Washington Whispers
Shrugging Off a Whiff of Scandal
Amid the frenzy over who might be brought down by the scandal surrounding lobbyist Jack Abramoff, it was a little surprising to see who was invited to a party and a separate luncheon at the Interior Department to honor outgoing Secretary Gale Norton late last month. Steven Griles, her former deputy secretary at Interior, stopped by both events, even as the feds are probing whether he attempted to aid Abramoff in his influence-peddling racket. Griles even spoke at the luncheon. Norton certainly doesn't walk away from her friends; she staunchly defended Griles when an ethics issue arose during his tenure at Interior.
A New Take on a Decades-Old Trend
Don't give President Bush credit for inventing a White House filled with a small, insular circle of cronies. In fact, one Pulitzer Prize-winning author says that Bush's imperial presidency is the culmination of a trend that started with John F. Kennedy. In James MacGregor Burns's new book, Running Alone, due out this fall, Burns says that the current crisis of the American presidency and the decline of leadership began with JFK's reliance on charisma, a small group of advisers, and his family's wealth. Successive presidents followed the same model, becoming increasingly detached from their own political parties.
That Tofurkey Might Just Save Your Life
Why was the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals dropping off packages of Boca Chik'n Patties and Gardenburger Riblets at the Capitol Hill office of Connecticut Republican Rob Simmons? Well, Simmons was recently hospitalized after choking on a 4-inch piece of meat at a fundraiser. PETA says it is only concerned about the lawmaker's health. "Representative Simmons has long been a champion of animals, and we'd like to have him around for a while longer," explains Bruce Friedrich, PETA's director of vegan campaigns.
PR Pitches That Are Full of Hot Air
We get a lot of pitches from publicists, but these were ones we couldn't, well, pass. One E-mail offers up a digestion expert to address the "dark side" of Easter-flatulence (specifically, the difficulty of converting "Peeps into poops"). A second E-mail pitched the same expert but with a Jewish slant. The subject line: "Gassover." We can't wait to see how publicist Jackie Zima tailors her pitches for Buddha Day, which comes on May 13 this year.
With Kenneth T. Walsh, Edward T. Pound, Anna Mulrine, Suzi Parker and Bret Schulte
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