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FAA: Chelsea Clinton’s wedding is a no-fly zone

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:25:00 +0000

Chelsea Clinton's wedding along the Hudson River will be under a no-fly zone.

The Federal Aviation Administration says local airspace will be restricted from 3 p.m. Saturday to 3:30 a.m. Sunday.

Clinton, the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, will wed investment banker Marc Mezvinsky on Saturday evening in Rhinebeck. That's about 90 miles north of New York City.

FAA spokesman Jim Peters says Thursday that decisions to restrict air space are made in consultation with other federal agencies. He could not confirm whether the Secret Service requested this one.

The FAA website says the restriction will be in place for "VIP (Very Important Person) Movement" but did not elaborate.

Chelsea Clinton’s big fat leaked wedding

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:01:00 +0000

Chelsea's getting married! Chelsea's getting married! ZOMG Chelsea's getting married!

What's that, you hadn't heard about the event that the former first daughter and her family have gone to great lengths to keep private, that her mother has emphatically stated is supposed to be "a family wedding"? You missed the three pieces in the New York Times, the AP story, the Washington Post's On Faith blog featuring Deepak Chopra? The multiple New York magazine, People and ABC updates on leaked guest lists, costs, security, tents and how much weight Bill Clinton has lost? What about TMZ's reported playlist of songs for Chelsea's band, or the Daily Beast's slide shows of her exes and of other presidential family weddings! What a shame to miss that last one, with it's bone-rattling American Gladiator setup about how "the countdown is on" to find out whether Chelsea's "rumored Rhinebeck blowout [will] best JFK Jr's secluded glamour." No doubt it's exactly what young Clinton was thinking, when she first sat down with boyfriend Marc Mezvinsky, their parents and an event planner to discuss their marriage: "OK, guys, do whatever you have to do, I just want to beat John-John!"

A future President Clinton?

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 17:32:00 +0000

The punditry's obsession with the Clintons might not ebb when and if Hillary fails to win the Democratic presidential nomination. It might just reattach itself to a new Clinton.

Wednesday morning, having already declared Hillary's presidential run all but over, National Review blogger Kathryn Jean Lopez anointed another Clinton as a political candidate. Lopez expressed her fondest hope/deepest fear in a post titled "My Clinton Prediction":

"When the House of Clinton falls next week, their exit from the presidential stage will not be the last we see of the Clinton family. Chelsea will return to do her parents' unfinished business in a few decades time. And she'll prove to be more Bill than Hillary in the political-skills department."

Lopez's prediction was only the latest in a week's worth of prognostications about Chelsea Clinton's future career as a politician. Of course, the fact that Chelsea has never expressed any interest in running for public office hasn't stopped the speculation.

MSNBC’s Shuster returns from suspension

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 00:21:00 +0000

MSNBC reporter David Shuster's suspension is up, and he says he has "no bitterness, no regrets."

Shuster was suspended for comments he made earlier this month about Chelsea Clinton's role in her mother's campaign: "Doesn't it seem like Chelsea is being pimped out in some weird sort of way?" he asked.

The Clinton campaign repeatedly hammered MSNBC over Shuster's comments, something some observers -- like Talking Points Memo's Greg Sargent -- attributed more to the actions of MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews than to Shuster. In an interview with TVNewser, Shuster seems to say that his suspension was at least in part because of things other than his comments. "Does it bother me that I was thrown under the bus to pay for the sins of the father? No," Shuster says. "As somebody who's covered politics for a while, I understand all the forces that were in play... I'm aware of the long list of complaints the Clinton campaign had about people from MSNBC... Tensions were clearly building. I was at the wrong place at the right time, or the right place at the wrong time. I don't know which."

In the interview, Shuster also provides another apology of sorts for his comment. "I have the responsibility to make my point precisely and aggressively, without using coarse language," Shuster says. "Clearly, it was inappropriate for a lot of viewers. I made a horrible mistake by allowing people to be distracted by some words rather than focus on the story."

Quote of the day

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:30:00 +0000

This marks a new low in MSNBC's Hillary hating. Yesterday, guest host David Shuster exploded at news that Chelsea Clinton is -- gasp! -- campaigning for her mother. When his guest, Bill Press, pointed out that the Bush twins did the same for their father, Shuster sputtered that Hillary Clinton is forcing her daughter to turn political tricks:

There's just something a little bit unseemly to me that Chelsea's out there calling up celebrities, saying support my mom ... doesn't it seem like Chelsea's sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?

