As you know, GOP sachems are hewing to the official line on swingin' Jack Ryan: They still back him, and they say the race should be decided on "issues," not sexual peccadilloes. That argument seems so familiar. . . can't quite place it. In any case: Issues. Fine. Several Wonkette readers wrote in to suggest what issues Ryan might want avoid, like, say, "the defense of marriage."
[more...]• Reliable Source: Cuomo denied opportunity to defend "Fahrenheit 9/11" in front of MPAA board. . . CNN said Rumsfeld authorized "Water boarding" of detainees, then retracts error five times in five hours. . . Figure in My Life disputes Clinton's account. . . Biden imitated Trump in the Oval Office: "I turned to Vice President Cheney, who was there, and I said, 'Mr. Vice President, I wouldn't keep you if it weren't constitutionally required.' I turned back to the president and said, 'Mr. President, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld are bright guys, really patriotic, but they've been dead wrong on every major piece of advice they've given you. That's why I'd get rid of them, Mr. President...' They said nothing. Just sat like big old bullfrogs on a log and looked at me." [WP]
• Heard on the Hill: Allard supports ban on gay marriage but presents former intern with PFLAG award. . . Full-page ad to "Fight Back Against Liberal ‘Hand-Wringers of America!'" runs in USAT, communicates outrage over outrage prison scandal. [Roll Call]
• Rush & Molloy: DraftBruce.com wants Springsteen concert in Giants Stadium the night of Bush's acceptance speech in New York. [NYDN]
• Cindy Adams: Clinton in negotiations for books two and three. [NYP]
• Bush camp, MoveOn in ad fight over quality of new jobs. Chief economist for Morgan Stanley: "Despite the well-advertised pick-up of job growth, recent trends in real wage income remain very disappointing." Matthew Dowd: "Every time there has been positive news on the economy, it has been overwhelmed by news out of Iraq. Nobody heard it until recently, when Iraq was getting more settled." [WP and WSJ]
• Kerry returns to Washington for vote on veterans' health care funding, but Republicans postpone vote. Frist: "Senator Kerry, who hadn't been here all year, who's missed 80 percent of all votes, parachutes in for a day and then will be taking off once again." Kerry: "At this time of great sacrifice, it is even more important that we show our veterans that we honor them and respect them, and we have to show them with more than words, we have to show them with our deeds." [WP and NYT and LAT and WT]
• Two addresses, one in LA, one in NY, donate the most to each candidate. LA high-rise has routed $297,000 to Bush; 146 Central Park West has provided $192,000 for Kerry. [NYT]
Drudge, in his usual understated manner, suggests
Oh, yes, mystery bracelet. Perhaps it's one of those "sex bracelets" we've heard so much about. Or maybe, let's see, it could be a crocheted bracelet given to him by some children from a small village in Colombia. Sort of like it's been reported elsewhere:
We ask him about the red and blue crocheted band around his right wrist - an incongruous clash with the statesman attire. For the first time in the interview he becomes emotional, the voice catching and his eyes redening. "I've worn it for two years. I went there [to Colombia] and met these unbelievable kids from a village on the edge of the rainforest where the narco-traffickers are dominant" [. . .] "Two years ago they asked me back and I said, 'I'll come, but you've got to bring those kids to see me.' . . . And they gave me this bracelet, which I've never taken off."That's probably a clue of some sort, the whole explanation thing. But you know Clinton. . . We're not ruling out "sex bracelet" yet.
CLINTON SPORTS MYSTERY BRACELET [Drudge Report]
The Bill Clinton Interview [Guardian UK]
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Playgirl wants you to pick "which anchorman would you most like to see in Playgirl." As an avid cable news consumer, I can attest there are some genuinely sexy know-it-alls (we likes 'em snarky!) scattered among the bubbleheads, but Playgirl's list seems lifted from AARP Magazine, not Fleshbot. I mean, please: Geraldo Rivera? Wolf Blitzer? Andy fucking Rooney? The only Playgirl readers who want to see these gentlemen naked are the ones with an unnatural attachment to their Shar-peis.
And so many names are missing! What about Tucker Carlson? Joe Scarborough? Aaron Brown? Sigh. We'll be writing in Chris Matthews (of course), but we all know who's going to win: Pretty boy Cooper. Because he appeals to all those straight women who subscribe to Playgirl.
