Alex Polier, the woman falsely accused of being John Kerry’s Monica Lewinsky, tells her story in New York Magazine this week, and it’s pretty fascinating reading (glam shot notwithstanding). The piece, essentially an inside look at what happens when you’re the target of feverish scandal-mongering on the part of political operatives and their willing tools in the press, has more than a few villains. Chief among them are Democratic operative Chris Lehane and Brian Flynn, a reporter for the conservative British tabloid The Sun, who, in addition to flat-out fabricating quotes, was the first to report Polier’s name.
The tawdriness of the whole episode, as outlined by Polier, struck a chord with Washington Monthly editor Nick Confessore. “To be honest,” he wrote, “reading her story makes me not a little ashamed to be a reporter.”
The Economist, meanwhile, continues to give reporters a reason to be proud. Its U.S. campaign coverage this week includes excellent (subscribers only) pieces on President Bush’s sinking popularity, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, and Arkansas-as-swing-state. The Bush piece argues that the president “is in slightly better shape than he appears – but far worse than anybody imagined at the start of the year.” Events are hurting Bush in the polls, but “[t]he humdrum truth,” says the magazine, “is that the race is wide open. All that has happened is that Mr. Bush has lost his clear lead.” The Economist also likes Richardson as Kerry veep, trumpeting his leadership and popularity in New Mexico and demographic appeal (but conspicuously glossing over his tumultuous tenure as energy secretary). Another plus: the gregarious Richardson holds the world record for shaking the most hands in one day, with 13,392.
If you’ve ever wondered how much a cough drop “purportedly used and then discarded by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — and retrieved from a trash can” would go for on eBay, Newsweek has the answer: more than $15,000. The governator is wildly popular in California, and he’s distancing himself from the president; comparing the two, says Ahnold, is “a big mistake.” Part of the problem is that Schwarzenegger and White House strategist Karl Rove apparently aren’t exactly simpatico, in part because the pair tangled over who would appear first on “Larry King Live.” Rove won — a sure tipoff that the discussion wasn’t decided by arm wrestling.
Time says that the pistol that Saddam Hussein was holding when he was captured in that spider hole last December “has made its way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.” The president likes to show the pistol off — “he’s really proud of it,” says one recent visitor to the White House. No word on whether the police are on their way to arrest the president for breaking D.C.’s anti-firearms laws.
Finally, for those who can’t get enough of how the Bush administration and the New York Times got suckered about weapons of mass destruction before the war in Iraq, The Magazine Report offers up a New York-centric trifecta: Franklin Foer’s Judith Miller takedown in New York Magazine, Jane Mayer’s Ahmad Chalabi profile in the New Yorker, and Michael Massing’s as-yet-unpublished second appraisal of the Times’ Iraq coverage in the New York Review of Books. Insular east coast media, we salute you.
–Brian Montopoli
Brian Montopoli is a writer at CJR Daily.