After two years of recriminations and investigations, the Republican-led House intelligence committee is reportedly set to release the results of a Benghazi investigation that found no wrongdoing by the Obama administration in the lead-up and response to the deadly 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya.
Excerpts from Mark Halperin and John Heilemann's Double Down are popping up all over the internet, and the newest revelations include Michelle calling Romney a liar, Obama's advisors acting out his worst debates, and Romney not being a fan of the overweight.
Welcome to Monday's gossip roundup, in which we gather every horrifying new detail about Speidi's sex tape (blackmail! ultimatums!) and how it inspires Snooki's ex. Meanwhile, Brad Pitt wants to murder BP executives and LiLo's lawyer heads back to court.
Get ready for everyone to be outraged now that Mo'Nique has said her husband is allowed to "cheat." But if more people had open relationships, wouldn't life be a whole lot better?
DJ AM took OxyContin the night he died. Spencer Pratt takes his absurdity to new levels. And Kate Hudson wants to take over A-Rod's apartment. All that and more in your Wednesday Gossip Roundup!
Eliot Spitzer, you fool. You could have been a contender! When Spitzer resigned as governor of New York in March, rather than standing and fighting like the stubborn-to-the-point-of-idiocy man that he is, he was ceding his political future to the vagaries of luck. And his luck is not good, obviously, or he would still be sneaking into hotel rooms with Ashley Alexandra Dupre. But what if he had hung on, boldly stood up for his imaginary right to patronize hookers, and stayed in office? He'd be headed to the US Senate in January. Think about it: if Spitzer had decided not to resign (as we advised at the time), he'd now be a scandal-ridden and likely ineffective governor. He would also, however, have the luck to be a high officeholder in New York now that Obama has been elected. Obama is very likely to name Hillary Clinton to a cabinet position. That will mean New York needs its governor to name a new Senator to fill her spot. If Spitzer were still the governor, who better to name than himself? The state Democrats would surely support it, just to be able to clear him the hell out so the party could move on to a slightly more scandal-free future. And nobody in Washington would really mind, because they all fuck whores there, at least metaphorically. So Spitzer could have put himself in Hillary's seat and installed David Paterson as governor, just as he is now. Spitzer's particular skill set—cracking down on corporate profligacy—is looking pretty good right now. Once the Post got off his ass about the scandal, he'd probably be able to do some good. But he resigned, so none of this will happen. It would be kind of nifty if Paterson appointed him to the seat now, as some have suggested. (It would be great for Paterson, who would have neatly gone from being a little-known Lieutenant Governor to having Spitzer owe him a huge favor). But it won't happen, because in America you can screw taxpayers, but not hookers. Live and learn. Spitzer will be back on the scene in two years either way. [pic via LAT]
Kate Beckinsale displayed a bit of political wishful thinking as she set up decorations for a party on Sunday. Beckinsale believes that a Obama/Clinton ticket would be the perfect ticket to ensure that Democrats once again control the country. Beckinsale said, "They seem like the kind of politicians that you want to go on vacation with and those are the kind of leaders I want to support. If I was happen to vote." Beckinsale then set up up a standee of Iron Man dunking over a standee of Zac Efron.
It was sneaky, unpaid, unidentified Huffington Post citizen "journalist" Mayhill Fowler who got Bill Clinton to call the author of that Vanity Fair slam piece a scumbag-and that's just not fair! Newsweek's Jonathan Alter weighs in: "'This makes it very difficult for the rest of us to do our jobs. [...] If you don't have trust, you don't get good stories. If someone comes along and uses deception to shatter that trust, she has hurt the very cause of a free flow of public information that she claims she wants to assist. You identify yourself when you're interviewing somebody,' Mr. Alter added. 'It's just a form of cheating not to.'" Opposing view?
Senator Barack Obama emerged from Tuesday’s primaries leading Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton by more than 100 delegates, a small but significant advantage that Democrats said would be difficult for Mrs. Clinton to make up in the remaining contests in the presidential nomination battle.
Backlash against that racist Salesgenie.com Super Bowl ad with the cartoon panda bears speaking in exaggerated Asian accents has, after a slow start, become a frenzy. First it came out that the "horrible," "offensive" ad was personally written by Salesgenie CEO and Clinton buddy Vinod Gupta. Now, Asian-American groups have publicly revealed they are "disappointed!" And just like that, Gupta has announced that he's pulling the ad. At least he still has the support of New York Times commenter Tess in Illinois, who sagely points out "If a Panda could indeed speak English, I would think that one could pretty much assume that a dialect of Chinese would be his native language. What OTHER accent would he have spoken with, Inuit?" Check out the spot one last time before this is all totally forgotten until next year's racist ads.
The Clinton Mafia cannot be too pleased by today's piece in the Wall Street Journal, which follows the money from Bill Clinton to his aide Doug Band to Raffaello Follieri, who is a Vatican hanger-on and the man-squire to Anne Hathaway. In fact, we think we hear knees breaking down at Liberty Street right now.
