Media-Whore D'Oevres



(image via theatlantic)

"A few weeks after he was elected to the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama told his staff he wanted to meet with Hillary Clinton. In her years as a senator, Clinton had deftly navigated many of the challenges that now confronted Obama. She had come to the Senate as a national figure whose celebrity eclipsed (and therefore imperiled) her status as a freshman senator. She had a broad but shallow base of support among the voters she represented. And she, like Obama, held national political ambitions that depended heavily on how well she performed in the Senate ... Clinton’s staff was collegial. Obama’s overture was viewed by some as genuflection to the party’s natural leader, its likely presidential nominee; Obama himself was thought of as a possible apprentice and, perhaps one day, an heir." (TheAtlantic)

"'At this point, Dobbs is the only man in the country that would have a shot at making a historic independent run, and winning,' says William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration, an influential grass-roots group that favors strict enforcement of immigration laws, a favorite subject of Mr. Dobbs's. Mr. Dobbs says he isn't planning to run. 'I haven't got the personality or nature to be a politician,' he said in an interview Thursday. But he makes clear he hasn't ruled out the idea. 'I cannot say never,' he said." (WSJ)

"Dr. Dre stopped by the Consumer Electronics Show to show off the new headphones he's cooked up with Jimmy Iovine (and presumably a buncha tech guys). "'When I'm making a track I'm trying to capture the sound that makes me go 'now THAT's the shit!' And I want that reaction from everybody who hears it,' Dre sez." (Gizmodo)

"Onto this crowded and rejuvenated political stage now comes Michael Bloomberg, our skilled and uncommonly non-neurotic mayor, engaged in a different variety of the electoral enterprise—a prolonged game of Presidential footsie. Even as he has issued denials of interest to everyone from the press corps at City Hall to Ryan Seacrest on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Eve broadcast, Bloomberg has deputized some of his leading aides to draw up scenarios for a third-party candidacy and to keep the interest of the press well fluffed." (NewYorker)

"According to indieWIRE Box Office Tracking (iW BOT) estimates from Rentrak, Paul Thomas Anderson's 'There Will Be Blood' will clearly top the first iW BOT of 2008, grossing $1.34 million on just 51 screens for an average of $26,216. The Paramount Vantage release, which won top honors at the National Society of Film Critics yesterday, has grossed nearly $1.9 million in 12 days, 9 of which it was playing on only 2 screens." (Indiewire)

"Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert return from a strike-induced hiatus—without their writers, of course, but with plenty of fodder. (Clinton is one bad poll away from an aneurism.) Colbert is the clear loser in this arrangement, as his show relies heavily on scripted bits, while Stewart’s shtick has become a bit more, shall we say, off-the-cuff. It’ll be curious to see how the two long-time writers and comedians explain their scab status to their fans. Talk about Indecision 2008!" (Observer)

"CBS Evening News EP Rick Kaplan slipped on some ice while walking to a plane in Des Moines last Friday heading back from covering the caucus. CBS tells us Kaplan "suffered a fracture in the hip area but is recovering well." In fact, Kaplan is back to work in New York today." (TVNewser)