(Via NewsBusters.)

Meghan McCain is not Chelsea Clinton

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 12:19:00 +0000

There is only one proper place for the candidate's daughter, sunny and smiling behind mom or dad on the stump, in the campaign ad, on election night as confetti rains down. Everything else is out of place, and fraught with danger. In American politics, the candidate's daughter has no right to thoughts, desires or a life of her own.

These rules are brutally enforced by the media. If one of the Bush twins gets drunk in college, falling over and straddling a girlfriend's leg, the camera snaps rock the tabloids, prompting a national dialog about underage drinking. If Chelsea Clinton goes to work for a hedge fund, she calls her mom's commitment to the poor into question. And nothing more needs to be said about Alexandra Kerry's see-through mishap on the Cannes red carpet, or Mary Cheney's attraction to women, or that time Ashley Biden was arrested for obstructing a police officer outside a North Side bar in Chicago.

The Fix

Thu, 13 Mar 2003 19:53:00 +0000

Elvis Costello was the substitute host for David Letterman last night and we must nominate the show for an Emmy. He started by singing "Letterman" to the tune of "Alison" then quipped: "Be nice to the British bloke. He's your last ally!" He chatted with "Sex and the City" star Kim Cattrall about female orgasms, bantered with Eddie Izzard about cross-dressing and playing Lenny Bruce. He kept the show moving without a hitch and ended by introducing himself and the Imposters and singing "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?" in a straight-ahead style that was a pitch-perfect mix of his angry young man/wise and witty headmaster personas. His last words to the audience were "Thanks to Dave for letting me warm his seat, so to speak, and may peace prevail." Declan rocks.

Update on the James Gandolfini battle with HBO: The fifth season was supposed to start filming March 24 and now it's on "indefinite hold." (People) We fear mattresses are now being fumigated.

Peter Paul and Chelsea

Fri, 22 Jun 2001 18:34:00 +0000

Big buzz

With Washington's growing obsession with the Chandra Levy-Gary Condit noir thriller, the folks at Judicial Watch are trying to stoke the fires of a good ol'-fashioned Clinton scandal.

The story features two of the last decade's most experienced scandal figures: Judicial Watch's Larry Klayman and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. The subplots involve comic books, $25 million in stock fraud, fugitives hiding out in Brazil battling extradition, Brad Pitt, Barbra Streisand, and for good measure, a few allegations of political cash in exchange for a presidential pardon. All of which could result in the deposing of Chelsea Clinton.

The story begins with a Hollywood promoter named Peter Paul, who has been indicted in a New York court for his role in a $25 million stock manipulation scam involving Stan Lee Media, the company of Spider Man creator Stan Lee. Paul, co-founder of the Stan Lee Media Group, is currently hiding out in Brazil, battling extradition and desperate to cut a deal with prosecutors to avoid spending time in the slammer.

How the Demos lost the White House in Seattle

Wed, 08 Dec 1999 17:00:00 +0000

The biggest political news of last week was not the shaky maiden debate of presidential candidate Gov. George W. Bush in New Hampshire but the chaos in the streets of Seattle, where over 30,000 protesters mobilized against the meeting of the World Trade Organization and were met by an astonishingly ill-prepared and inept police force.

My first thought, as I watched the news footage of scrambling crowds, shattering windows and clouds of tear gas, was "There goes the Democrats' hope to hold onto the White House next year." Aging liberals may remember the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago for the fascist tactics of Mayor Richard J. Daley and his police, but the riots in the street partly provoked by anti-war demonstrators cost the Democratic nominee, Hubert Humphrey, the election, and they sparked a national movement to the right whose effects can still be felt among the electorate. When law and order break down, it's liberalism that loses.

Real superpower in a godless universe

Wed, 22 Sep 1999 16:00:00 +0000

The overwhelming news of the past two weeks for the Eastern United States was the slow spin and drift of Hurricane Floyd across the Atlantic from the crucible of hurricanes off the western tip of Africa. Grazing Florida and meandering up to Maine, the storm slammed some places and left others virtually untouched. Unlike last month's devastating earthquake in Turkey and this week's quake in Taiwan, both of which came without warning, Floyd's slow advance was reported with excruciating thoroughness as its rapacious claw, like the giant red maw of a Blakean carnivorous flower, floated on radar across the sea. The Weather Channel becomes my obsessive focus at such times, since its sublime theme of omnipotent nature is the central doctrine of my brand of Italian pagan Catholicism, which was born in the shadow of slumbering but ever-lethal Mount Vesuvius.

