We’re Still Not Sure He’s Well-Suited For The Job
Lauding Bill Clinton as “the first American president to wear designer suits,” the fashion mavens at W magazine link the president’s “renewed political viability” to his “leaner physique and a presidential stature.”
Motion Picture Association of America president Jack Valenti, who used to advise Lyndon Johnson, says Clinton’s “suits used to hang down and he looked like he was overweight. Now his suits are more fitted, and he looks like he’s lost 25 pounds.”
W says the new image is due to workouts in Clinton’s private gym (although the White House ignored a request to confirm the weight loss) and the expert attentions of his tailor.
But novelist and essayist Christopher Buckley begs to differ: “Clinton is puffy and adipose with Michelin thighs.”
Loose talk
Dennis Miller, on Americans’ lack of interest in politics: “It can be traced directly back to our ever-decreasing attention spans. We need anything politically important rationed out like Pez: small, sweet and coming out of a funny plastic head.”
Banana cake, you say? He’ll have seconds
Al Gore Jr. turns 48 today.
And it’s the UNCUT ‘Close Encounters’!
The Los Angeles Times reported this play-by-play over Secret Service radios during the president’s recent visit to the Malibu home of entertainment mogul David Geffen: “OK, it looks like he (Clinton) is getting up to leave now. Oh, he’s back down on the couch. Oh, no! (Steven) Spielberg’s putting another video in. Looks like we’re going to be here until midnight.”
Turning it, of course, into a political football
And speaking of Al Gore, according to Washingtonian magazine, when students at National Presbyterian School in Washington, D.C., threw a football over their playground fence and into the street the other day, the vice president stopped his passing motorcade, got out of his limousine, picked up the ball and tossed it back inside.
But Dan’s still struggling with the big words
Former second lady Marilyn Quayle and her sister have published their second thriller, “The Campaign,” with no sex, no naughty words and only brief violence. Said Quayle: “I wanted my children to be able to read the book, and my father, too, and not be embarrassed.”
At least everything was spelled correctly
While former Education Secretary William Bennett, author of “The Book of Virtues,” was speaking at a highly regarded academic high school in Bethesda, Md., students spray-painted his car with such slogans as “Morality is a matter of taste.”
So that’s what they mean by ‘drag anchor’
The woman in charge of CBS’ political coverage, Susan Zirinsky, says women reporters on the campaign trail are “more multidimensional” and “less cynical” than their male counterparts. With one exception, that is: Dan Rather. “Dan has the enthusiasm of a girl,” Zirinsky says. “There is a girl’s soul lurking in him.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Photos
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Compiled by staff writer Rick Bonino