Category: The Dish

How do we disentangle the politics of leading journalists from their politically engaged spouses? CJR raises the question:

Rainey singles out the Los Angeles Times’ political reporter Ronald Brownstein, who is married to Sen. John McCain’s spokeswoman; Matt Cooper, a former Time writer and current Washington editor for the still-not-launched Portfolio magazine, who is married to a strategist for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign; Nina Easton, Fortune’s Washington bureau chief and Fox News analyst, who is married to a McCain media strategist; and NBC’s Campbell Brown, who is hitched to Republican flack Dan Senor, who recently turned down a job with the Mitt Romney campaign, to avoid the appearance of a conflict.

Maybe you shouldn’t cover a campaign if your spouse is working for one of the candidates. Or disclose it in every piece you file.

The leading Christianist wants more options in the GOP primary, not a good sign for Romney:

"With the current field, there is, as of now, some difficulty in getting economic, foreign policy, and social conservatives all on the same page," Mr. Bauer said. "So, in view of that, I would like to see Thompson throw his hat in. I think he’d have a reasonable chance of getting support from all three of the legs of the stool President Reagan put together."

As we used to say at TNR, at least it’s counter-intuitive:

Social conservatives don’t need a president who will mount a crusade to re-criminalize abortion nationwide. They need a president who can persuade the American people that proclaiming a constitutional right to abort is barbaric. In all the decades since Roe v. Wade no politician has ever made this point clearly and forcefully.

Giuliani could be the first. He could argue that there can’t be a right to do wrong more persuasively and with much less political risk than any pro-life true believer. Just as it took a career anti-Communist to normalize relations with China, it may take a politician with no pro-life credentials to terminate Harry Blackmun’s reign of error. By fighting for the proposition that Roe v. Wade has distorted our constitutional law long enough, Giuliani could do more to defeat the culture of death than any of his Republican predecessors.

My old friend, Kevin Sessums, has written a memoir of growing up gay in the deep South. It’s called "Mississippi Sissy." Michael Cunningham has this to say:

"Mississippi Sissy is a book I’ve been waiting for most of my life, though I didn’t fully understand that fact until I read the book. We have, as it turns out, been sorely missing a book by a writer who is equally at home with Flannery O’Connor and Jacqueline Susann; who understands that Eudora Welty and Johnny Weissmuller are not only members of the same species but are intricately related; whose wit and insight are up to the highs, lows, and in-betweens that compose life as we know it. Kevin Sessums is some sort of cockeyed national treasure."

Andy Towle has an interview with Kevin here. You can buy the book here.

A reader writes with respect to this item:

I’m an American living in a 375 square foot house in the South. Used to be a guest house made from an old outbuilding from a farm house somewhere here in town from the late 1800’s. Love it. It’s small and I constantly have to find places to put stuff, but I really adore it.

I used to live in one 13′ x 13′ room (169 square feet) off a barn with my partner and our 9 dogs, 9 cats.  We slept in a separate room that was 9′ x 7′ (63 square feet) for a grand total living space of 232 square feet. Loved it.

Each to his own. My Provincetown wharf condo is around 265 square feet. When I first bought it, it had three separate rooms, and almost no windows. I made it one room – with a shower nozzle in the middle pointed at a slate wall. Of course, the tininess is alleviated by a deck and a bay right before it. Round about now, I start dreaming of getting back there.

Apart from Obama-ads, they’re what YouTube was made for:

Arnold says so. I’m waiting for the first Republican to actively run against the toxins of Limbaugh, Coulter, Hannity and the rest. If the culture shifts more decisively against the angry right, I may not have to wait long. Which has got to worry Adam Bellow.

Lily Tomlin isn’t always cool under fire. Here’s another out-take from "I Heart Huckabees." Again: do not click if you have any problem with profanity. The air is puce.

The public’s disapproval of the Congress is back at 2006 levels. The Democrats had the briefest of honeymoons – and mostly because Democrats are ticked off:

It is difficult to pinpoint precisely what is behind the drop off in optimism about Congress among Democrats. One possibility is that Democrats are disappointed that their party has been unable to do anything substantive about the Iraq war — the dominant issue in last November’s midterm elections. The increase in the price of gas and/or other economic concerns may also be a factor. Overall satisfaction with the way things are going in the United States and ratings of economic optimism are both down in the March Gallup Poll.

England’s Andrew Flintoff is shown during a press conference at the team hotel in Rodney Bay, St. Lucia 19 March 2007. Flintoff apologized for his late-night antics which led to him being sacked as England’s vice-captain and banned for the game against Canada. The all-round player was reprimanded after he fell off a peddle boat in the sea following a late-night drinking session, early Saturday morning. (Photo: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty.)