Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"Even by the hot-money standards of China's economy, defense is an exceptionally lucrative growth industry. The country's 11.2 percent defense budget increase announced March 4, which gives the People's Liberation Army (PLA) $106 billion to spend in 2012, is merely the latest in a long succession of generous budget hikes that have doubled China's military resources every six or seven years since the early 1990s. This bonanza has produced many winners within China, from the average soldier to domestic defense contractors to ordinary citizens who feel China's sense of pride being restored. Even President Hu Jintao will feel a little more secure in his command of the military after signing off this year's $11 billion PLA pay raise. Yet some beneficiaries of Beijing's military largesse can be found far beyond China's shores. Some are allies and suppliers that stand to gain directly from the trickle-down of PLA procurement and overseas operations. Others represent the counterbalance of governments wary of China's military ascent. Here are just eight of the unintended passengers on Beijing's defense budget escalator." (ForeignPolicy)

"Over the last half century of presidential primaries, there has been an almost inviolable rule of thumb: The candidate that wraps up his party’s nomination first goes on to win the general election.
There is a certain logic to that. Candidates that can eliminate their primary rivals most quickly have more time to unify their party and prepare for the fall campaign. And in the process, they usually show themselves to be potent vote-getters with broad appeal, particularly to the various elements within their own party.That is basically how it has worked from 1964 until now, with the conspicuous exception of 2008. Then, the negative effect of a lengthy primary campaign was thrown into question. Democrat Barack Obama took three months longer to nail down his party’s nomination than Republican John McCain. Yet Obama won the race handily in November.The long Democratic battle with Hillary Clinton is credited with providing Obama with a host of assets. It forced him to improve his performance as a candidate and to organize not just the early states but the entire country. And the high energy Obama-Clinton struggle enabled the Democrats to dominate the national debate at a time the 2008 campaign was taking shape. Now, with the Republicans facing the prospect of a long, delegate-counting campaign of their own, the question becomes: was 2008 an aberration in the long-term undesirability of lengthy nominating races? Or was it the new reality of American politics, where a long primary contest can actually be a virtue rather than a vice?" (Rhodes Cook)

"If it’s Wednesday, it must be Michael’s: Katie Couric was at the table next to mine and I don’t know what her latest news is but maybe she’d just been made the first female Cardinal because half the people in the room came over to say hello (or get her blessing), and the other half couldn’t get through the crowd.  Michael’s was jammed. I know you hear that sort of thing from me frequently, and Wednesday is the day that all the Peepul come out to play/work/lunch. Yesterday, however, seemed like the next thing to pandemonium. Table One in the bay, Bonnie Fuller was hosting her Wednesday lunch with her boss PMC vice chairman Gerry Byrne with a guestlist of Jonah Peretti (Buzzfeed), Ann Lawlor, Meryl Poster, Fern Mallis, Mark Patricof (Mesa Global), Jill Martin, Lisa Granstein (AdWeek) and Carlos Lamadrid (HollywoodLife.com). Katie Couric was right in front of them (receiving) with Cindi Berger. Nearby Jason Hodes with Donnie Deutsch. Next to them: the Mayor of Michael’s Joe Armstrong who was walking with a cane after some harsh bronco busting down Texas way. Next to him: Liz Smith and Joni Evans, those Wowowow.com girls." (NYSocialDiary)

"Madeleine Albright, the former U.N. ambassador, was thrust into the top ranks of American diplomacy after a tart, off-color rebuke in 1996 of a Cuban MIG-29 pilot who shot down two unarmed planes manned by Cuban exiles while boasting 'cojones!' 'Frankly, this is not cojones, this is cowardice,' Albright toldreporters at a U.N. press conference that provided a backdrop for what I like to call her "cojones moment," a pivot point that marked her break from the relative backwaters of U.N. diplomacy to the national political stage.  President Bill Clinton said it was "probably the most effective one liner in the whole administration's foreign policy." And it helped accelerate Albright's political ascent from an obscure university professor turned U.N. envoy to the country's first female secretary of state.Albright paved the way for Condoleezza Riceand Hillary Clinton, but is a future fourth making some rhetorical waves of her own? On Monday, Susan Rice, speaking to hundreds of rabbis at a luncheon hosted by the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), returned to the related theme of Cuban unmentionables, recalling a 1961 speech by Adlai Stevenson defending the Kennedy administration's botched Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and attacking Fidel Castro for his hostility towards the Catholic Church. 'I have already told you about Castro's crimes against man. But now let me tell you about Castro's crimes against God,' Rice recalled Stevenson telling the U.N. General Assembly, while an Israeli diplomat and his Irish counterpart listened together attentively. 'Castro has circumcisedthe freedoms of the Catholics of Cuba.' 'At that,' Rice said, "the Israeli diplomat looked over at his Irish friend and said, ‘I always knew that, somehow, wewould be blamed for this.'It was a good joke, but there was something more behind it. The remarks were not only likely to strike a chord with a voting bloc, the anti-Castro Cuban Americans, who once exercised outside influence on American foreign policy on the island nation." (ForeignPolicy)

"Actress and Democratic fund-raiser Patricia Duff got stuck in an elevator with President Obama’s Secret Service detail on the way to a private New York benefit for the commander in chief.
While John Legend, Tory Burch, Mariska Hargitay, Harvey Weinstein and Michael Kors made it up to the event at the swanky Upper East Side penthouse owned by White House interior designer Michael Smith and HBO vice president James Costos for a $10,000-a-head fund-raiser for Obama last Thursday, Duff wasn’t so lucky.  Duff, according to a source, was “stuck in the prewar co-op’s tiny elevator with a strapping Secret Service man for a half-hour. Finally, the elevator got fixed, and Duff, who had to jump out, made it just in time for Obama’s arrival. The organizers played it safe and brought the president up in the freight elevator." (PageSix)

"Barry Yoko and Johnny Smoke stood in the corner of a first–floor room in a $75 million mansion owned by Aby Rosen. It was about an hour into the party at the house, formerly the disgraced Salander-O’Reilly gallery, last night and Mr. Smoke was still wearing his corduroy fedora. Mr. Yoko, for his part, sported a pair of Mickey Mouse ears. Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld, son of former French Vogue editor Carine, had filled the house with wall-sized paintings and sculptures by the artist Nicolas Pol for the party, which coincided with the ADAA’s Art Show champagne gala at the Park Avenue Armory just a few blocks away. Mr. Smoke said he liked the art. Mr. Yoko wasn’t sure.
“I love the art actually, but not the sculptures,' Mr. Yoko said. 'I’m not going to lie to you, they look a little creepy and a little, I don’t know, surreal. Like an exploded body with organs hanging out.'
'Did you notice all the voodoo signs in the paintings?' asked Mr. Smoke, who works with the estates of William Burroughs and Bryon Gysin to carry out their vision of a Dream Machine." (GalleristNY)

