A Little of the Old In and Out



(image via cbsnews.com)

In: Steve Kroft, The Prince Charles "Get." Steve Kroft, fresh off making Pakistan's fetid dictator Musharraf chuckle, on camera, like a punk-ass thug over the sordid state of the joint US-Pakistani Osama Bin Ladin capture efforts, scores another home run of a "get." Damn; we have to give Cindy Adams props, once more, on her inside scoop. What is it with her; she's been on a tear. Does she, like, listen to a special conch washed up on Manhattan's Gold Coast? Anyway, Cin-cin reports:

"FRIDAY I told you about Prince Charles who schleps here next month with Camilla the bride to let everyone fete them and fuss over them. Like all of MoMA gets taken over Nov. 1 for a big-time gala dinner in their honor, etc., etc. I told you he'll do his first-ever USA sit-down TV interview. Him alone. Not Camilla. I told you it's a huge 'get' since CBS, ABC, NBC, Spike TV, everyone flopped all over themselves to nail it and it went to '60 Minutes.' I didn't tell you that's because Chuck's p.r. aide went to college with a senior producer at that program. I also didn't tell you because then I didn't know but now I know, Steve Kroft will do the interview."

We'll pass over the obscene oversight of Spike TV's venerable news department in blessed silence (Exaggerated cough suggesting feigned detachment). Still (The Corsair gathers himself; pulls out a God of Fire 2005 Double Robusto from his limited edition humidor), though (Lights cigar), we are stunned -- astonished, actually -- that Oprah and Babs Walters weren't in the cut.

Somewhere, probably somewhere really quite swishy, Barbara Walters, wrestling a crocodile tear out of her elastically-overtaxed eyes, wonders ... in vain if she still has "the juice" (Averted Gaze) for network television "gets."



(image via i.cnn.net)

Out: President Pro Tempore, Senator Ted Stevens. Oops! Senator Bill Frist's inane, heavy-handed Evangelical approach to The United States Senate -- as evidenced by the Schiavo fiasco -- contrasted by the utter lack of Democratic leadership whatsoever led to a power vacuum of Moderates, filled, expertly, by former Naval Captain and strategist extraordinaire, Senator John McCain (The Corsair pours himself a tawny glass of Portuguese Madeira). According to our favorite Dickensian villain, namely: Robert Novak (2nd item):

"The 90-9 Senate vote Oct. 5 adopting Sen. John McCain's amendment prohibiting harsh treatment of captured enemy combatants followed a closed-door conference of Republican senators who heard emotional pleas for the defeat of the administration-opposed proposal.

"Sen. Ted Stevens, president pro tem of the Senate and a longtime supporter of the military, delivered an impassioned address against the McCain amendment. He was followed by Sen. Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and several other senators making the same points.

"Later that day, however, the Senate voted overwhelmingly for the McCain amendment, with all members of the Republican leadership in support. That reinforced a growing belief that McCain today is the most influential senator."

Of course, you already knew that, Dear Reader; especially if you bookmark The Corsair and read us daily (hint, hint).



(image via jsonline)

In: Barry Diller. Face It: This is Barry Diller's world, we just live in it (Or, in The Corsair's case, rent a festive little bungalow on the margins of propriety). This week's New York Magazine asks, tongue in cheek, if Jews are smarter, even as The Old Gray Lady asks, earnestly, in SundayStyles, if Asians are smarter. They both have it wrong, people. The answer, true believers: Barry Diller is the smartest of them all:

"Diller has always been an object of acute fascination among the Silicon Valley crowd. Maybe it�s his fuck-you bluntness or capacity for reinvention. More likely, it�s the nagging sense that, if anyone was going to figure out this new-media thing, Barry would be the one.

"... Given Diller�s other Web properties, the duh move would be to think in terms of e-commerce�of using Ask as a way of ushering users from Match.com to Citysearch to Ticketmaster and back. Diller clearly finds this idea intriguing; he has taken to quoting Battelle to the effect that Ask could be the mortar between the bricks at IAC. But Diller, being Diller, is also thinking of something flashier.

"Diller believes search is destined to be the de facto passageway to everything behind the screen. Today that means the computer screen, but not for long. Granted, the merger of TV and the Internet is a hoary theory. But increasingly, as both media become fully digital and driven by advertising, the commingling looks inevitable."

Like we said: It's all about Barry.