Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"President Barack Obama’s national security team had every reason to believe they’d be spared a Bibi eruption before Election Day. Earlier this year, U.S. and Israeli officials had informally agreed to stop airing their well-documented disagreements over how to halt Iran’s nuclear program, according to two people familiar with the situation. But on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broke the tacit détente. He accused the Obama administration, albeit not by name, of going squishy on Tehran by not creating concrete benchmarks — 'red lines,' he called them — for a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. The latest flare-up in the tempestuous Obama-Netanyahu relationship was overshadowed Wednesday by the carnage at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. But U.S. officials believe the intense debate over the allied response to Iran’s nuclear program — and the sharp personal, policy and political differences between the two leaders — rivals the perils posed by the excesses of the Arab Spring." (Politico)

"Warm, sunny day in New York. Midtown traffic was practically crawling; the sidewalks jammed along Fifth Avenue. A great day to be out. Summer’s over. It was a typical Wednesday at Michael’s; wall-to-wall. Even Mrs. Michael (Kim McCarty) was there, dining with Blythe Danner. In the bay, Table One, The Girlz were lunching: Cynthia McFadden, Lesley Stahl, Gayle King, Lesley Jane Seymour, Norah O’Donnell. At the table right next to them, Mickey Ateyeh was hosting two young gentlemen. Next to her Joe Armstrong was hosting Warren Hoge who later introduced me to Jules Kroll (the founder of Kroll); Around the room: Larry Kirshbaum , the longtime honcho of the publishing industry at Warner Books and now a publishing revolutionary with Amazon.com; literary agent Rob Weisbach with writer Holly Peterson, Steven Stolman of Scalamandre with Jim Brodsky of Sharp Communications (PR) ; HarperCollins; David Hirshey with CBS’ Gil Schwartz (who publishes under the nom de plume Stanley Bing); David Sanford of the WSJ and Lewis Stein.." (NYSocialDiary)

"In July, in the course of writing a column about Libya, I spoke by telephone with U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, then in Tripoli. Libyans had just gone to the polls to elect a National Assembly, and he was feeling optimistic. The moderate National Forces Alliance had defeated an Islamist coalition, and the Islamists had accepted their defeat. The country was still in the grip of militias, but Stevens said that the security situation was "not bad," and getting better. 'The Libyan public attitude to the U.S. is quite positive," Stevens said. "This is a great opportunity for us.'  I cannot help wondering, in the wake of Stevens' murder by a mob in Benghazi -- where he had spent months working with the transitional council that served as the political wing of the forces fighting Muammar al-Qaddafi -- if I should understand his optimism about the U.S. role in Libya as a ghastly irony." (James Traub)

Jennifer Eymere

 "The French journalist who smacked a fashion publicist at a Zac Posen show has been slapped herself, with a $1 million lawsuit. HL Group co-founder Lynn Tesoro’s suit says the incident happened at Avery Fisher Hall Sunday when she was set upon by Jalouse magazine editor Jennifer Eymere, her sister Vanessa Bellugeon and her mom, Jalou Publishing head Marie-Jose Susskind-Jalou. The trio was très offended when Tesoro wasn’t able to immediately find them seats for the show because fire marshals removed 60 coveted chairs. A witness tells Page Six: 'Lynn Tesoro was trying to help the French women find a seat, explaining there were no seats available on the front row, but one of the ladies seemed very angry and was being really mean to her. Suddenly, one of the French women sharply slapped Lynn in the face and stormed off. Lynn seemed in shock, but she was very elegant about it and kept her composure. Nobody could believe it had a happened.' The suit doesn’t identify the slapper, but charges the trio with 'assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, slander and/or libel.' In an interview with WWD, Eymere said she was the slapper. 'I said, ‘Be careful, I am going to slap you,’ and she kept doing it,' Eymere recounted. 'I didn’t hurt her. It was just to humiliate her. She humiliated my mom and I humiliated her in front of her crew. Voilà. I just said at the end, ‘Now you know you don’t f**k with French people.’' When Page Six reached Eymere yesterday about the incident, she said 'I can’t comment, I don’t want to talk about it.' When asked about the lawsuit she added, 'I don’t know about that.' A source said that after the slap, the mother and daughters left Posen’s show, meaning they missed the surprise appearance of Naomi Campbell, the ultimate model of anger management. Sources further tell Page Six that the French women have not been on any Fashion Week guest lists since the incident occurred." (PageSix)

 

"'If I had abs,' said the comedian Artie Lange as he held his medicine ball-sized paunch in his hands, 'I would be dead.' The former Howard Stern sidekick was sitting inside the new Varick Street studio that is home to The Nick & Artie Show, the sports-and-comedy talk show on Sirius Radio and DirecTV that he co-hosts with fellow comedian Nick DiPaolo. He was cradling his gut, pointing at the scars where nearly three years ago, in his Hoboken home, he took a 13-inch Wolfgang Puck kitchen knife and stabbed himself repeatedly: Six times with hesitation. Three times with conviction. He has since been treated and released from three separate psychiatric wards. His sanity and sobriety restored—'It took me a year and a half to get right in the head'—Mr. Lange has now eased himself back into the comedy world. His jowly face, though still porcine and scruffy, no longer bears the wear and tear of all those long weekends performing in venues across the country, followed by long weekdays witnessing porn stars bringing themselves to orgasm while taping The Howard Stern Show. 'It was like [going from] a paper route to being Hugh Hefner,' he said of those days. The 44-year-old has sworn off the cardinal vices—particularly booze, gambling, drugs and prostitutes—that fueled his initial rise to comedy fame." (Observer)

"School is back in session! The faithful have returned to Michael’s and the place was buzzing with activity as the media mavens, talking heads and social swells sailed into the dining room ... (Table 3). ’Mayor’ Joe Armstrong and Warren Hoge. No visit to Michael’s is ever complete for me without a stop at the Mayor’s regular table, because he’s always introducing me to fascinating people I might not otherwise get to meet. Today, I was thrilled to chat with Warren, having read so many of the incredible stories he wrote during his 32-year tenure at The New York Times. He is now senior adviser for external relations for the International Peace Institute. The revered journalist and I got into a serious chat about the British royals. I vividly remember Warren’s inexhaustible coverage of Princess Diana‘s death and referred to many of his stories when I wrote my first book, Diana The Secrets of Her Style."  (Diane Clehane/FishbowlNY)

"A front page New York Times article this morning describes how Mitt Romney 'personally approved' his apology-less campaign statement yesterday accusing Barack Obama of sympathizing with terrorists, but an early iteration of the story was far juicier. In a version posted online last night, the Times quoted 'an adviser to the campaign who worked in the George W. Bush administration' who went so far as to say that Romney "had forgotten the first rule in a crisis: don't start talking before you understand what's happening." That's more or less the criticism that was pelted at Romney throughout the day yesterday by pundits, and by President Obama himself, but to hear it from the mouth of an adviser, even an anonymous one, in the Times, really stings. Or stung — that quote has since disappeared from the article. It's common for newspaper stories to undergo edits throughout the day until a final version makes it to the morning paper, but in this case, the entire thing has been changed (except the URL), as displayed by the website NewsDiffs, which has both." (NYMag)