Tall Tv Stands

Byline: INSIGHT

As the press labored to market the Iowa Democratic Caucuses as the most exciting horse race since Ben Hur, a grizzled farmer deadpanned: "Does anyone else here think John Kerry is just Mike Dukakis on stilts?"

* Now that we know Dennis Kucinich shows pie charts on radio, does it matter that Howard Dean makes radio commercials while standing on a box?

* And insiders still are giggling about that goo-goo People interview in which Howard Dean calls himself sentimental and, when asked to name the last time he brought his wife flowers, replied it was for her birthday - a rhododendron.

* Wesley Clark confirmed that he has been studying a magic cult called Kabbala. His endorser, Madonna, apparently is the group's vestal virgin.

* According to Lt. Gen. Mark Cisneros, the Army's choice for chief of Southern Command who was dumped for Wes Clark when President Bill Clinton intervened politically, Clark "did not appear to care about [his] people - only himself. I value honesty and integrity in a person ... and I felt that Wes was lacking in this. He is ... self-serving to a fault."

* So it turns out that Halliburton was not skimming millions on fuel for the troops, according to the Army Corps of Engineers. CBS News led two broadcasts with the false allegations but ignored the exoneration in favor of a story on how guys are meeting friendly girls by working for the Howard Dean campaign.

* Gossip insider Cindy Adams reports that after Anna Nicole Smith lost 80 pounds she was asked what she plans to work on next. Her reply: "The other leg."

* Speaking of losing, was anyone even surprised when Howard Dean admitted that not only has he frozen under stress in the ER but has sought mental counseling for anxiety? No wonder he left Park Avenue and the Hamptons for Vermont, which has a population smaller than San Francisco.

* Still driving 'em crazy, insider Ann Coulter cites a Pew poll on religion and politics, observing: "When you exclude blacks, who are overwhelmingly Baptist and overwhelmingly Democratic, and rerun the numbers, basically any white person who believes in God is a Republican." Howard Dean is after that vote. She quotes him as saying his favorite part of the New Testament is the Book of Job.

* Paging Doc-tor Dean, paging Doc-tor Dean. Theological emergency in the ER. Here's the former Vermont governor on the way to salvation: "I think whether I am saved or not is not gonna be up to me." Maybe this guy thinks he's God. How else explain his declaration: "I pray every day, but I'm from New England so I just keep it to Myself."

* And speaking of Deans: John Dean, the whining little snitch from the Watergate scandal, has written a new exploiter, Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, to be published by Little, Brown in April.

* The banking system in the People's Republic of China has just been bailed out by the State Council with $45 billion - more than 10 percent of the country's foreign-exchange reserves - going to two key banks and likely to be held in dollars or U.S. treasuries. The Chinese banking system is insolvent - with nonperforming loans at 50 percent to 75 percent of gross domestic product. This is the second such bailout, the first injecting $32 billion into four banks in 1998 without improving the situation.

* According to radio cruiser Laura Ingraham, terrorism in Iraq is down 22 percent since Saddam Hussein's capture.

* The latest taped message from Osama bin Laden declares that al-Qaeda will lead terrorism in both Iraq and Afghanistan and invokes the Doctrine of Cousinhood as follows: "We and our brothers will fight our cousins, and we and our cousins will fight all strangers." Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV aired this Osama recruitment pitch 20 times in a single day.

* Washington insiders were bowled over that, upon learning he was set to be named Time magazine's Person of the Year, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused the honor in favor of America's volunteer soldiers. Good old Rumsfeld, he never disappoints.

* A poll by the American Jewish Committee shows President Bush has increased his support among this traditional Democratic constituency by 50 percent.

* And Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has a hole in his head. The senator fell in a 50-mile road race and suffered a subdural hematoma that had to be relieved surgically. He is recovering nicely.

* Current favorite names for American-born boys, in order, are Jacob, Michael, Joshua, Matthew and Beelzebub. For girls it's Emily, Madison, Hannah, Emma and Alexis. Oh yes, we were kidding about Beelzebub.

* he European Union's highest court just ordered the United Kingdom to allow transsexuals to "marry." But in the United States it's lesbians who are the latest liberal fashionables, with the Washington Post pumping up Sapphoism among trendy schoolkids and Showtime featuring a TV series called The L Word, which in turn has been promoted on the cover of New York magazine and by New York Times nasty-lefty Maureen Dowd.

* And, finally, President Bush says he wants to send a man to the moon. Longtime Senate insider James Lucier confides that the man in question is former Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill.

COPYRIGHT 2004 News World Communications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group

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