First family on the couch

Thu, 20 Aug 1998 17:28:00 +0000

Out of context, the photograph that was spread across yesterday's newspapers -- of the first family lovingly holding hands while the family dog, Buddy, romped at
their side -- had the syrupy quality of the happy family snapshot that comes with a drugstore picture frame. But context, of course, is
everything, and by the time the Clintons arrived in Martha's Vineyard, speculation about the state of
the first family had reached a fever pitch. Were Hillary and Bill speaking? Was
Chelsea standing between them so they wouldn't have to touch each other? Were Hillary's shoulders sagging just a bit? And how could Chelsea be so poised -- kissing, hugging and schmoozing with the Vineyard crowd -- when her parents' marriage may be crumbling around her? Now
that the president has come clean about his "inappropriate" relationship
with Monica Lewinsky, the public is left wondering: Can the first family be
saved?

Clinton's silvery web of words

Thu, 30 Jul 1998 19:00:00 +0000

The president did not give the inspiring speech that many had fantasized he would give, the speech that would pull the country together and shut down the Starr investigation the way defense counsel Joe Welch's "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" shut down the McCarthy hearings. In spite of the president's stated desire to put the whole thing behind us, he did not, with his famous rhetorical dazzle, his ability to really speak to the American people, put the whole thing behind us.

Clinton's relationship with language is not unlike his relationship with sex. He is a tease. He sort of communicates. "I had a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was inappropriate," Clinton said last night. News commentators announced that he apologized. They announced that he admitted to an inappropriate physical relationship. But he didn't really apologize. He didn't really admit to any physical relationship. Clinton has perfected the art of double talk, of admitting and not admitting, and holding two contradictory truths in the silvery web of his words. He has from the beginning been artfully ambiguous, creating a kind of Rorschach inkblot of meaning for the public -- like the famous "60 Minutes" interview in 1992, when he and Hillary talked about Gennifer Flowers and some Americans thought he admitted to an adulterous relationship and others thought he didn't. He allows us to see what we want to see, to believe what we want to believe.

Victim of circumstance

Mon, 27 Jul 1998 19:00:00 +0000

During the four-and-a-half-year Whitewater probe of the Clinton administration, dozens of innocent individuals and entities have been swept up into independent counsel Kenneth Starr's and congressional Republicans' investigative machinery -- only to emerge with tarnished reputations, huge legal bills and the inability to do anything about their predicament.

Nowhere have so many people been tainted as in Little Rock, the close-knit Arkansas state capital, where subpoenas, depositions, indictments, convictions -- and acquittals -- have touched hundreds of lives.

One institution left reeling from a multitude of media and congressional allegations is the once-venerable Rose Law Firm, where Hillary Rodham Clinton used to practice law. Three of her partners, Vincent Foster, William Kennedy III and Webster Hubbell, joined the Clintons in Washington after their 1992 victory, but only Kennedy, who was Foster's associate White House counsel, escaped back to Little Rock -- and the firm -- with comparatively minimal damage.

A joke too bad to print?

Thu, 25 Jun 1998 19:00:00 +0000

During the last few months, many established media outlets have decided to report innuendo and rumor about the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, as long as they have a source they can cite (at least anonymously), or another media player has reported the same.

But this new standard in the practice of journalism seemingly does not extend to other political figures, at least not media darlings like Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. Earlier this month, at a Republican Senate fund-raiser, McCain told a downright nasty joke making fun of Janet Reno, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton.

The fact that McCain had made the tasteless joke was reported in major newspapers, as was the vain attempt by his press secretary to initially deny what McCain had done. But in several major newspapers, the joke itself was kept a secret. When McCain subsequently apologized to President Clinton, the Washington Post, in its personality section, noted the apology but said the joke "was too vicious to print."

The Los Angeles Times, in its Life & Style section, provided an oblique rendering of the joke that did not fully convey its ugliness. When Maureen Dowd penned a column in the New York Times about the joke, she wrote that McCain "is so revered by the press that his disgusting jape was largely nudged under the rug." But Dowd chose not to relay the joke, either.