"Kanye West had a warmer — but still tepid — welcome to his eponymous clothing line during his second-ever runway presentation Tuesday night at Paris fashion week. Former flame Kim Kardashian, dressed in head-to-toe West, sat in the front row, flashing the $6,000 white sandals he designed for Giuseppe Zanotti. She sat near Alicia Keys, Swizz Beatz, Sean 'Diddy' Combs, Rosario Dawson and Riccardo Tisci as fashion’s elite came out to see West’s leather and fur looks. After the show, in which Carmen Kass, Karlie Kloss and Joan Smalls walked, Azealia Banks, Big Sean, Waka Flocka Flame, Common and Mos Def performed for the crowd at the Belvedere-sponsored after-party. West’s first line took a drubbing in October. Reviews for his second show were mixed .." (PageSix)

"In November 1993, the Wu-Tang Clan released its seminal debut album, Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). At the time, the show 'Full House,' then in its seventh season, was still dominant in the ratings. What similarities could possible exist between the '90s most saccharine sitcom and its most respected group of gangsta rappers? More than you might expect. Despite their superficial differences, these are essentially two makeshift families struggling to make do in America; two casts of eccentrics that inexplicably gel to form a cohesive unit. Let's further explore the complexities that link the West Coast Tanners and the East Coast Wu, revealing them as two sides of the same early 90s coin. DANNY (BOB SAGET)—GZA Just as Danny is the patriarch of the Tanners, GZA is very much a father figure within the Wu-Tang Clan. GZA is the oldest banger in the Clan (he’s already 45), had the only major-label release prior to Wu’s formation (1991’s Words from the Genius), and goes by the moniker of 'Genius.' Just as the Tanner family would quickly disintegrate from in-fighting and other dangers without Danny, the GZA is the glue that holds the Clan together. As Method Man explains at the end of “Can It All Be So Simple,' 'We form like Voltron and GZA happen to be the head.' Most of the time, Danny appeared to be the only character on “Full House” with any modicum of common sense. While the Wu are much more grounded and reasonable than the Tanner family, GZA always struck me as its most pragmatic member." (Awl)

Jon Stewart on Rush Limbaugh

The Daily Show
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Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"'No one ever gains votes in a national election by going through the presidential primaries,' Bill Clinton remarked ruefully in 1992. 'They're designed to chew you up and spit you out.' That maxim has never been more apt than during this Republican primary season. As Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum do battle this Super Tuesday, March 6, they have dug themselves ever farther into the mire of a hard-line conservatism that is woefully out of step with America's changing electorate. No matter who wins on Super Tuesday, the Republican Party will have a huge problem expanding beyond its base and forging a winning coalition. Start with Hispanics -- who accounted for 55 percent of population growth in the last decade -- and the immigration issue. Romney, who is typically viewed as the 'moderate' in the race, has been aggressively conservative in this area in an effort to outflank his more ideological opponents. He has promised to veto the DREAM Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for illegal aliens who came to the United States as minors with their parents, opposes in-state college tuition for illegal immigrants, and raised a much-mocked scheme for their 'self-deportation.' More generally, he has consistently sneered at any sign of softness among his primary opponents on these issues, raising the specter of an increasing flood of illegal immigrants coddled by the law and provided with benefits they don't deserve. No wonder Hispanics, despite the bad economy and concerns about the level of deportations on President Barack Obama's watch, are supporting the president at levels above those he received in 2008, when 67 percent voted for him, compared with 31 percent for John McCain. Indeed, a just-released Fox News poll -- not usually considered a Democrat-friendly source -- has Obama garnering 70 percent of the Latino vote, compared with just 14 percent for his closest Republican opponent, an incredible 5-1 ratio.
Given Obama's expected high support from African-American voters, this suggests that the president could certainly match his 80 percent overall support from minority voters in 2008. If that comes true, he has huge leeway to lose white votes. Amazingly, he could approach the levels at which congressional Democrats lost the white working class (30 points) and white college graduates (19 points) in the wipeout 2010 midterm election and still win the popular vote." (ForeignPolicy)

"So what sort of 'win' was that? Here’s Argument A: a win is a win is a win. That’s true in sports. If LSU plays horribly against Middle Tennessee State, but kicks a field goal with :03 left to win, well, LSU won. It’s over, and time to focus on Auburn. By that logic, Mitt Romney won Ohio and sails forward. And Argument B: this isn’t sports. This isn’t about earned performance on a field of play. It’s about what voters think. And if voters think that the guy who outspent the other guy by 10 or 12 to 1 and was supposed to have this locked up weeks ago is a guy they just barely agreed to push forward to the next fight, then it’s not much of a win at all. The Romney team will obviously spin Argument A, but Republicans all over the country, if they have any sense, are going to come out of Super Tuesday even more nervous about Romney than they were. Romney eked it out in Ohio, but he still managed to emerge bruised from Super Tuesday. He won Massachusetts. Big woop. Vermont, ditto. In Virginia, he won, but he won in as embarrassing a fashion as it’s possible to win something. With only him and cranky Ron Paul on the ballot, Romney managed just 59 percent of the vote to Paul’s 41. When Ron Paul is winning 41 percent of the vote, it’s time to stop and smell the rotting roses." (Michael Tomasky)

