Thursday, August 22, 2013

media-whore d'oeuvres



"Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was asked recently what he would do in the event of a 2016 presidential contest between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). 'It’s gonna be a tough choice,' he said with a laugh. McCain’s ambivalence about a potential Clinton-Paul choice is primarily because of foreign policy: McCain is largely a hawk and Paul is largely a dove, to put it simply. In a Clinton-Paul contest, McCain and many other Washington neoconservatives would be ideologically closer to Clinton than Paul, at least on foreign policy. That doesn’t mean that McCain and others would actively support Clinton, but it does mean that Paul, a likely contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, would have to cut through the establishment to win the nomination. If he got it, the response from many Republicans would be tepid. A Paul ascendancy would inevitably be compared to the rise of Barry Goldwater, who outmaneuvered a series of mainstream Republicans to capture the 1964 Republican presidential nomination. Paul wouldn’t want to replicate the shellacking Goldwater got in the general election, but he probably would try to change the course of the GOP, just like Goldwater. Despite its demolition at the hands of Lyndon Johnson in 1964, the Goldwater campaign is fondly remembered by many Republicans for re-setting the party’s ideological compass. For three decades prior, Republicans argue, the GOP embraced “me-tooism,” simply providing the electorate with a lite version of the Democratic Party. Many conservatives wanted A Choice, Not an Echo, to borrow the title of the famous book by conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly. Goldwater provided it. The mid-1960s were an era, keep in mind, where Democrats had held the White House for 24 of 32 years, and the only Republican president in that time period — Dwight Eisenhower — was hardly a movement conservative. It’s no wonder that Goldwater biographer Robert Alan Goldberg called the 1964 GOP convention the 'Woodstock of the right.' Goldwater’s nomination was a defining moment for outsiders in an insider party." (CenterforPolitics)


"Yesterday Michael’s was busy but not the chatter/clatter you usually get in the mid-week pandemonium. At Table One, Norah Lawlor was hosting a lunch with Christopher Pape, the editor of The Resident — a local metropolitan paper that is distributed in the residential areas of the city. Also at table was Ernie Anastos, John Shavins and Jonathan Cheban. Mr. Anastos has an idea for a new news show, a 'positive' news show. He’s had enough bad news. Like the rest of us, no? The question begs: will a new show of 'positive' stories change things, or will we just be kidding ourselves? Mr. Cheban — if his name is sounding familiar but you can’t place it — is a close associate of the Kardashians, the reality-TV tycoons. He made headlines all over the world earlier this week because he was seen in the Hamptons last weekend wearing a gold watch that cost $500,000. ('Positive news') And someone almost tried to steal it. (Not so positive). Or almost stole it. Or tried. Something. All this while Mr. Cheban was having a lovely surf ‘n’ turf while lunching at one of the million dollar coffee shops out there. Mr. Cheban’s sartorial splendor, ironically, begins and ends with his half million dollar wrist bling." (NYSocialDiary)




"Past the closed-circuit cameras, past the nondisclosure-agreement-wielding security guard, past the Damien Hirst pictures, past the hyperorganized assistant and the bold monochrome walls and the sumptuous gray sofas and the three giant orchids — past all the accouterments of the celebrity household — a toddler sat on the floor, playing with her nanny.Beckham seized fame by the collar in 1996, when the Spice Girls emerged to become, briefly, the biggest thing in girl bands since the Supremes; fame in turn grabbed her by the throat when she married David, then a dishy Manchester United midfielder with mercurial hair, boundless talent and a yen for the limelight. They were more than the sum of their parts; he, one of the world’s most famous soccer players, with a deadly free kick; she, the impossibly thin, impossibly high-heeled quintessential wife, followed everywhere, photographed everywhere, even her most banal utterances repeated and dissected. But in the last few years, a new kind of renown has been creeping up on Victoria Beckham, an unfamiliar phenomenon in a Kardashian world where people are famous for just being famous. This is the renown that comes from having a serious job and being seriously good at it. Five years after she shocked the blasé New York fashion world by unveiling a collection of beautifully made, elegant dresses that were chic and understated and ultraflattering, Beckham has established herself as a powerful force in the industry, proving again and again that she is far more than another celebrity slapping her name onto someone else’s product." (TMagazine)




"You probably know Corey Feldman from classic movies like Lost Boys, Stand By Me, and the Goonies. But for the last year or so, he's been working on a new project, a '360-degree interactive experience' called Corey's Angels. Corey's Angels are, essentially, Corey's version of the Playboy Playmates: a gang of handpicked babes who constantly surround him. Only instead of chilling at the Playboy Mansion, they gather with Corey in his house (which he's dubbed 'The Feldmansion') ... Ron Jeremy, Tom Green, Woody Harrelson, and Chris Kirkpatrick have all previously been spotted at Corey's parties. When I found out that the hottest names in Hollywood were going to be living it up in a mansion with some of the hottest bitches on the planet I knew I had to see that shit with my own two eyes." (Vice)

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