Media-Whore D'oeuvres

"Secretary of State John Kerry is making an emergency surprise trip to the Middle East this weekend amid worries that the Obama administration's newly brokered friendship between Turkey and Israel risks unraveling, U.S. and Israeli media report. The administration is concerned about Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's plans to visit the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip, a move certain to raise tensions in the volatile region. Erdoğan's announcement risks undermining the major diplomatic coup the White House claimed last month when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Erdoğan to apologize for a 2010 Israeli raid that killed eight Turks and one Turkish-American on a Gaza-bound flotilla. Erdoğan's plans were met with disapproval by the State Department, which reiterated its opposition to negotiating with Hamas. The United States considers Hamas a terrorist group. The department declined to confirm or deny the reports of Kerry's travel plans. 'We share the international community’s deep concern for the welfare of the Palestinian people, including those residing in Gaza,' State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said last week. 'So we again urge all those wishing to provide international humanitarian support to Gaza to do so through established channels to ensure that the Palestinians’ humanitarian needs and Israel’s legitimate security needs are both met.' Kerry will head to Israel, the West Bank and Turkey on Saturday to help smooth things over, the AP reports." (TheHill)

"No one disputes that near two a.m. on Saturday, February 18, 2012, a violent confrontation occurred inside Double Seven, a small, dimly lit V.I.P. lounge at 63 Gansevoort Street, in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. It is also generally accepted that Jeffrey Jah, one of the club’s front-man partners, invited two groups to share a single table, and that 47-year-old Adam Hock, a former co-owner of the Hawaiian Tropic Zone, in Times Square, punched four extremely well-connected young men in the face: Pierre Casiraghi, 24, second son of Princess Caroline of Monaco; Stavros Niarchos, 26, grandson of the Greek shipping tycoon; Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld, 27, son of French fashion empress Carine Roitfeld; and Diego Marroquin, 33, a Mexican-born real-estate investor. And it is roundly agreed that Casiraghi was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance later that night, and that Hock was arrested and charged with eight counts of misdemeanor assault and four counts of harassment. But the accounts diverge there. Hock rejected a series of plea deals and waged an aggressive media campaign against the European group. Then they, minus Niarchos, sued him, his criminal lawyers, Jah, and the club, and Hock countersued. And so, a bar fight lasting less than two minutes soon fractured into a kaleidoscopic swirl of competing stories, offering a rare, beyond-the-velvet-rope glimpse into the hermetic world of elite nightclubs." (VanityFair)

"Former Gov. Mark Sanford has won in the GOP runoff election for a vacant South Carolina congressional seat, the latest test of his bid to resuscitate his political career. With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Sanford led his underdog opponent, former Charleston County Councilman Curtis Bostic, 57 percent to 43 percent, according to The Associated Press. Sanford will face Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, a Clemson University administrator and the sister of comedian Stephen Colbert, in the May 7 general election. The race will surely become a national spectacle and draw attention from both national parties. Sanford, who four years ago lied about and then admitted to having an affair with an Argentine woman, has barnstormed the Lowcountry-based 1st Congressional District, billing himself as a figure of repentance and redemption and saying he has learned from his mistakes." (Politico)

"Christopher Hitchens, my colleague at Vanity Fair, was diagnosed with cancer in 2010. But even before his illness, and his death almost two years later, he was on his way to sainthood. His beatification, so complete that he now seems to have worn a lifetime halo, probably started with a 10,000- word profile about him written by Ian Parker in 2006 in the New Yorker - 'A portrait,' according to Parker, "in the shadow of a gigantic self-portrait." Before that, Hitchens occupied a pretty conventional slot as a left-wing writer in a period when the left was in decline and the free-market ethos was on the rise. By 2003 and 2004, however, he had become one of the more prominent left-wing converts to the Iraq war (perhaps the only one). This conversion was the subject of the New Yorker profile, offering a compelling portrayal of Hitchens' theatricality and oddball joie de guerre. His notoriety continued with the publication of his 2007 book God Is Not Great, which became his first bestseller. His stature further rose with a second bestseller, a memoir of his life, Hitch 22 - confirming that his life had memoir stature. And then his fatal illness: chronicled in print and in public forums, it may be among the most public on record. Fevered encomiums followed. This transformation from political irregular and zealous polemicist to towering moral figure was curious, if not amazing, to many people (perhaps all of us) whose careers had intersected with his." (Michael wolff)

"Last night I went over to the Café Carlyle to see the great Elaine Stritch on the opening night of her 'farewell' performance (she’s there through Saturday). Not officially 'farewell,' but Elaine’s moving back to Michigan — Birmingham — where she grew up and where she has lots of wonderful nieces and nephews, children of her sisters, who can be nearby — since she’s a single lady at this time in her life.There was great anticipation in the room. It was a hot ticket in New York an not easy getting a seat in the house. She drew a big crowd of names – Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson, Liza Minnelli with her friend Michael Feinstein; Bernadette Peters, Tony Bennett, James Levine, Rex Reed, for starters. There wasn’t an empty inch in the place." (NySocialDiary)