Washington Whispers
Hewitt Maps 60 Minutes for College
The media guru who brought us 60 Minutes has a new idea: Take a miniversion of the regular ratings leader to the Internet and target the most-sought-after spending group, affluent college kids. "I look around and I see an awful lot of corporations that stay out of television news because they can't reach the demographic they want," CBS newsman Don Hewitt tells us. "So I'm trying to reach it for them."
He's got a platform: CBS's U-Wire, the college press Internet site. A name: "Anything Goes, as in Cole Porter's Anything Goes." And a blueprint: Have college editors and reporters at schools around the country submit short videos that will be presented in a magazine format. "I want them to think big," says Hewitt. But not long. "First of all, we know their attention span—the 15 minutes that I did on 60 Minutes is about five times what theirs is. So I'm talking about little two- and three-minute pieces," he says. "It's like U.S. News. You can watch television like you read a magazine; you can skip around."
And because he's Don Hewitt, he's got the jam to do it. Consider: As the keynoter at next month's college press confab in Washington, he's wooing presidential hopefuls to come and take questions. "I'd be a liar," he said when asked if he had influence, "if I didn't think that was the case."
Karl Rove, Still Behind the Curtain
President Bush's behind-the-curtain adviser, Karl Rove, is expected to reprise that role for the prez in Texas, we hear. Now retired from the White House, Rove is planning to take charge of the Bush library and museum, including the design, fundraising, and planning for what insiders are calling a copy of the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University. But he won't be the front man, say friends, instead focusing on putting the president's stamp on the facility that is expected to be aligned with Dallas's Southern Methodist University. Rove has long played a key role on the library project, and with his resignation and the selection of New York's Robert A. M. Stern Architects to draw the massive facility, the timing is good to speed up the effort, say Bushies.
Kerry E-Mails: See DiCaprio's Movie
Sen. John Kerry and hunky actor Leonardo DiCaprio are teaming up again, this time to save the world. Three years after the Titanic star endorsed Kerry's presidential bid, the Democrat is returning the favor by promoting DiCaprio's global warming movie, The 11th Hour, to his 3 million-name E-mail list. It's a natural pairing: DiCaprio backed Kerry because of the senator's 2004 environmental positions and says he hasn't heard a better platform since.
Richardson Loves His SUV, So There
His presidential platform includes slashing oil consumption in half and expanding America's hybrid fleet. But New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson says he still loves his SUV. And the Democrat is not ashamed, as he says in his new book, Leading by Example: How We Can Inspire an Energy and Security Revolution. "I'm a big guy, and I don't really fit well in smaller cars," he says. And forget the smaller hybrid Ford Escape. "It turned out to be too small for me" and his security.
Clinton's Secrets in His Sock Drawer
It's a good thing former President Bill Clinton had lots of socks. It's where he kept all of his secrets, recorded on tape. Author Taylor Branch reveals that Bubba invited him into the residence over 70 times to record Clinton's oral history. Clinton kept the tapes in a sock drawer. He later used them for his autobiography. After the sessions, Branch would tape his own recollections on his drive home. His tape-based book, Wrestling History: The Bill Clinton Tapes, is out next year. Finding room for the tapes wasn't hard because Clinton "had a lot of socks," Branch said in an appearance at the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas.
Elvis Music Teacher Saw No 'Stardust'
Washington, it turns out, has a better connection to Elvis than that old picture of Richard Nixon meeting with the King. Seems that outgoing Federal Aviation Administration chief Marion Blakey's grandmother was his music teacher in East Tupelo, Miss. While her "grandmom" thought his guitar playing was good, she wasn't wowed by his voice. "He had a sweet voice, but not particularly strong," Blakey recalls her elder saying. Even after he appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, says Blakey, there was "no real stardust as far as she was concerned; but then he moved to Memphis and, you know, life changed."
Bush's Loss Is the Cabinet's Gain
It's starting to feel a bit lonely in the White House, now that the president's closest aides from his Texas days—former spokesman Scott McClellan, lawyer Harriet Miers, communications czar Dan Bartlett, political ace Karl Rove, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, have bailed. And as a result, top aides believe there will be a shift in influence from the West Wing staff to the sometimes ignored cabinet. "Bush can't just say, 'Karl, figure this out' anymore," says one insider. "He'll have to turn to the cabinet more, and it's a great opportunity for the cabinet to get its agenda on the president's desk instead of the other way around."
Eyes on Your Fries—and Steny Hoyer
He may dress like a million bucks and carry himself like the Donald, but House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is still a rural southern Maryland boy at heart. Case in point: He needs a regular fix at the Golden Arches. "He's not an adventurous eater," says an associate. Which is why his staff added a McDonald's stop in Israel during his August tour as the head of a congressional delegation. It happened as their bus headed to the Lebanon border. "They took our orders, called it in ahead, and we stopped to pick it up on the way up," says the associate.
Paul Bedard's blog is at www.usnews.com/whispers
With Suzi Parker
This story appears in the September 10, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.