Media-Whore's D'Oevres



"SEN. Chuck Hagel, the Senate's toughest Republican critic of President Bush's war policy, has not ruled out a campaign for the GOP presidential nomination and will use the August recess of Congress to make up his mind ... Hagel must decide what to do in 2008: to run for president, to run for Senate re-election or to get out of politics. The betting in the Senate Republican cloakroom is that he will retire ... The state's GOP leaders not long ago were sure that 80-year-old Republican Sen. John Warner would seek a sixth term in 2008, but now they think he probably will not. That would open the door for Democratic former Gov. Mark Warner (no relation) to enter the race. Any Republican would be an underdog against the Democratic Warner." (Novak)

"When asked at Wednesday afternoon's presentation at the Time Inc. Digital Showcase what was the most difficult property to integrate online, Time Inc. executive vice president John Squires answered, candidly, "Time was a challenge." Acknowledging that the mag was late to the digital political ballgame, Squires noted that the site had recently hired Mark Halperin to help with their 2008 Presidential campaign coverage." (Webnewser)

"Oscar de la Renta has had a change of heart for fall. The designer confirmed this afternoon to The Daily that he will be moving his show from the Bryant Park Tents to 583 Park Avenue at the corner of 63rd Street, where his recent resort show was staged. The venue, a former Christian Science Church, is now a fully operating event space. The date and time of the runway show—September 10 at 1 p.m.—remain unchanged." (Fashionweekdaily)

"Gangster rap creator Ice-T, perhaps known just as well today for his role on 'Law and Order: SVU,' says he still lays down rhyme because it's fun .. 'I feel like I can mature into a Samuel L. Jackson type of character. I could act, and people would say, 'Look, that cat has been cool his whole life.' And still watch me, no matter what I'm playing. ...If you put me out there with a garden hose and some kids like Ice Cube, then I'll totally be out of my element. I could do that,' he says. 'I'm a funny motherf****r.'" (CTV)

"Inside a brightly lit room, the walls adorned with memorials to 23 dead American soldiers, Lt. Col. Robert Balcavage stared at the three Sunni tribal leaders he wanted to recruit.Their fighters had battled U.S. troops. Balcavage suspected they might have attacked some of his own men. The trio accused another sheik of having links to the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq. That sheik, four days earlier, had promised the U.S. military to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq and protect a strategic road. 'Who do you trust? Who do you not trust?' said Balcavage, commander of the 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division, his voice dipping out of earshot. An hour later, he signed up some of America's newest allies." (WashPo)

"All the commentary on Ingmar Bergman's death has been appropriately mournful — except at the New York Post op-ed page, where they couldn't wait to dance on his grave. They ran a spectacularly philistine editorial that must be read to be believed. At first, I thought the writer was just using Bergman's corpse as a convenient foil to score political points against modernism in art — a cultural battle that the right lost 75 years ago, even if the Post won't acknowledge it." (Popwatch)