“The era of cowboy diplomacy is over.” Senator Hillary Clinton told a group of black ministers in South Carolina today that if she receives the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, she’ll reach out to leaders from both parties in choosing a Vice President, “people like Colin Powell.” Powell, former Secretary of State under W, resigned last year ending a contentious relationship with Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield over the direction of U.S. Foreign Policy. Powell, through a spokesperson, said he hasn’t been in touch with the Senator and has “no comment.”
- Lott’s final bow. “Senator Trent Lott – the Mississippi Republican who told Senator Strom Thurmond and those gathered for his 100th birthday celebration back in 2002 that if Thurmond had been elected president 30 years prior, “we wouldn’t be in the mess we are today” — announced yesterday that he would resign from the seat he’s held for the past 35 years. In case you don’t remember your 20th century American history, or the flurry of news stories that followed Lott’s remarks, Thurmond ran as the Dixiecrat candidate for president in 1948 and on a platform calling for continued segregation in the South. Lott’s resignation comes as no surprise, and the Times reports that he has been frustrated with the lack of bargaining between the embittered parties and with the Republican’s minority status, leaving little use for his deal-making skills. Lott, however, beat the deadline that would require senators to wait two years before lobbying former colleagues. Smart man.
- It’s OK as long as you don’t tell anybody. A lesbian pastor of an Evangelical Church in the Bronx could be defrocked next year by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which allows openly gay pastors but forbids them from being in same-sex relationships.
- Isn’t he amaaaaaazing? Andre J., who dons ankle boots and a knee-length turquoise peacoat on the November cover of French Vogue, refuses to be confined by the conventions of gender. “Think of him as a performance artist who rolls out his own stage everyday,” according to the Times. And Andre J. is fierce; check out those legs!
