HEADLINES AND STORIES TO LOVE

Earlier this week in Monday Morning Quarterback, a regular correspondent wrote that Joe Biden "has the experience and the smarts to be a fine president." I myself like the Democratic senator's shoot-from-the-lip style. But voting for him over Hillary because "the Clinton baggage [might] make her easy to defeat," as our correspondent noted, is another matter. I'm not sure I want to vote for any candidate who is cut from the same establishment cloth as the rest of the Beltway pols.

Be that as it may, my staff of thousands has asked me to point out the Biden baggage. So here it is, headlined "Biden Looking At Presidential Run In 2008":

Senator Joe Biden confirmed that his statements on the CBS program "Face The Nation" last Sunday were accurate, [and] he is taking the first steps of staffing. Included in his staffing requirements will be a Proofreader and a Fact Checker.

Biden had to drop out of the 1988 race for the Democratic nomination, after it was revealed he plagiarized parts of a speech by British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock and that he had plagiarized in law school 20 years earlier.

Biden [above left, on NBC's "Meet the Press" with Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, of Nebraska] admitted that his campaign may come in fits-and-starts, as all his statements and writings will be reviewed before being spoken or released for publication. "Just think of it of watching a foreign movie with bad dubbing," joked Biden.

My staff of thousands also adores this headline from the same source: "U.S. Military To Begin Abusing Bible / New Policy Cites Need To Be 'Fair and Balanced.'" I'm partial to this one from another source: "Bush Diary -- At Least the War in Eye-Rack is Becoming Civil."

Rummy tells me the war in Eye-Rack is becoming a civil war. I am so glad! Courtesy is impawtant. Rummy says the Sunnys are blowing up the She-eye-tees and She-eye-tee vigilantees are assassinating Sunnys, but I say that as long as they keep it civil we have less to be conserned about. So it is good news from Eye-rack for a change!"

And this one caught my eye in today's New York Times, "On a Rare Visit, Bush Talks Up Atomic Power,":

George W. Bush on Wednesday made the first presidential visit to a nuclear plant in 26 years, and declared, "It is time for this country to start building nuclear power plants again." [He] offered his thanks to those who showed him around, especially control-room technicians, [and said, drawing chuckles,] "I can play like I understand what I saw."

While we sit still for it.

June 23, 2005 9:30 AM |

Categories:

Me Elsewhere

'WILD SIDE' STILL ROCKS 

Nelson Algren was one of the great American authors of the 20th century, it is no exaggeration to say, and among the most neglected. Consider his underrated classic, "A Walk on the Wild Side." The title -- popularized and co-opted as an idiomatic phrase by Hollywood and Madison Avenue (institutions Algren loathed) -- is familiar to most anyone who speaks English or knows Lou Reed's lyrics. But the novel itself? Hardly.

BUSTER KEATON REVISITED 
Buster Keaton: Tempest in a Flat Hat is not a biography. "This book is merely a fan's notes," Edward McPherson writes in the introduction, although his publisher ignores the disclaimer and calls it a biography on the cover. In fact, the book is a bit of both, a difficult combination to bring off unless you're David Thomson, who set the standard with Rosebud, his penetrating rumination on the life and career of Orson Welles, which was nothing if not a distillation of every obsessive thought he ever had about the myth and the man and all his movies.
LAUREN BACALL, STILL SALTY AT 80 
When Lauren Bacall writes that her singing voice ranges "somewhere between B minus sharp and outer space," she's being candid and funny. It's not every stage star with two Tony Awards for best actress in a musical whose vocal talent offers so little promise. (OK, Harvey Fierstein excepted.) Still less would one admit it.
THE STARS ACCORDING TO BOGDANOVICH 
Peter Bogdanovich's superb collection of movie-star profiles and interviews -- a sequel to Who the Devil Made It, his interviews of top film directors -- begins with an affectionate tale about Orson Welles that reminds us just how intimate the author's connection to Hollywood's greatest has been. But contrary to what we've come to expect from dime-a-dozen celebrities and celebrity interviews not worth two cents, the tale avoids bromidic egotism and journalistic platitudes.
HERMAN WOUK'S LATEST 
It's hard to say which comes off worse in Herman Wouk's latest novel, his first in a decade: the U.S. Congress or the American press. "A Hole in Texas" offers the choice between two emblematic stereotypes: a red-faced opportunist who heads the House Armed Services Committee and a mustachioed investigative reporter for the Washington Post.
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This page contains a single entry by published on June 23, 2005 9:30 AM.

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