"Before it was refurbished, a few years ago, the lobby of The Washington Post’s office building was dominated by oversize photographs of important moments in the history of the newspaper. Visitors walked past the famous image of Katharine Graham, the paper’s matriarch, and her beloved executive editor, Ben Bradlee, as they emerged, laughing, from the Supreme Court in 1971 after the justices ruled in favor of the Post in its battle to publish the Pentagon Papers, the U.S. government’s secret history of the Vietnam War. Visitors also saw an enlarged copy of the nixon resigns front page from 1974, marking the culmination of the paper’s Watergate coverage.  Donald Graham, the son of Katharine Graham, and the current chairman and C.E.O. of the Washington Post Company, has been coming into the building as an employee ever since he started as a Metro reporter, in 1971. David Von Drehle, a former assistant managing editor of the Post, recalls a day in 1994 when he found himself in the lobby alone with Graham. 'I just came from an anniversary celebration of the most important moment in the history of our paper,' Graham told Von Drehle. 'Do you know which one it was?' Graham pointed to a picture of his grandfather Eugene Meyer and his father, Philip Graham, holding up a copy of the newspaper dated March 17, 1954—the first edition of the combined Washington Post and Washington Times-Herald, a merger that established the Post’s dominance in Washington. (At the time, Meyer remarked, “The real significance of this event is that it makes the paper safe for Donnie.”) Von Drehle says, “Everything else, whether it was Watergate or all the Pulitzers—all of that flowed from the incredible cash cow the paper became when it had the monopoly of the Washington metro area. That was always very illuminating to me of Don’s thinking.' The Washington Post is haunted by its history." (VanityFair)

"Midday I went down to Michael’s to lunch with Francine LeFrak. At the next table Joan Collins and her daughter-in-law Victoria Newley, and Catherine Saxton were lunching. Joan can always get a smile out of you because plays Joan so well, and that’s not like any other. You have to be her to do her. It’s a kind of pure, although not naïve personality. It’s what was called A Movie Star. Movie stars do not disappoint. So it’s always a treat to see her. Besides, it’s Joan Collins! Steve Millington the GM of Michael’s borrowed my camera to get a couple of shots of La Collins. Might he? Why of course. She looks good. As you can see. She looks good without her dark glasses too but she put them on for the shot – to garnish it with a little mystery, no doubt." (NYSocialDiary)

"As social media editor for Reuters, Anthony De Rosa is about as real time as you can get. His desk on the large newsroom floor at Reuters headquarters in Times Square is dominated by three large computer screens, two of which have TweetDeck open at all times. He needs it that way considering he and his deputy put out 100-plus tweets a day. De Rosa was named Reuters’ first social media editor just this past July, having already been a product manager and technologist at Reuters and an avid Tumblr user on his own time. De Rosa has his own extremely popular tumblog SoupSoup, which has been cited by Jon Stewart on 'The Daily Show' and is in the top 25 tumblogs out of the 2.3 million tracked by Compete. Prior to joining Reuters in 2011, he co-founded Neighborhoodr, a hyperlocal blog network. In perhaps a sign of the future, De Rosa’s background is more Web tech than beat reporter. Prior to being named social media editor, he served as an product manager for Reuters application programming interfaces. But he views his current role as firmly in the editorial camp. You won’t find him putting 'social media guru' in his Twitter bio. 'Oh dear Lord, no,' he responds at the suggestion. 'I hate social media ‘gurus,’ ‘experts,’ ‘shamans,’ etc. Anyone who calls themselves that should be avoided like the Black Plague.' To hear De Rosa tell it, social media is just another evolution of the media landscape." (Digiday)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"Simply put, China has three core strategic interests. Paramount among them is the maintenance of domestic security. Historically, when China involves itself in global trade, as it did in the 19th and early 20th century, the coastal region prospers, while the interior of China -- which begins about 100 miles from the coast and runs about 1,000 miles to the west -- languishes. Roughly 80 percent of all Chinese citizens currently have household incomes lower than the average household income in Bolivia. Most of China's poor are located west of the richer coastal region; this disparity of wealth time and again has exposed tensions between the interests of the coast and those of the interior. After a failed rising in Shanghai in 1927, Mao Zedong exploited these tensions by undertaking the Long March into the interior, raising a peasant army and ultimately conquering the coastal region. He shut China off from the international trading system, leaving China more united and equal, but extremely poor. The current government has sought a more wealth-friendly means of achieving stability: buying popular loyalty with mass employment. Plans for industrial expansion are implemented with little thought to markets or margins; instead, maximum employment is the driving goal. Private savings are harnessed to finance the industrial effort, leaving little domestic capital to purchase the output. China must export accordingly. China's second strategic concern derives from the first. China's industrial base by design produces more than its domestic economy can consume, so China must export goods to the rest of the world while importing raw materials. The Chinese therefore must do everything possible to ensure international demand for their exports. This includes a range of activities, from investing money in the economies of consumer countries to establishing unfettered access to global sea-lanes. The third strategic interest is in maintaining control over buffer states. The population of the historic Han Chinese heartland is clustered in the eastern third of the country, where ample precipitation distinguishes it from the much more dry and arid central and western thirds." (STRATFOR)

"'Ronnie and I were never big New Year’s Eve people. But we loved the New Year’s Eves at Sunnylands,' says Nancy Reagan of the annual dinner dances that the late billionaire publisher, philanthropist, and power broker Walter Annenberg and his wife, Lee—short for Leonore—used to give at their plush 200-acre estate in Rancho Mirage, near Palm Springs. 'They were wonderful parties. People came from all over: London, Paris, New York—everywhere.' As Lee Annenberg recalled in her waning years, 'We had nine tables, and Tony Rose’s Orchestra, and, boy, did we really have fun.” Among those who made the cut: Brooke Astor, David Rockefeller, Malcolm Forbes, Bob Hope, Dinah Shore, Betsy Bloomingdale, and nearly the entire top rung of the Reagan administration, including Secretary of State George Shultz, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, National-Security Adviser Colin Powell, and White House Chief of Staff Howard Baker. The Reagans attended 18 times between 1974 and 1993, including all eight years that he was president. Six other U.S. presidents were also guests at Sunnylands, starting with Dwight Eisenhower, who liked to play golf on the estate’s nine-hole course and fish in its 11 man-made lakes, which would be amply stocked with bass and trout before his visits." (VanityFair)

"The exciting grand finale of the Fall/Winter 2012 Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week was a sold-out FGI (Fashion Group International) VIP screening of The Tents. The Tents was filmed in 2010, during the last season when Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week was held in Bryant Park. A first film by the very talented James Belzer and cinematographer Marcus K. Jones, co-produced by Lisa Silhanek, The Tents documents the history of the constantly evolving NYC fashion industry, as well as the runway shows of dynamic designers since its formalization in 1993 as 'Fashion Week.' It is also the story of Fern Mallis, past Executive Director of 7th on Sixth, VP of Marketing for IMG (International Management Group) – one amazingly dedicated Femme – whose force of conviction and unbridled tenacity, along with that of the three-time Coty Award-winning designer and past President of the CFDA, Stan Herman, is responsible for New York Fashion Week, as we now know it." (NYSocialDiary)

