A Little of the Old In and Out

In: Marvin Gaye. According to FemaleFirst, blogger/filmstar George Clooney and Lisa Snowden love to listen to layers and layers of buttery vocals (eew) from Marvin Gaye when they get in the mood to make that sweet, sweet love:

"The Hollywood heartthrob's girlfriend, British TV presenter Lisa Snowdon, says the couple love playing music by the legendary singer -whose hits include 'Sexual Healing' and 'Let's Get It On' - whenever they want some action between the sheets.

"Lisa said: 'I love Marvin Gaye's songs. They are perfect for getting in the mood. He is so brilliant and his tunes are so sexy. There would be nobody else I would rather hear when I'm with George and he feels the same.'"

Only, Lisa, The Corsair is fairly sure that Clooney didn't want the media alerted to that intimate fact.

Out: Giselle. According to British Vogue:

"The Brazilian supermodel has admitted that she swam in crocodile and piranha-infested waters during a trip to the Amazon this summer. 'Piranha are awful and evil fish,' she told CONTACTMUSIC.COM. 'They attack in a school? so it's not just one and they eat like a cow in two minutes. I didn't have any cuts and they're attracted by blood, so they wouldn't attack me and there were crocodiles and stuff? They're full of food already. They don't wanna eat me.'"

Well, of course not (Averted Gaze). Giselle Bundchen's entire body mass index wouldn't even be a mouthful for one marginally hungry piranha.

In: Charles Schumer. Sure, being The Senior Senator from New York, under the lengthening shadow of Junior Senator Hillary Clinton, is about as fun as watching plants produce oxygen, no doubt, but it's still a nice gig if you can get it, you know, it's all good. Senator Chuck Schumer, who just handily won a second term, has decided not to run for governor of the Empire State, thus clearing the way for Attorney General Elliot Spitzer, and what will be a titanic battle (The Corsair rubs his hands together and says, loudly, to no one in particular, "yum-yum!"), to go mano-a-mano with the incumbent Governor George Pataki.

The bribe was sweet, as well a polticial bribe should be when the stakes are this high -- Schumer will head the DSCC, and receive a posh seat on the prestige Senate Finance Committee.

According to the Old Gray Lady, "Schumer, D-N.Y., agreed to head the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and take a seat on the powerful Finance Committee, nixing the possibility of a 2006 gubernatorial campaign, a race which could have pitted him in a primary against state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer."

And, how better to bribe the Senator than to offer him a high profile media slot (Senate joke, circa 2000, "Q: What's the most dangerous place in Congress? A: The space between Chuck Schumer and a camera crew" Ed Note: That same joke is equally accurate, circa 1986, if you insert the now forgotten name Jesse Jackson in the place of Schumer) suffused with Tim Russert face-time. Tim Russert face time is key in any DC bribe. As Fred Dicker of The Post quotes a Democratic party insider as saying:

"'If you take the DSCC chair, you get lots of national media. Tim Russert has you on. Couple that with Schumer's role on the Judiciary Committee, with possibly one to three Supreme Court nominations, so he'd be leaving the Senate just as things would be getting interesting," noted a well-placed source.

"'I mean, being a senator is about accruing seniority and committee seats and leveraging the relevance of your committees? and Chuck is clicking on all cylinders in that regard.'"

Indeed.

Out: Secretary Colin Powell, America's 65th Secretary of State. Quite possibly the weakest Secretary of State in recent memory (The Corsair believes, quite firmly, that when history books assess Powell's sojourn at Foggy Bottom, they will conclude that he was, ultimately, less powerful even than Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, a hierarchical twist, Defense trumping State, to be sure), Colin Powell is leaving the Bush Administration. According to The Old Gray Lady:

"In his letter to the president, Secretary Powell said that he was proud to have been part of the administration's effort against terrorism and its military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, and to have 'brought the attention of the world to the problem of proliferation, reaffirmed our alliances, adjusted to the post-cold war world and undertook major initiatives to deal with the problem of poverty and disease in the developing world.'

"In an exchange with reporters at a White House news conference earlier this afternoon, Press Secretary Scott McClellan rebuffed suggestions that Mr. Powell was being eased out, saying that 'it was his decision to resign and he made that decision,' adding that 'Secretary Powell made a decision, for his own reasons, that this was now the time to leave.'"

The article continues:

"Two names have been prominently mentioned as a possible successor: Condoleezza Rice, Mr. Bush's national security adviser, and John Danforth, the United Nations ambassador and a former Republican senator from Missouri."

The Corsair recommends John Danforth, a good man, an honorable moderate, and a Christian minister who, unlike Powell, appears to be have true moral revulsion by the genocide in Darfur, and who, unlike Rice (who has more baggage than an Air America flight), would sail easily, like an Ancient Greek Trireme, through the Senate nominating process. Everybody -- moderates and Evangelicals -- loves Danforth; and this would be seen as a reward to Missouri, which gave Bush their electoral votes en masse.

The Corsair, especially, admires Ambassador John Danforth.

In: And, speaking of people The Corsair admires, Kitty Carlisle Hart, my second favorite socialite, after my brilliant-sexy blogger wife, Miu Von Furstenberg, is interviewed by David Patrick Columbia:

"So with all that and wet feet in mind, I arrived about ten minutes late to find Mrs. Hart looking very warm and cozy, sitting comfortably in her large and bright living room, on a comfy looking green velvet Victorian settee, a perfect vision of theatrical glamour in a Chinese red silk and embroidered robe.

"We talked about the Broadway she was brought up on and in which she enjoyed a privileged position as wife of one of its most successful playwrights. And the parties. In those days, theatre people mixed with society. And at the parties everyone performed. The great composers all entertained at the piano. She ticked off her favorites: Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers, George Gershwin.

"Her favorite composer was George Gershwin. He had one waltz that he�d written that had a girl�s name in the lyric. Every time he played it for a new girl in his life, he�d sing the song and insert her name, telling her he�d written it for her. He was a wonderful dancer too, and even asked the young Kitty Carlisle to marry him. 'But of course, he wasn�t serious � he just thought he should get married.'"

Why is it that Ms. Hart makes us feel all warm and tingly and knickerbocker-ish -- even though we are a Ugandan writer -- like an Edith Wharton novel read in a heated room by the window, overlooking the horse drawn carriages of Central Park West?