5.16.03 @ 6:11PM
If that's what it takes.
We have a loser. Ms. Barbara Walters has been named to interview
Sen. Hillary Clinton on the eve of the former co-president's memoir
release. The news comes as another career setback for Ms. Wawa, as
she is popularly known, who ostensibly for national security
reasons last March had to delay release of her hot pre-Oscars
interview with Ms. Julianne Moore and cancel two others in their
entirety. The Moore segment eventually ran for one reason only.
Under the category, Don't Ask, Do Tell, Ms. Moore and Mr. Wawa
exchanged some sort of prolonged kiss during their encounter. "How
do I smell?" Ms. Moore asked afterward. "Divine," Ms. Wawa weplied.
Sen. Clinton has been duly warned. Something tell us she'll see any
repeat as the handiwork of Dick Morris.
Happy are those -- Diane, Oprah, Connie, Katie -- who weren't
chosen to ambush Sen. Clinton, though some will blame them for
lacking Ms. Wawa's bona fides as former primary interviewer of Ms.
Monica Lewinsky, the Fox entertainer. It's a tough business.
First Bill Bennett, now a former JKF intern falls victim to
privacy looters. What did Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. know, and when
did he know it? They called her Mimi, back when she was 19 as part
of a White House jobs program that taught typing to recent
graduates of New England private schools too penurious to prepare
its young women for secretarial work. Mimi currently figures in
Robert Dallek's new biography of John F. Kennedy, though who's to
say its portrait is definitive? On the one hand we learn that JFK
was the sickliest human being in America, carrying inside him more
emasculating steroids and meds than the entire NFL; on the other,
we're told he had a bigger appetite for women than the rampaging
Red Army of 1945. He remains a paradox.
Speaking of which, France is on the warpath again, in case you
haven't noticed and feel a need to express alarm. Please do, for it
will ease tensions and flatter a far-away country about which we
know nothing, other than that this time it really means business.
The charge: The Bush White House is spreading lies about its
humanitarian activities with regard to Iraq during the recent
unpleasantness. French choler is outrageous and insulting. For
isn't it an article of faith in Napoleon land that Americans, from
the president on down, are such dolts that they wouldn't even know
how to find France on a map, let alone spell it or even confess to
knowing of its existence? In which case, how can we be so clever,
devious, and low? So French, dare we say?
Or better yet, so Blumenthalian. To those in the dark, that's a
reference to the leading expositor of Democratic-Leninism, or, if
you prefer, Marxism-Clintonism or BillHill-Centralism. He's now
published a memoir of the Clinton Glory that most liberal reviewers
of sane or even insane disposition are finding an embarrassment of
sycophantic and posturing riches. Its subtext: Sid loved Bill more
than Monica ever could. He just wasn't as attractive.
A prettier former Clintonist, Mr. George Stephanopoulos,
according to Drudge, last Sunday drew the lowest ratings ever for
"This Week," the show he hosts. It's as if viewers were punishing
him for moderating the desultory debate of Democratic Dimwits in
Columbia, S.C. the previous week. Or maybe they just thought he
should join the candidates' ranks as well. Wouldn't George S. be a
more attractive presidential prospect than, say, Dick Gephardt or
John Kerry or even Dennis Kucinich? And next debate let Al Sharpton
moderate.
Now to solve the nation's most pressing problem. What is to be
done with Howell Raines? We warned him not to marry into the former
Polish nomenklatura, but he didn't listen. Now he has more
diversity than anyone growing up in Alabama ever dreamed off,
including a Polish daughter of a Polish friend of his new Polish
wife who stands accused of providing incriminating photographs from
the Times portfolio to inventive scribe Jayson Blair. This
could make a Flannery O'Connor story.
At a recent closed open meeting with Times servitors
and serfs at a burlesque house on Times Square, Raines begged for
his job, now that he has this huge extended Polish family to
support. Moved by his plight, publisher Punk Sulzberger declared he
would not allow Raines to be pushed aside. So much for our hopes of
seeing an interim triumvirate appointed to steer the Times
toward calmer waters. Wouldn't Bob Herbert, Anthony Lewis, and Tom
Wicker have been an ideal leadership crew? Or were you expecting
Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, and R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.?
As long as Howell Raines won't entertain a job change, how about
a name change? We recommend he now be called Harold Ramis, after
the kind and gentle soul who's given us Ghostbusters
(hint) and Groundhog Day (bigger hint). If our EOW wants
to clean up his act and his nightmare to end, he'd better get with
the program. Only then will he be able to live happily ever after
with his lovely Polish wife.
topics:
Hillary Clinton, Business, Iraq