"Believe it or not, I get a lot more blowback and outrage, whining and emails and phone calls—sometimes with the person identified, sometimes not—from my restaurant columns. No kidding.
I believe that if you cover commercial real estate, you can’t get that much bad negative blowback if you’re accurate. The handful of times … perhaps I overinterpreted the fact that a lease was up and it was not going to be renewed … generally, I get a polite email or call from their rep saying, 'Not really true.' Let me read you something. Recently I did a restaurant story saying that this place called Romera, which is this wildly expensive restaurant in the Dream Downtown Hotel, right, was probably on its way out because the owners of the space, the Chatwal family, were talking to other chefs about taking over. I got an email just last night before I left [the office] from an unidentified complainant saying, 'You are the most malignant journalist the New York Post has. You really should be ashamed of yourself for trying so hard to sabotage such a concept. I was thoroughly disgusted by your hearsay gossip article and can see you have nothing to do with yourself than write trash. Keep up the great work.' Nobody really attacks me personally. That’s extraordinarily rare. But you are conscious that what you write has consequences." (Steve Cuozzo/Observer)

"It wouldn't be a fashion week after-party without a fun but totally random mix of celebs showing up, and Humberto Leon and Carol Lim of Kenzo delivered with their Paris Fashion Week bash last night. Party-goers included Diddy, Susanne Bartsch and Robyn. Oh to be a fly on the wall as those three mingled." (Papermag)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"Benjamin Netanyahu, in Washington today, is laying more political groundwork for a possible preemptive Israeli airstrike against Iran’s nuclear sites. But as Netanyahu rallies his American supporters and discourages diplomatic engagement with Tehran, some intelligence officials and Iran experts tell The Daily Beast that an Israeli attack may be exactly what Tehran’s most hard-line leaders have been trying to provoke. Marty Martin, a former senior officer in the CIA, ran the unit that hunted Al Qaeda terrorists from 2002 to 2004. Iran’s most militant leaders 'are goading the Israelis,' he tells The Daily Beast, 'because a bombing will help them put their internal problems aside.' Martin, who spent most of his 25-year career at the CIA in the Middle East, argues that some clerics and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders, confronted with a discontented and restless population, are looking for ways to solidify public support. 'The way they see it, if Israel bombs them it relieves the internal pressure,' says Martin. 'Amid this turmoil, its always good to have an outside enemy.' Iran’s internal troubles include a 12 percent unemployment rate, a shattered economy (due in part to international sanctions), resentment over the oppressive regime, and widespread disgust over corruption. Martin, who retired from the agency in 2007, now works as an independent consultant. He was prominent inside the agency not just for his leadership against Al Qaeda but also for his expertise on the Middle East: his Louisiana drawl disguises the fact that he speaks fluent Arabic. 'If you are an Iranian,' he says, 'there is actually a benefit to an Israel strike—an Israel strike which won't be successful completely militarily, but will be successful for saying 'game on'!'" (Aram Roston/TheDailyBeast)

"When President Obama meets with Benjamin Netanyahu today, one of his goals will be to assure the Israel prime minister that the United States will use force to delay Iran’s nuclear program if the current round of sanctions don’t work. All the while, Netanyahu’s objective will be to avoid having to make a direct commitment to the president not to order his jets to bomb Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Three months ago, speaking at the memorial to Israel’s founding father, David Ben-Gurion, Prime Minister Netanyahu gave a speech many Israeli observers considered a window into his own thinking on Iran. In it he described how the vote of Ben-Gurion’s cabinet to declare statehood was very close, with only six in favor and four voting against. Netanyahu asked his audience to imagine if one of the yes votes went the other way. 'He understood full well the decision carried a heavy price, but he believed not making that decision had a heavier price,' Netanyahu said of Israel’s founding father. 'We are all here today because Ben-Gurion made the right decision at the right moment.' The speech made headlines in Israel because it came only a few days after comments from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta suggesting an Israeli strike on Iran would be disastrous." (TheDailyBeast)

"(NYT Joe) Nocera here repeats a common trope that the Republican Party has been distracted by social issues. This was true for all of about two weeks, after three-plus years of relentless focus on the economy, the deficit, taxes, and health care. Nocera actually equates Republican radicalism entirely with social conservatism. But ask yourself: What is this radical social conservative agenda? Well, they want employers to be able to offer health insurance that does not cover contraception, sure. But that’s a mere way station to the larger goal of denying any health care coverage at all to tens of millions of Americans. The GOP has committed itself to a host of radical new economic policy goals that Ronald Reagan never dreamed of. Where are the radical new social goals? (Yes, Republicans still want to overturn Roe v. Wade, but many advanced countries ban abortion; the United States is the only country where basic health care must be earned.) Santorum may be more genuine about his social conservatism than most Republicans in Washington, but his actual program is no more radical than Romney’s, nor any more radical than the party social agenda has been for three decades. But economically, the party has abandoned Keynesianism, adopted hard money policy, and sworn to roll back seven decades of government. For Nocera to identify social conservatism as the locus of the party’s extremism shows just how unshakeable his assumptions are." (Jonathan Chait/NYMag)

"Last Thursday lunchtime, in the Grand Ballroom of the Plaza, The American Cancer Society New York held their annual Mother of the Year luncheon. Diana Feldman has a lot to do with this particular event. She’s only one member of the benefit committee (along with Muffie Potter Aston, Somers Farkas, Purdence Inzerillo, Cynthia Lufkin, Gianna Palminteri, Maureen Reidy and Rachel Roy). Mother of the Year is mainly a ladies luncheon, although the men attending are often as interested. One of their greatest accomplishments is raising funding for Hope Lodge -- the facility that’s been created to house where cancer patients and their care givers can stay for free. Since it opened five years ago (November 2007), Hope Lodge has served more than 7500 cancer patients receiving outpatient treatment at our city’s hospital. Guests come from 46 stages and 31 countries. The luncheon is also designed to emphasize raising funds and raising consciousness about treatment, care and research. Diana Feldman lost both her parents and her sister to cancer. She knows what’s important. The luncheon drives that point home in a warm and careful way. Hence: MoY. They raised more than $250,000 and there were more than 270 attending ... Paula Zahn emceed ... When the ACS was started 99 years ago (1913), the survival rate of those diagnosed was 1 in 10. By 1950 it was 1 in 5. Today we are 1 in 2. This year’s honorees the beautiful and young Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes, Dr. Emily Sonnenblick, both involved in cancer diagnosis and treatment, and Grace Hightower De Niro. Grace is a friendly and gentle woman, and very popular. She is involved in many charitable causes, either participating or supporting the causes and her friends who work for them. She is also the wife of Robert De Niro, who was there to present her with her award which he did with a charming, sort of casual, but real pride, in his wife." (NYSocialDiary)

