World News Center
First Lady Contenders Who Are Women First
May 26, 2010The wives of the Democratic candidates have been something of a visual relief to those of us who have overdosed on fabulousness. Enough of the long, waxed legs of the Oscars and the silk-sheathed golden globes of the Golden Globes, enough of Paris, Nicole, J. Lo and Jennifer. Here come the worthy women of politics.
Not Putting Their Money Where His Mouth Is
May 26, 2010The ebbing of Howard Dean was a palpable relief to most of New York's big Democratic donors. "We are alive!" one leading fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee exulted the morning after Iowa. "I've finally got a product I can work with," was the way John Kerry fundraiser Toni Goodale put it.
Paul O'Neill, Odd Duck Out of Water
May 26, 2010Former treasury secretary Paul O'Neill has chosen to tell his story about his two unhappy years in the Bush Cabinet in a form that's as weird as he is: the Third Person Memoir.
The Real Reality Show: An '80s Survivor
May 26, 2010 You would think in the age of 9/11 that no one could be more beside the point than Donald Trump. Yet tonight he gets to dust off his act again, playing his cartoonish self in a new reality show, "The Apprentice," in which a bunch of out-of-town entrepreneur-wannabes compete to work for him.
A Month Full of Dates With Destiny
May 26, 2010January is the month when the other shoe drops. The news that the Bush administration just got itself a special prosecutor -- a man described as "Eliot Ness with a Harvard law degree and a sense of humor" -- to investigate the Valerie Plame leak is just another cause for people in power to sing "O Crappy Day!" as the new year rolls around.
Tough Time For Democrats
May 26, 2010The night before the announcement of Saddam's capture (round about the time that the tyrant was having a flashlight shone up his nose) I was at a media-heavy Manhattan dinner party that vividly dramatized the pre-spider hole mood. The guests -- mostly Democrats, with a smattering of moderate Republicans -- were unanimously kissing off Bush. It had been a particularly obnoxious week for a crowd that favors a more metrosexual approach to foreign relations: The Pentagon had displayed its upraised middle finger to France, Germany and Russia just as James Baker was due to leave for the Continent to romance the Euros into forgiving Iraq's debt. From appetizer to espresso, the guests bemoaned the administration's crudeness, incompetence and dangerous lack of diplomatic finesse.
Paris Hilton, in an Age Beyond Embarrassment
May 26, 2010The success of society babe Paris Hilton's reality TV show "The Simple Life," hard on the heels of the bootleg porn tape showing her steamily in flagrante delicto with her dirtbag then-boyfriend Rick Solomon, proves once again there is no such thing as bad press. We live in the post-embarrassment age. New promotional and marketing offers are pouring in for Paris, and a sequel (to the Fox series, not the sex tape) is in the works. Today, if some private sex act of yours winds up on the Internet, the only appropriate response is: How did I look?
DreamWorks Deal a Fantasy Made True
May 26, 2010There was something heartwarming about the sale of DreamWorks for an irrationally exuberant $1.6 billion to Viacom's Paramount Pictures this week instead of to its longtime suitor, General Electric's NBC Universal. It proved all over again that even if Hollywood looks overrun with corporate suits and marketing drones, it's still activated by emotion and perception.
The Future Face Of Network News
May 26, 2010Joe Gillis (William Holden): You're Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.
Anonymous Sources And a Known Quantity
May 26, 2010Media life seems to have turned into one long cannibal feast, a fratricidal Thanksgiving dinner minus the giving of thanks. No sooner have we finished dining out on roast Judith Miller with stuffing than we are ready for a nice, big slice of Bob Woodward pie.
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