Media-Whore D'Oevres



"The surest signs of a campaign in trouble are the hokey stories about confounding expectations. You could hear a bunch of those stories on the campaign trail with Rudy Giuliani this week. His pal Jon Voight recalled how it looked like he had no chance to get cast in Midnight Cowboy in 1968. His campaign chairman Bill McCollum recalled how it looked like the Republicans had no chance to take back Congress in 1994. And the candidate told a few confounding-expectations stories himself about beating the Mafia and taming New York: I've been doing the impossible all my life!' So this is how it ends for America's Mayor, although he never quite said so in his Florida concession speech last night." (Time)

"Howard (Stern) asked Artie (Lange) if he was pleased with his appearance. He said that he thinks that it was actually the best one yet. He said he had a fantastic story to tell this morning about yesterday. He said that the Letterman appearance went really well. He met Paris Hilton in a special room that she had for her and her entourage. Artie said that he has a tiny room to stay in there and Paris had something a little bigger. He said that about 10 minutes before the show Teddy said that Paris wanted to meet him. He didn't know why he'd want to meet her though. Artie said that he wanted to watch Paris do her interview with Dave and maybe make a funny reference to something that she says and he didn't want to meet her first. She was very insistent though so he went back to meet her. He said she was there like a queen with her feet up on the desk and just hanging out. Artie said that Paris was stunningly beautiful and she oozes sex. He said that she was very soft and felt like a rich chick. He said that she smelled good and rich." (Marksfriggin)

"As the car industry here in the US wanes and the geopower of the US wanes, the term The Big Three will cease to mean GM, Ford, and Chrysler and will mean the three global superpowers; China, Europe, and the United States.That's the conclusion I come to after reading Parag Khanna's piece in this weekend's New York Times Magazine. I highly recommend this article. It opened my eyes to a bunch of things that are happening right now or are going to happen in the next 5-10 years." (AVC)

"Speculation that Washington’s two most eligible singles—Hillary Rodham Clinton’s fashionable traveling aide Huma Abedin and New York’s dashing bachelor Congressman Anthony Weiner—are dating has become 'common knowledge' among the campaign press corp, according to a reporter on the trail. Reached for comment by the Transom, Mr. Weiner, who has reportedly stepped out with television hostess Alli Joseph and ABC correspondent Gigi Stone, opted not to deny the rumors. 'I’ve got nothing for you on this, buddy,' he said." (Observer)

"Longtime Scientologist Nancy Cartwright — best known as the voice of Bart Simpson — last year gave the church $10 million to help spread the word of founder L. Ron Hubbard into other galaxies. It was all part of Scientology’s Global Salvage effort, which aims to 'de-aberrate' Earth — meaning to rid mankind of psychology ills and other 'aberrant' behavior." (PageSix)

"As midnight brought in Martin Luther King Day, DJ Honey Dijon nimbly mixed in the 'I have a dream' speech, and you haven't seen so many puzzled queens since the Village People went new wave." (Musto)

"Michelle Obama just spoke this afternoon at a fund-raiser on the Upper East Side for her husband’s presidential campaign, and one of the more prominent people present was Alma Rangel, the wife of Representative Charles B. Rangel, according to a person familiar with the fund-raiser who attended the event. Mr. Rangel has been a leading supporter of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, so his wife’s attendance at a fund-raiser for Senator Barack Obama, Mrs. Clinton’s chief rival, seems noteworthy. Other guests at the Obama fund-raiser included Victoria Kennedy, the wife of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the powerful Massachusetts Democrat who endorsed Mr. Obama on Monday; John W. Rogers Jr., a Chicago mutual fund executive who has been one of Mr. Obama’s top fund-raisers; and Patricia Blanchet, a Haitian-born artist and the widow of the '60 Minutes' correspondent Ed Bradley, who died in 2006." (NYTimes)