"Connecticut, there’s an old, dilapidated building with a leaky roof that once housed a radio station. The building is an odd sight because Greenwich Avenue isn’t your average Main Street: lined with exorbitantly expensive stores, it’s the center of this famously moneyed enclave for New York’s financial elite. But the old radio station is being completely renovated, no expense spared, and in April it will open its doors as a modern yoga studio—and not the kind with stinky incense and smelly bodies, but rather with space, light, and a stylish boutique. The studio will bear the name Jois Yoga, in honor of Sri Krishna Pattabhi Jois, an eminent yoga teacher whose many students called him Guruji, and whose death on May 18, 2009, occasioned lengthy obituaries in such important newspapers as The New York Times and London’s Guardian. The money behind the new studio comes from Sonia Tudor Jones, whose husband, 57-year-old Paul Tudor Jones II, runs the multi-billion-dollar hedge-fund empire Tudor Investment Corp. Tudor is one of the oldest and most respected hedge funds—its flagship fund, Tudor BVI Global, has averaged annual gains of 21 percent over its 25-year history, according to The Wall Street Journal—and while very little about it is public, Forbes has estimated Paul Tudor Jones’s net worth at $3.2 billion ... Sonia feels that yoga has given her not just her health, but her life. 'I got married so young and didn’t have my own life,' she says. 'Now I’m coming into my own.' But Sonia’s involvement with Guruji’s heirs and their attempt to codify his teachings into something called Jois Yoga has created a current of unease and distress in the close-knit community of Ashtanga teachers, although few are expressing this openly, whether out of loyalty to Guruji’s memory, fear of the future, or hope that it will just go away. 'People are talking about it quietly, but quietly loudly,' as one teacher puts it. Many Ashtanga teachers have not just their livelihoods but their very existence tied up in the practice, and Jois Yoga, which from the outside can seem like one part Lululemon (the hugely successful line of high-end yoga clothing) and one part Yogaworks (the California-based chain of yoga studios), is a challenge to all of that. It feels like a commercial enterprise—or worse." (VanityFair)

"Diane von Furstenberg is set to be a grandmother again. We hear Ali Kay, fiancée of her son Alexander von Furstenberg, is expecting their first child and is about three months along. Ali has been a face of DVF’s brand and Diane told Page Six Magazine in 2010, 'In a lot of ways, I see A.K. in me.' She added, 'My business is a family business. I hope my grandchildren will take over . . . They can start interning soon. It’s in their genes.' Diane already has three grandchildren." (PageSix)

"'Normal' is a contested word in fashion. Are the space-seductress suits and psychedelic sweatshirts that have marched down the runways this week normal? Maybe not. But as Dasha Zhukova, editirix of the recently launched Garage, put it, part of the fashion pro's job is to 'redefine what 'normal' is.' So maybe a small party for friends isn't normally the sort that draws two generations of Pinaults (father François and son François-Henri, with wife Salma Hayek); runway stalwarts like Lily Donaldson, Karlie Kloss, and Arizona Muse; just about every editor in fashion's galaxy; designers like Gareth Pugh and Miuccia Prada; and the legendary Jean-Paul Goude. At Garage's cocktail in Paris last night, reality was redefined. Welcome to Dasha's New Normal." (Style)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"On March 5, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with President Barack Obama at the White House. The Iranian nuclear program will undoubtedly be the prime subject of the meeting, the outcome of which could decide for the Israeli leader whether to send Israel's air force to bomb Iran. In a recent column, I discussed the time pressure weighing on Netanyahu and his military advisers, and why the sanctions effort organized by Obama and European leaders is not working fast enough for Israel. At next week's meeting, Netanyahu may ask that Obama publicly issue an ultimatum threatening U.S. military action unless Iran lays itself bare to international nuclear inspectors. Without such a dramatic escalation, Netanyahu and his colleagues may conclude that Israel will have to attack Iran alone, and soon. Obama will be loath to commit the United States to such a drastic step to resolve a problem it sees as having much less urgency. With an Israeli strike imminent, Obama must select between two courses of action. First, he can attempt to forestall war by joining and reinforcing the Israeli military threat against Iran, in the hope that such a strong commitment will convince Iranian leaders to open their nuclear program to full inspections, or risk losing it to bombing. A March 1 Bloomberg article hinted at 11th-hour support from some officials inside the Obama administration for this course of action. And recent suggestions by unnamed Pentagon officials that Iran's Fordow mountain uranium enrichment site might not be impregnable after all, as previously suggested, could be a late-arriving signal of U.S. resolve.However, such a late conversion to a hawkish stance would be a great gamble for Obama." (Foreignpolicy)

"As a nation, and as individuals, we Israelis carry a lot of pain within us. It is the pain of pogroms and disasters, most significantly the Holocaust, that have struck our people throughout the generations. It is the pain of wars, of numerous terrorist acts, of casualties from missile attacks. It is the plight of new immigrants from the heart of Africa or the former Soviet Union relocated to a new homeland. But there is something more—for the past decade, we have been turning on our radios and television sets every morning and listening to leader after leader from Tehran declaring his dream of annihilating Israel and showing us how he intends to do so. We almost get used to it and go on with our daily lives, but every now and then we are reminded of the lessons from our past, as memorial days and Jewish feasts teach us the lesson not to trust anyone but ourselves. For more than two years, every Israeli has had to prepare for a possible war with Iran. Drills have taken place all over the country day in, day out. Special units of the Home Front command have been established, and national exercises held, with the prime minister down to the last civil servant all participating in a national disaster drill. I will never forget when, as minister of welfare and social services, I attended a drill at a home for mentally challenged adults and escorted them to the shelter amid the sound of the sirens. Command and control centers have been established in expectation of the moment the Iranians and their agents in the region, such as Hizbullah and Hamas, could launch a grand missile attack." (TheDailyBeast)

