Maybe he’ll win one of those giant Publishers Clearinghouse checks

It seems like the foreclosure nightmare has trickled up to the rich and famous! Never one to not exploit someone else’s misfortune, the cadaverous Larry King interviewed Ed McMahon and his golddigger wife Pamela in the wake of the imminent foreclosure on their mansion.

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I Don’t ♥ Worms

From CNN:

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday said it will allow a reformulated version of a Wyeth (WYE) heartworm drug for dogs back into the U.S., sparking a powerful U.S. senator to question the agency’s decision.

Wyeth unit Fort Dodge Animal Health pulled the drug from the market in 2004 amid reports that 500 dogs died while taking it. The FDA’s handling of the situation sparked congressional inquiry after an FDA safety officer said the agency tried to silence her when she raised concerns about the drug.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, fired off a letter to FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach on Thursday expressing concerns about how the agency came to its decision to allow the drug, called ProHeart 6, back in the U.S.

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They’re creepy and they’re kooky….

Mysterious and spooky,
They’re altogether ooky,
The Cheney Family.

From The Lede at The New York Times:

As it turns out, even the lighter side of Dick Cheney can prompt major disapproval. As Sheryl Stolberg reported this morning, the vice president elicited a wave of laughter from the National Press Club on Monday by cracking a joke about his extended family, which includes a tie to Senator Barack Obama:

“So we had Cheneys on both sides of the family — and we don’t even live in West Virginia,” the vice president deadpanned […] “You can say these things when you’re not running for re-election.”

Well, kids. Your intrepid reporter (that would be me) has scoured the records and uncovered an old Cheney family portrait. Now, I’m no expert, but it doesn’t look like West Virginia to me!

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Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber

From The New York Times:

KENNER, La. — Senator John McCain marked the unofficial beginning of the general election with a speech here Tuesday in which he sought to distance himself from President Bush and to argue that he has stronger credentials as an independent agent of change than his all-but-certain Democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama.

…snip…

Mr. McCain has worked to unite the Republican Party by vowing to continue many of Mr. Bush’s policies, including continuing the war in Iraq, extending the Bush tax cuts and appointing conservative justices to the Supreme Court. But he used his speech here to highlight his independence from the president in areas including the early handling of the war, global warming and government spending.

“You will hear from my opponent’s campaign in every speech, every interview, every press release that I’m running for President Bush’s third term,” he said, trying to pre-empt one of the central Democratic strategies of tying Mr. McCain to the unpopular president. “You will hear every policy of the president described as the Bush-McCain policy. […]

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McCainomics 101

From Consortium News:

John McCain has been purging lobbyists from his campaign trying to reclaim the mantle of political reformer, but there’s one lobbyist whose role as a key economic adviser makes him almost untouchable despite ties to the sub-prime debacle, links to the Enron disaster and alleged evasion of ethics rules.

Former Sen. Phil Gramm, who was listed as a lobbyist for banking giant UBS as recently as December 2007, has emerged as what Fortune magazine calls “McCain’s econ brain,” filling McCain’s acknowledged void on economic expertise (“I don’t know as much about the economy as I should”).

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Witless Protection Program

From Frank Rich at The New York Times:

THEY thought they were being so slick. When the McCain campaign abruptly moved last Tuesday’s fund-raiser with President Bush from the Phoenix Convention Center to a private home, it was the next best thing to sending the loathed lame duck into the witness protection program. John McCain and Mr. Bush were caught on camera together for a mere 26 seconds, and at 9 p.m. Eastern time, safely after the networks’ evening newscasts. The two men’s furtive encounter on the Phoenix airport tarmac, as captured by a shaky, inaudible long shot on FoxNews.com, could have been culled from a surveillance video.

But for the McCain campaign, any “Mission Accomplished” high-fives had to be put on hold. That same evening Politico.com broke the news of Scott McClellan’s memoir, and it was soon All Bush All the Time in the mediasphere. Or more to the point: All Iraq All the Time, for the deceitful origins of the war in Iraq are the major focus of the former press secretary’s tell-all.

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And Get Off My Lawn!!!!

From The Boston Globe:

So Bob Dole, how do you really feel about Scott McClellan’s tell-all book about his days in the White House?

The former senator and presidential nominee fired off an email — first reported by The Politico — today to the former White House press secretary, who has been all over television promoting his book.

“There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don’t have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues. No, your type soaks up the benefits of power, revels in the limelight for years, then quits, and spurred on by greed, cashes in with a scathing critique.

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