howard
Republicans are feasting on Howard Dean's latest scream as Democratic Party boss–this one that the GOP is home only to white Christians. House Speaker Dennis Hastert rolled out the party's three big-shot Hispanic Republicans to take Dean on in a pen-and-pad meeting with Hispanic publishers Wednesday. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida played the Al Sharpton card. "Is this the same Governor Dean that during his campaign was criticized for having no minorities on his staff by Mr. Sharpton?" he said.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the first GOP Hispanic in Congress, chimed in next: "All we have seen out of Mr. Dean is an attack mode." She said Dean's charges are "destructive. It is not productive. It is negative. We are not a negative party. We are a big-tent party."
Afterward, Hastert bit with a little sarcasm. "I am not going to get in a screaming match with former Governor Dean, but our trademark is getting things done, doing the things that we have to do so we make a better life." The speaker's office provided a transcript of the roundtable interview to U.S. News.
For his part, Dean didn't retreat despite criticism from his own party, telling NBC that the GOP is mostly white and Christian, "and they have the agenda of the conservative Christians."
6/6/05
Hooked on fishermen
Fish are cuddly too, or so claims People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. PETA plans to protest a Tuesday afternoon congressional reception in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Some 20 to 30 supporters of PETA's "Fish Empathy Program" plan to stage a demonstration complete with posters detailing the pain fish feel when hooked. Spokesman Bruce Friedrich said one would show a dog hooked in the lip. "Congress should be protecting animals from abuse, not accepting awards for abusing and killing them," he tells U.S. News. "If someone treated any other animal the way anglers treated fish, they could be charged with the crime of cruelty to animals. In 100 years, society will look back with disdain and disgust on the gratuitous torment of fish in the same way we look back at past atrocities like slavery and witch burnings. There's no difference between impaling a dog on a hook and dragging her behind your car and hooking a fish through the mouth and dragging her behind your boat." It's the latest effort by PETA to expand its program to fish. Prominent fishermen such as Jimmy Carter and former President Bush have been targeted in the past.
The American Sportfishing Association event is part of the group's annual National Fishing and Boating Week. Tuesday's congressional reception will feature awards given to famed rod-maker Gary Loomis and Outdoor Life fishing editor Jerry Gibbs.
Check out PETA's anti-fishing campaign: www.fishinghurts.com
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