"HE GAVE it all he had. He quoted from Martin Luther King—'I have a dream' —before moving on to Lermontov’s poem Borodino—'By Moscow then we die/As have our brethren died before!'—and then seamlessly into Vyacheslav Molotov—'The fight continues. The victory will be ours.' He worked the crowd hard: his voice roared, his face twitched. 100,000 people brought in from all over Russia cheered.Public campaigning does not come naturally to Vladimir Putin, former KGB man, former Russian president and current Russian prime minister; preferring to wield power behind closed doors, a staged photo opportunity is more his mark. When, last September, he announced in the same Moscow arena that he would swap jobs with Dmitry Medvev, Russia’s president, and return to the Kremlin after the March 4th election, he was distinctly low key.Since the outcome was predetermined, there was at first not much by way of a campaign. But after a wave of protests against his job swap, and the subsequent rigging of December’s parliamentary elections, Mr Putin has been forced into a much more combative mode; Russia is under threat, he says, calling on his supporters to mobilise for a final battle against enemies foreign and domestic.The threat to Russia is imaginary; the threat to Mr Putin and his system is real. It can be seen in the way he has become the subject of jokes. Stunts such as diving for (planted) ancient amphoras have been met with ridicule. State television’s decision to report a foiled assassination plot against him in the week of the election provoked cynical laughter. The colourful, almost festive protest marches against him have attracted celebrities (openly) and the wives of government officials (secretly).A few days after Mr Putin’s rally, 'the enemy' encircled the Kremlin. On a snowy Sunday afternoon some 20,000 Muscovites held hands along the 16-kilometre ring road, sporting the white ribbons that have become the symbol of protest. Motorists honked support." (Economist)

"Every year around late February, the government puts out the Economic Report of the President, which includes a whole bunch of historical charts on the state of the economy that you can download as Excel spreadsheets. Most years I combine them all into one big spreadsheet and try to draw some conclusions. The exercise has been fun because through the 1990s and 2000s, it showed that, on average, Democratic presidents make better Republicans than Republicans do. That is, if you’re interested in higher growth, lower inflation, less government spending and taxes, and so on (and even if you don’t care much about the poverty rate or number of Americans without health-care insurance), your best bet over the past half-century -- on average -- has been to vote Democratic for president. Of course, this assumes falsely that the president controls the economy all by himself, without Congress or the Federal Reserve or the laws of nature playing any role. But then, the same false assumption is the basis for most of our presidential politics. You can also quarrel with my 'methodology,' if it even deserves such a term. But any conceptual errors or mistakes of math on the attached spreadsheet are truly accidental and don’t skew the results in favor of my own preferences. Honest.  However, my own preference this year was to skip the whole thing, because I feared the result. When George W. Bush was busy turning a federal surplus into an enormous deficit, the spreadsheet provided plenty of opportunity to gloat. But now that President Barack Obama -- though largely for good reason --has made Bush and all his other predecessors look like pikers in the deficit department, I worried that the spreadsheet might spread disenchantment." (Michael Kinsley)

"Danilo Stern-Sapad writes code for a living, but don’t call him a geek. He wears sunglasses and blasts 2Pac while programming. He enjoys playing Battle Shots—like the board game Battleship, but with liquor—at the office. He and his fellow coders at Los Angeles startup BetterWorks are lavished with attention by tech industry recruiters desperate for engineering talent. 'We got invited to a party in Malibu where there were naked women in the hot tub,' says Stern-Sapad, 25. 'We’re the cool programmers.' Tech’s latest boom has generated a new, more testosterone-fueled breed of coder. Sure, the job still requires enormous brainpower, but today’s engineers are drawn from diverse backgrounds, and many eschew the laboratory intellectualism that prevailed when semiconductors ruled Silicon Valley. 'I don’t need to wear a pocket protector to be a programmer,' says John Manoogian III, a software engineer and entrepreneur. At some startups the pendulum has swung so far in the other direction that it’s given rise to a new 'title': brogrammer. A portmanteau of the frathouse moniker 'bro' and 'programmer,' the term has become the subject of a Facebook group joined by over 21,000 people; the name of a series of hacker get-togethers in Austin, Tex.; the punch line for online ads; and the topic of a humorous discussion on question-and-answer site Quora titled 'How does a programmer become a brogrammer?' (One pointer: Drink Red Bull, beer, and 'brotein' shakes.) 'There’s a rising group of developers who are much more sociable and like to go out and have fun, and I think brogramming speaks to that audience,' says Gagan Biyani, co-founder and president of Udemy, a startup that offers coding lessons on the Web." (BusinessWeek)

"Standing on bohemian, buzzing Bermondsey Street in south London, outside Europe’s biggest commercial art gallery, its owner Jay Jopling gazes through a row of upright, painted steel fins that demarcates the courtyard. “I wanted a low wall, to be welcoming, open, but the local planning department wouldn’t allow it,” he explains. 'I never forget walking down Cork Street [in Mayfair] as a student and the gallerists watching me, sizing up whether I could afford pictures or not. All my galleries have big glass doors. This building is simple, democratic – an open front, a white cube in the middle. It’s very transparent. It isn’t just for people buying art' ... Since he began representing the Young British Artists in the early 1990s, Jopling, Eton-educated son of a Tory peer, has trod a tightrope between privilege and populism. 'I always liked to collide the establishment with the avant-garde,' he says. Today, in art world terms, Jopling, 48, is the establishment. Three White Cube galleries – the others are in Hoxton and Piccadilly – dominate London’s contemporary art landscape; a fourth opened on Friday in Hong Kong. From March 9, all four will simultaneously show Gilbert and George’s “The London Pictures” – a statement underlining Jopling’s global ambition." (FT)

"In 2010, New York social dynasty darling Daphne Guinness bought the entire wardrobe estate of late fashion editor (and personal friend), Isabella Blow, to avoid her myriad of unique items from going up on Christie’s auctioning block. (She later called the impromptu purchase 'the maddest decision ever.') Perhaps paying off her karmic debt to the auction house for denying them Ms. Blow’s iconic outfits, Ms. Guinness will be donating 100 of her own pieces for her own Christie’s charity auction on June 27th. All the proceedings from the event will be going to the brand new Isabella Blow Foundation, dedicated to funding young talent in art and design. According to Christie’s site, they hold no hard feelings about the Isabella Blow incident." (Drew Grant)