Playgirl Magazine Vote! [Playgirl via DCRTV]
Joe Scarborough, trying very hard:
Well, Michael, we have invited you to visit SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY this week. We invited you earlier this month. And we are waiting for your reply. I want you to come on SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY. I will meet you any time, anyplace, anywhere, one hour. We will go straight through. We will talk about “Fahrenheit 9/11,” the claims you are making about that, the claims you are making about George Bush, the claims you are making about Iraq, the claims you are making about the bin Laden family.[more...]Heck, we‘ll even talk about the claims that you made in your last movie. Whatever you want to do. You name the time, the place. We will be there. I will bring Mike along. He will have the camera. Whatever you want, wherever you want, we will be there.
So it turns out -- and this is kind of hilarious -- that whole Iraq/al Qaeda thing? A bit of a mix-up there. When the administration said an al Qaeda operative was also a member of Saddam's Fedayeen, they may have confused Ahmad Hikmat Shakir Azzawi, the official al Qaeda "airport greeter" (so polite, the jihadists), with Lt. Col. Hikmat Shakir Ahmad, the Iraq militia man. An administration official has suggested that this mistake was a bit boneheaded, noting that it seems odd that a lieutenant colonel in one army would collect people's bags in another organization: "By most reckoning that would be someone else." But come on now: There's only, what, six letters and an entire word transposition difference in their names! Anyone could get it wrong.
And it's not like it's never happened before: Who can forget the madcap sit-comish hijinks that ensued when the U.S. supported Ira-q rather than Ira-n back in the 80s? Yikes! But you know how they all look alike.
Reuters headline writers make it explicit:
Clinton book hype reaches climax [Reuters]
With Clinton so much in the news, it's good to know that the Dems are not the only party who can overlook a candidate's outlandish sex-freak ways. Illinois senatorial GOP candidate Jack Ryan's divorce papers have been plaguing him the entire campaign and the latest revelations are Starr report-level steamy: In them, Ryan's ex-wife (Jeri Ryan, former alien hottie, later cast in the equally improbable role of a Boston public school teacher) accuses him of taking her to several sex clubs and says he asked her to get jiggy with him in front of other couples. Bright side for the family values folks: She insists he didn't cheat on her.
And speaking of fidelity: The Republicans, at least at this point, are sticking by their man. True, sources at BC04 say that the campaign will steer clear of Illinois, since allegations of sex clubs with "cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling" give an exciting if unwholesome connotation to the term "battleground state."
[more...]• Under the Dome: Former Reagan mourners sell programs on eBay. . . Frist misses medicine. . . Invites to Luntz's party sent out. . . Carson Daly toured the Hill. [The Hill]
• Reliable Source: Teresa's pumpkin spice cookie recipe for Family Circle already judged a loser. . . Party for Moore with 500 guests planned at Leftbank. [WP]
• Approval of Bush's handling of war on terror down 13% since April, according to WP/ABC poll. Nation divided over who is stronger against terror; 52% say Iraq war was not worth fighting; 70% -- a new high -- say casualty rate is unacceptable; Bush's approval rating stable; voters trust Bush more with handling Iraq but majorities prefer Kerry for health care, taxes, education, drug benefits. [WP]
• Bush may chose permanent successor to Tenet to protect from forthcoming reports, books critical of administration, and to preempt fallout if there is a terrorist attack. [NYT]
• Bush visits Ohio, raises $2.5 million, promotes conservative values under banner of "Strengthening America's Families." [NYT and LAT]
AIM: tipwonk
"Swims in the libidinal current of American politics." [Village Voice]
"Profanity-laced and sex-obsessed...[a] vain, young, trash-mouthed skank." [Michelle Malkin]
"Gossipy, raunchy, potty-mouthed." [New York Times]
"Its like having a drunken, sometimes vicious gossip session
without the hangover." [Electric Venom]
"A foulmouthed, inaccurate, opinionated little vixen."
[Richard Leiby]
"Plying gossip above all, eschewing serious debates about politics and policy."
[The Nation]
"The newest, funnest blogger on the block" [Andrew Sullivan]
"Wonkette's arrival on the steps of the Capitol is a quiet victory for creeping National Enquirer values." [Christian Science Monitor]
"[H]er enthusiasm for penis jokes cannot be as great as her blog suggests"
[Jack Shafer]
"A pre-menopausal Lucianne Goldberg"
[Reason]
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