Posted on 08/18/2003 6:47:08 AM PDT by M 91 u2 K
A lefty takes aim at right's wrongs
Ann Coulter might want to steal an advance copy of Joe Conason's "Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth," due out next week. The mini-skirted mouthpiece is skewered for 23 pages as Conason, the New York Observer national correspondent, barbecues her and Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Bernard Goldberg and other angry-for-the-airwaves pundits.
Conason notes that while the 41-year-old blond may idolize anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly, she isn't exactly a "model for her 'abstinence education' campaign. ... Sexual abstinence ... is for the poor rubes who stay home watching 'The 700 Club,' not for urbane young Republicans hanging out in saloons on Capitol Hill and the upper East Side."
The unabashed progressive notes that while the "perennially single, career-obsessed Coulter" wrote that liberals are "advancing a left-wing conspiracy to abolish the family" by "refusing to condemn ... promiscuity, divorce, illegitimacy, [and] homosexuality," she "dated the son of Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione, and many of her closest friends are gay men."
Coulter did not respond to an E-mail. But she has company on the spit in Limbaugh, whom Conason calls "a ridiculous snob." - despite the $20 million man's claim to represent "hard-working middle Americans."
Conason writes that Limbaugh favors $2,000-a-bottle Bordeaux, and buys banned Cuban cigars on trips to London, where he stays in the snooty Connaught Hotel.
Greedy corporados, Congressional "virtuecrats" and Republican hawks who never served in combat, like John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney, Trent Lott and Karl Rove, all come in for exposure. So does President Bush, as Conason lays out the back-room details of Dubya's previous oil dealings and purchase of the Texas Rangers in this meticulously researched must-read.
"I just want people to pay attention and ask questions and not accept what I call the conventional idiocy on TV and radio," Conason tells us.
A Valentine note
Is George Steinbrenner quietly courting former Mets manager Bobby Valentine?
The Boss (left) "has gotten very cozy with Bobby," a major-league source tells us. "He's always calling him. He even sent him a note telling him how great he's been doing as a commentator on ESPN.
"Bobby has always been Steinbrenner's type of manager," adds the source. "He thinks the Mets made a mistake when they fired Bobby. But it also gives George an opening" should the mercurial Boss decide to replace Joe Torre.
"That's why George has told people he hopes Bobby stays at ESPN and doesn't sign on to another team."
Valentine (right), who has been on vacation, couldn't be reached. But in a May interview with Sports Illustrated, he said, "The guy managing for George has the luckiest job in the world. [Steinbrenner] wants to win more than anybody."
Steinbrenner's spokesman Howard Rubenstein confirms that the pinstripe potentate "sent Bobby Valentine a note about what a good job he'd done on his broadcast. But he said, 'I absolutely have my manager. I'm in full support of Joe. He's doing an excellent job.'"
Gwyn's still Daddy's girl
Gwyneth Paltrow is still dealing with the loss of her father, Bruce Paltrow.
Speaking for the first time about the director's death last October, the Oscar-winner says, "I don't want to hear, 'Oh, they're always with you.' No, they're not! He's dead, and I'm suffering.
"Before this happened, I was really at a place in my life where I thought, 'I've figured it out,'" she says in the September issue of Allure, out tomorrow. "Then it was like someone stomped me in the stomach."
She dropped movie roles in "I Heart Huckabee" and "Happy Endings" to recuperate. "I needed to talk to my therapist and practice yoga," she says. "I hadn't dealt with it, and I felt like it was killing me. I was really scared."
Now, she laughs, "When I'm in the airport, I'm in the self-help section with my sweatshirt over my head. Are there any grief books I haven't read?"
Dirty dealer out of jail
Dana Giacchetto, who used to handle the finances of stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, Matt Damon and Ben Stiller, has found work after serving two years in prison for securities fraud.
The disgraced money manger, out of federal custody last month, is doing clerical work in the office of his former defense lawyer, Ronald Fischetti.
"I really had faith in the young man and I put him on as a paralegal," says Fischetti, who represented the 40-year-old Giacchetto at his 2000 trial.
Giacchetto and is fiancée, Allegra Brosco, plan to start a gourmet marketing company called Taste, says Fischetti.
"He's got restitution to pay back."
The lawyer says Giachetto's celebrity pals - even the ones he was convicted of defrauding - are sticking by him.
"Everyone from the A-list of people in Hollywood, [has been] calling him for lunches, dinners, and offering him anything he wants - money, jobs," adds Fischetti. He declines to say which friends have been calling, other than to say they're people "like" DiCaprio and Diaz.
But someone else friendly with several of Giacchetto's former clients scoffs, "It's ridiculous. I definitely can't imagine Leo staying in touch with him. There's too much history."
Surveillance
WHAT BEYOND-beautiful R&B star had studio engineers wishing they were wearing gas masks at a recent recording session? Funky didn't just describe her sound ...
SHELTER ISLAND locals are seeking shelter as word has gotten out that the quaint waterfront house going up near the chic Sunset Beach Hotel is being built by shock rocker Marilyn Manson ...
BRITTANY MURPHY had a private, late-night spree in Henri Bendel on Fifth Ave. The "Uptown Girls" star shopped till she dropped at around 2:30 a.m., says a spy ...
ADRIEN BRODY and deejay Marc Ronson had surf and turf at Ocean's 21 on W. Ninth St. ...
KELLY OSBOURNE strolled through the Central Park Zoo on Friday with a heavily tattooed man and a bodyguard.
With Suzanne Rozdeba and Ben Widdicombe
And that constitutes an indictment by the left.
Or is he not getting any?
I don't know if it is genetics or choice, but it must be pretty powerful if they stick to being gay while being friends with Ann.
And do I need to remind everyone about the Ann Coulter Rule? Seven posts and no pictures. Hang your heads in shame Freepers.
One day we are homophobes next day we are condemned for being around gay men. WHich is it lefties?
Its his money and he can spend it as he sees fit. And Cuban cigars are not banned in London. As long as Limbaugh is not bringing them home with him he is violating no law.
When I lived in Buffalo NY I often purchased cubans while doing things in Canada. And I often vacation outside of the country and always have some cubans while I am abroad.
I completely agree. This sort of criticism is as funny as the sexual politics attack on Ann Coulter. Why is Rush an evil man? Well, he visits London and smokes Cuban cigars -- thereby sending money Casto's repressive regime in Cuba! As a Progressive, I abhor anyone who would seek to prop up such a Communist!
The Left is just such a parody of itself.
Yet it was ignored that Gore wanted no black SS agents on his detail. To the press, it doesn't matter what you do, it matters which side you are on.
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