"Super Tuscan wines have gone in and out of fashion several times since someone first thought up this moniker for wines that didn’t fit the DOC rules for Chianti. Among the first Super Tuscan wines to make a splash were Tignanello and Le Pergole Torte which were, like Chianti, sangiovese based wines. But the term has come to be most closely associated with Bordeaux-blend wines from the Bolgheri region, particularly since Sassicaia grabbed the attention of the wine world with its spectacular 1985 vintage. Sassicaia, Ornellaia and Solaia were all the rage in the late nineties, when I first visited the area, their profiles raised in part by the new wave of Italian restaurants springing up in this country at the time. Angelo Gaja, the baron of Barbaresco, ended up buying into the boom, purchasing land in this area whose proximity to the sea gives it more moderate temperatures than the hills of Chianti. The inevitable backlash set in, fanned by some poor vintages and the high prices that these wines had come to command. Nevertheless, winemaking has continued to improve as the vines get older and a recent string of great vintages make this a good time to revisit the category. These wines are still expensive, and take years to come around, but all of the major houses make second and even third wines which offer good value while being approachable on release." (Jay McInerney/WSJ)

"Like a sword with its hilt exposed and blade in the earth, I found a rusty machete. Inspired by the flower-scented day I decided I should try horticulture. I marched around my garden cutting everything unattractive. To tidy up some ragged browning tips I chopped at a plant taller than myself with impossibly long leaves like gigantic rabbit ears. Horribly, the stumps proceeded to leak sticky beads of milk with a garish stink like molten rubber. I had hurt the thing. I felt awful and I began to apologize, but I did not know how to convey my sentiments. Should I hug it?"(Christina Oxenberg)

"While Pierre Casiraghi is nursing his wounds in Monaco after a bar fight at Double Seven, his sister, Charlotte, has become the new face of Gucci. The 24-year-old beauty — granddaughter of Princess Grace and daughter of Princess Caroline — replaces Evan Rachel Wood as the luxury brand’s ambassador. Charlotte, an equestrian who wears custom Gucci attire to compete, is a fixture at fashion shows and appeared on the cover of French Vogue in September." (PageSix)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"A hallmark of U.S. President Barack Obama's approach to Israel has been to confront Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly about areas of disagreement almost every time they meet. The headlines are always about settlements, occupied territory in Jerusalem, restraining Bibi on Iran, and pushing Israel on borders. Obama's theory seems to be that you have to show daylight with Israel to get progress on peace and win friends in the Muslim world. But what if the president tried the opposite approach? He could begin by using his speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference this coming Sunday, March 4, to build trust and win the confidence of the Israeli government as a foundation for future diplomatic cooperation. What could Obama do to set a new tone? Here are four ideas." (ForeignPolicy)

"The streets of Manhattan were cleared yesterday for President Barack Obama’s fundraising swing–his 100th on the re-election cycle– that netted his re-election campaign a reported $5 million.
But Mr. Obama’s visit wasn’t entirely without turbulence.At a fundraiser at ABC Carpet and Home heavy with younger, hipper donors than most big ticket campaign events –it was co-hosted by former Congressional candidate Reshma Sauani, author Deepak Chopra and rap impressario Russell Simmons–the president bragged about the United States being a 'pacific power,' and was shortly thereafter called out by an audience member. 'Use your leadership,' a woman yelled.  'No war with Iran.' The president stopped his remarks to rebuke the heckler. 'Nobody has announced a war, young lady,' Mr. Obama responded, then told her that she was, 'Jumping the gun a little bit.' The woman was soon drowned out by cheers." (Observer)

"Sunday night at the Oscars ended for a lot of the stars and the winners at the Sunset Tower Hotel in West Hollywood where Graydon and Anna Carter were hosting their Annual Vanity Fair Oscar Party. It was a big night for everybody including the fashion designers." (NySocialDiary)

Jessica Rayne

"GSTAAD—It’s early in the silvery morning light as I look out my window up here in the heights. A batallion of wispy white clouds hides behind the surrounding mountains—a reminder that a perfect dawn makes for a perfect day’s skiing ... As I sat down to write this, I read about Dmitri Nabokov’s passing. The son of the great Vladimir, he was as good-looking a man as a Don Juan deserves to be. He was also a writer, a racing driver, an opera singer who made his debut in La Boheme alongside Luciano Pavarotti, and a translator of his father’s Russian books. A Greek friend of mine who was having wife trouble once rang me from Athens and asked if I could arrange a Gstaad dinner which would amuse his wife, who was getting bored in Greece. I asked Pat Buckley if she would put them up in Le château de Rougemont, where the Buckleys wintered back then. Pat placed Dmitri next to the bored Greek wife, who almost swooned upon meeting him. He was very tall and very masculine, and he came up the stairs singing an operatic aria. After dinner my friend came up to me and asked me if I’d had a leave of my senses. He didn’t speak to me for the next ten years.I had discussed his father’s The Enchantress with Dmitri. I now apply the book’s title to Jessica Raine, AKA Nurse Jenny of Call the Midwife. I feel the ache of longing for someone who is just out of reach. I also know that desiring is often better than getting. (I really don’t mean that in Jessica’s case, in case she’s reading.) All last week the King of Greece made fun of my Jessica obsession. “While your majesty laughs, I suffer,” was all I said to him. Then I produced a couple of pictures of her cut out from the Daily Telegraph and left them in front of his dinner plate. (I have about ten of them, all the same—Jenny riding on her bicycle.) Alas, my yearning for an unreachable woman continues."  (Taki)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"When North Korean leader Kim Jong Il died late last year, analysts had no clear idea what the accession of his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, might mean for the Hermit Kingdom. On Feb. 29 this leap year -- appropriately enough -- we got an initial hint, when Pyongyang agreed to suspend work at the state-of-the-art uranium-enrichment plant at Yongbyon that it had suddenly revealed to a visiting U.S. nuclear scientist in November 2010, to halt nuclear and missile tests, and to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency back into the country after a six-year absence. The new deal with the United States, concluded in exchange for 240,000 tons of food aid, will not eradicate the North Korean threat. It augurs well, however, for Kim Jong Un's foreign-policy smarts and will be seen internationally as a diplomatic victory for U.S. President Barack Obama. The deal is no permanent solution because Pyongyang retains enough plutonium for four to 12 atomic bombs (with so many unknown variables, a more exact calculation is impossible). It is also presumed to be capable of producing more weapons using highly enriched uranium (HEU) at hidden facilities. North Korea has rebuffed Washington's demands to reveal the full scale of its enrichment program, but the 2,000-centrifuge uranium-enrichment plant at Yongbyon -- whose size and sophistication left visiting Stanford University professor Siegfried Hecker 'stunned' in 2010 -- was capable of producing a weapon's worth of HEU every year. Pyongyang has now relinquished that potential production. North Korea's agreement to suspend nuclear and missile tests is also significant. Its two nuclear tests and three tests of medium-range ballistic missiles have all failed to one degree or another, so military leaders presumably want to conduct more to get the technology right. Kim will have less power to resist such military demands. Luckily for him, his father authorized negotiations with the United States that began shortly before the elder Kim's death in late December. After a hiatus for mourning, the talks resumed in February before producing this leap day's agreement." (ForeignPolicy)

