THE DAILY BLADE: Hillary’s Many Makeovers
Boston Herald columnist Margery Eagan was in NH Sunday covering the Dem debate, watching the action on two huge screens. When Hillary Clinton’s greatly magnified face appeared on the screen, it was obvious she had undergone a dramatic transformation:
The instant Hillary appears, the woman behind me whispers, "Oh look at Hillary. She’s had work done!"
I put the question to WBZ’s political guru Jon Keller: Notice anything about Hillary? "Botox," he replied, not missing a beat. …
Hillary’s new glow was all the talk on "The View." This was when we needed Rosie O’Donnell to cut to the chase and bellow, "Did she get an eye job? A face lift?" Sadly, Rosie’s gone and nobody else dared admit what they were thinking. …
In the offices of dermatologist-to-the-stars Jeffrey Dover of SkinCare Physicians, Chestnut Hill, a visiting "anchorwoman," said Dover, noted Hillary’s "flawless, almost dewy" appearance and wondered if it was spectacular makeup or Botox, or perhaps fillers or microdermabrasion. …
"Absolutely the first thing that struck me was her jawline," says politico/fashionista No. 1. "She was bordering on babelicious.
Without having to recuperate from surgery or to cover up telltale bruising or sutures, Dover tells Eagan, "Hillary could’ve left an event in Washington at 9 o’clock, had all this done and been back on the campaign trail next morning," adding that if Hillary did not want to admit she had a tune-up, no one would know. Except maybe Don Imus, who famously called her Bill Clinton’s "fat ugly wife, Satan."
But this isn’t Hillary’s only transformation on the campaign trail. On more than one occasion, she has adopted a Southern accent (or an approximation of same) – which is all the more odd considering that she is a New Yorker. No wait, make that an Arkansan. Um, an Illinoisan?
In an article that was originally headlined "Clinton Makeover Accents Her Midwestern Roots" (later amended to "Clinton Accents Her Midwestern Roots"), The Washington Post reports that "the Clinton campaign has embarked on an ambitious effort to present the candidate the way they want her to be seen: as a pragmatic Midwesterner with a compelling life story of her own, rather than just the famous, and sometimes polarizing, senator and former first lady most of the country already knows she is."
So she’s been making a point of opening her stump speeches by telling audiences that she was "born into a middle-class family in the middle of America, in the middle of the last century." And she’s also begun telling audiences about the hardscrabble origins of her mother, Dorothy Howell Rodham (teenaged parents who sent her to live with her paternal grandparents when they divorced in 1920); the octogenarian lives with the Clintons in Washington, D.C. (The WaPo notes that "[w]ith two controversial brothers and with her father deceased, it makes sense that Clinton would gravitate toward her mother as she sketches her early life.")
The Stiletto doesn’t quite know how cosmetic procedures and a corn-pone accent fits into the overall strategy of making Hillary more appealing to Midwestern voters, but according to the WaPo, "[i]ntroducing biographical information about her childhood and early adulthood, her advisers hope, will flesh out the familiar caricature of Clinton as an overly ambitious careerist who leaves scandal in her wake."
Yeah, right. Truth is, no mater how much botox Hillary injects into her facial musculature, and no matter how many chemical peels she undergoes to slough off her slithery skin, a sizable percentage of the electorate will still think of her as Satan.
Scooter Libby Sentenced
Three months after his felony conviction on perjury and obstruction of justice charges, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, 56, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, has been sentenced to 2.5 years in prison and fined $250,000.
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald asked U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton to impose a sentence of 30 to 37 months, on the grounds that Libby had lied about his role in leaking the identity of former CIA staffer Valerie Plame and impeded a serious investigation, and has not expressed remorse.
Libby's lawyers argued for leniency, considering that no one was ever charged with leaking Plame's identity and that Libby wasn’t even the original leaker. Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was the original source for columnist Robert Novak’s article on Plame's identity – a fact that Fitzgerald had found out before Libby testified before the grand jury.
Libby is appealing his conviction. Walton does not appear disposed to allow Libby to remain free while his appeal plays out, as is common practice in white collar cases, according to The Washington Post. A hearing to determine Libby’s fate is scheduled for next week.
During their third debate last night in Manchester, NH, CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer asked the 10 Republican candidates whether they would pardon Libby, The New York Times reports:
[W]hile none of the top candidates said, outright, they would take such a course if President, they also voiced dismay at his sentence. Mr. Giuliani was the most outspoken, saying the sentence was "way out of line." Citing his experience both as a prosecutor and recommending pardon while working in the Justice Department under President Reagan, he said he would seriously consider it, especially in light of the harsh sentence.
When Mr. Blitzer, tried to cut him off, he stopped him, saying, "A man’s life is at stake." He said that it was "incomprehensible" made all the more disturbing because there was no underlying crime, and he had a real problem with the sentence.
Mr. Romney, following Mr. Giuliani, also criticized the sentence and left the door open for a pardon. Mr. McCain, who answered first, said that since the case was still being appealed he did not think it proper to comment.
President Bush has hitherto brushed aside all talk of pardoning Liibby until the appellate process has run its course – which is to say, after the 2008 election. But now, Bush has less than a week to act so that a loyal, hard-working aide is spared imprisonment.
The Stiletto adds her voice to the growing chorus of those who ask Bush to pardon Libby.
[Editorial Note: Though he did not participate in the debate, Fred Thompson, who is also a former prosecutor, is already on record as stating that he would pardon Libby immediately.]
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