Media-Whore's D'Oevres

"Because 'pictures of a middle-aged Princess Margaret churning grandly around the dance floor in her caftan in Mustique hardly moved product' — and Brown should know, having trumpeted that princess’ 'Mustique mystique' for The Tatler — 'the guessing game of the Prince of Wales’s love life was the sole excitement for the media.” And what excitement it was. The prince was Europe’s most eligible bachelor, and his romantic exploits became fodder for an increasingly rapacious media machine. Before Diana, Charles had tried to evade the tabloids’ scrutiny by bedding married women, 'because the need for secrecy made them safe.' But when he began appearing publicly with Diana — the 19-year-old debutante with .. legs that seemed 'to extend up to her ears like Bambi' — secrecy ceased to be an option." (NYTBookReview)


"Tony (Soprano) has some mystical solar revelation in Nevada a couple of episodes back and it's now instantly forgotten as the show resumes reinforcing its core conviction that life is an inequitable distribution of very degrees, shades, and consistencies of crap with death creeping into every cell. I thought last week's murder bouquet was a mixed bag, the hit on Bobby full of tense foreplay (intercutting the toy trains with the killers' brisk pacings) but overelaborately executed and showoffy, with a visual metaphor so blatantly telegraphed (the train plunging off the tracks, symbolizing Tony's entire setup going off the rails) that it almost seemed a parody." (jamesWolcott)

"George W. Bush's 2004 campaign fund-raisers and contributors are being bombarded with appeals for money by Sen. John McCain's heavy-spending, money-short 2008 campaign .. McCain's money-raisers are hard put to reach the $10 million goal set for the second quarter of 2008 by the June 30 deadline, after collecting $12 million in the first quarter. McCain raised $2 million in April and $3 million in May, and is expected to reach $2-3 million in June -- falling short of the $10 million goal and of what his opponents have raised." (RobertNovack)

"Republican Newt Gingrich, in a jab at President Bush, warned on Friday that the GOP will lose the White House and Congress in 2008 if the nominee is perceived as a continuation of the Bush presidency. Addressing a conservative organization, the former House Speaker never mentioned the president by name, but his political point was clear. He has roundly criticized the Bush administration in recent interviews, describing the White House as dysfunctional and saying the president has driven the party into collapse. While he refrained from direct criticism Friday, he cited failures in Iraq, border security and the response to Hurricane Katrina as signs of a broken government. His comments come just days after a Republican presidential debate in which GOP candidates criticized Bush over his handling of the Iraq war, his diplomatic style and his approach to immigration.

(MYWay via Drudgie-Poo)