"John Bull -- the British equivalent of Uncle Sam -- was prominently featured on British armed forces recruiting posters during World War I, pointing a finger and asking, 'Who’s absent? -- Is it you?' In the case of the Virginia primary, he who is absent is Rick Santorum. And it’s going to cost him, big time, on Super Tuesday. Because only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul are on the Virginia ballot, Romney -- who we expect to sweep the Old Dominion -- starts off with a big lead on Super Tuesday courtesy of Virginia. That built-in advantage will make it exceedingly difficult for Santorum to finish the day with more delegates than Romney. In fact, we expect Romney to win more delegates on Super Tuesday than Rick Santorum, probably many more. Being that this is the Crystal Ball, we’re fearlessly -- and, to be sure, recklessly in at least some instances -- projecting these 11 contests (10 Super Tuesday states plus Washington on March 3) as well as delegate totals for all four candidates. Do we expect these numbers to be exact? Of course not. Projecting delegates, as we have noted before, is something of a fool’s errand, especially because some of these states are non-binding caucuses (making their events little more than beauty contests). Our intention here is not to give a precise accounting of the specific -- and often very confusing -- delegate allocation rules or quibble about a delegate here or a superdelegate there. We’ll leave that to the lawyers in the unlikely case of a contested convention. Rather, we want to provide you, our readers, with a rough guesstimate of how the next 11 contests will turn out and where the candidates will stand in the aftermath of Super Tuesday. A map showing our predicted winners in the 11 upcoming contests is above (three of the caucuses, Alaska, North Dakota and Washington, are too close to call)." (SabatosCrystalBall)

"I went down to Michael’s for lunch with Michael Gross the prolific author/ biographer whose work can often raise the hackles of some of the higher and mightier (or those who regard themselves thusly). Michael has a natural inclination to controversy, provided by his journalistic as well as cultural interests, and a tabloidalist’s nose for the news. His most recent book 'Unreal Estate' about real estate in what he calls the Platinum Triangle of Beverly Hills, Bel Air and Holmby Hills, has been on the Los Angeles Times best-seller list for 13 weeks now. I wrote about it here. It’s riveting not only because of the stories Michael has mined about the occupants of the palaces in these neighborhoods but because it’s in the most exotic metropolis on the North American continent to live in. Meanwhile HBO has picked up the rights to 'Unreal Estate.' Michael’s was its Wednesdays full-up. Around the corner from us, Dan Rather and friend; next door: Peter Brown and guest, and on the other side, Jason Binn. Around the room: Jackie Leo with Steve Kroft ..." (NYSocialDiary)

"Fortunately I am not one of the newly unemployed. But if I found myself jobless and needing to earn a few bucks, there are lots of ways to get back in the game. If one is really desperate, offering to volunteer in the sort of establishment one would like to work is a good way to let the boss know you are a solid worker and a decent soul. Solid workers and decent souls seem to be dying breeds.
One must remember that there is no job too small. I am not a maid, but I like to serve others and to clean. If I had to start over and move downstairs so to speak, I’d aim to one day become the head maid. I am serious. If I had to choose another profession I would be a maid or a personal assistant. I have the skills, and I like to think I have the humility. Surely some of you will think this is rubbish and that I have been spoiled all my life. In part, this is true. But every now and then I get down on my hands and knees to clean one toilet or another. Sometimes the bowl is my own. Other times it belongs to someone else. I do this because I prefer a clean loo to a filthy one. I also do it out of respect for the owner and the next visitor. Most importantly, I do it to remind myself that despite the fact that a nice Polish lady cleans my john once a week, I am not above the task." (Mandolyna Theodoracopulos)

"It was a night of firsts for Anthony Vaccarello. There was the new shoe collaboration with Giuseppe Zanotti, which debuted on his runway. There was Karlie Kloss, who staged a catwalk comeback at his show after a much blogged-about absence from New York, London, and Milan. And—maybe most memorably—there was Caviar Kaspia. Zanotti hosted a dinner for Vaccarello there, and the designer's supermodel posse—Kloss, Anja Rubik, and Arizona Muse—all turned up in looks from the new collection. Kanye West was in the house, too. The slinky, deconstructed dress Karlie wore didn't leave much room for caviar-smothered potato, but the girl was game. Picnic table feasts of blue crabs with Old Bay seasoning are a family tradition at her grandmother's Chesapeake Bay home, she reported." (Style)

"Republican fund-raiser Georgette Mosbacher is considering running for the Senate seat left vacant by outgoing Olympia Snowe of Maine, who announced her retirement on Tuesday after 33 years. Sources close to Mosbacher, who is also CEO of cosmetics company Borghese and was once married to Robert Mosbacher, the secretary of commerce under George H.W. Bush, is seeking counsel from several high- ranking GOP members. “Georgette has been approached by several high-ranking Republicans arguing that she could put $10 million or more together quickly and make a race out of it,” said GOP campaign consultant Ed Rollins, who has engineered strategy for Ronald Reagan, Mike Huckabee and Michele Bachmann. Rollins also explained that Mosbacher 'spent a lot of time in Maine' when her then husband served as a campaign chair for Bush’s presidential campaign. The redheaded Mosbacher, who has in the past thrown her muscle behind John McCain and Mitt Romney, would face a few hurdles — including having to establish residency in Maine by the March 15 signature-filing deadline for potential candidates. Sources say she’s 'seriously thinking about it' — and has already started looking at houses in the state." (PageSix)