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Spouse Bust

HOH has learned that Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and her husband slept apart last Wednesday night. She slept at home; he slept in jail, after being charged with assault and crossing a police line. [IMGCAP(1)]

Police arrested Robert “Bob” Creamer, a Democratic political consultant and the Congresswoman’s husband, during a protest last Wednesday in front of the Capitol Hilton hotel. Creamer is a consultant to the liberal group Americans United to Protect Social

Security, which held its protest to coincide with President Bush’s arrival at the hotel, where Bush was due to give a speech.

According to the police report, Creamer, a protest leader, became “very agitated” when the group was asked to remain in a specific spot or move back. “On at least two occasions before his arrest, [Creamer] charged aggressively at officers and was guided behind the [police] line,” the report said.

The arresting officer, Scott Williams, wrote that when he and his sergeant moved the protesters back further away from the hotel as the president was about to arrive, Creamer busted toward the front of the protest crowd to argue. “When [Creamer] got to the police line I put my hands on him and told him to stop and he told me to get my hands off of him and jabbed a finger toward my face,” the officer wrote. At that point, the officer said he “pushed” Creamer back into the crowd and arrested him.

“We don’t have to do this,” Creamer is quoted as saying in the police report. “You can let me go right now.” Alas, police did not let the Congresswoman’s husband go. Instead, they hauled him to jail, where Creamer spent the night and was not released until late the next afternoon.

Creamer pleaded not guilty on Thursday in D.C. Superior Court, according to his lawyer, Daniel Seikaly. “He should not have been charged, he should not have been arrested,” Seikaly told HOH. “We’ll either get it dismissed or go to trial and win,” he said.

Creamer has had bigger scrapes with the law. He was indicted last year for check-kiting schemes and tax fraud. A federal judge has dismissed some of the tax fraud charges.

Creamer told his attorney that he was arrested about 35 years ago during an anti-war protest. Both Creamer and wife Schakowsky have a long history as peace and civil rights activists. But we doubt the Congresswoman was expecting to visit her husband in jail last week.

“Jan’s proud of the work Bob has been doing to protect Social Security from the president’s plan to privatize it,” Schakowsky spokesman Jon Samuels told HOH. “But next time she’s going to ask him to leave the conversations with the police to somebody else.”

Schakowsky’s husband joins Wanda Baucus, wife of Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), as Congressional spouses who have been arrested on assault charges (at least within the past year or so).

Just Like Brian Wilson Did. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is not planning to file an official complaint against Fox News correspondent Brian Wilson for going haywire at a packed photo op last week with Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. (Wilson was so aggressive that Illinois Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin called him “a big moose.”)

“In the end it’s counterproductive and not worth getting into,” Reid spokesman Jim Manley told HOH. “We tried to go the extra mile to provide some access to this press conference. Unfortunately, some of the people in that room were rude and belligerent.”

“Some of the people” was really just one — Wilson, who out-shouted other reporters in the room trying to get Dean to expound on what he meant about the Republican Party being full of white Christians. “You say you hate Republicans — does that mean you also hate white Christians?” Wilson asked.

Some other reporters and staffers who were crammed into Reid’s private office for the event weren’t sure whether Wilson was a reporter or a Republican aide since he wasn’t wearing his press credentials. Just as the news conference broke up and people were leaving, Mark Leibovich, a style writer for The Washington Post who was a writing a piece on the “scene” at the photo op, asked Wilson for his name. Wilson angrily shot back, “Who the [expletive] are you?”

Leibovich did not include that particular exchange in his Friday story about the zoo-like atmosphere at the Reid-Dean press availability. But he acknowledged the little tête-à-tête, saying, “I can confirm that yes, there was a rather public argument that involved me and Brian Wilson, of Fox News. Not Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. And I was not picking up good vibrations from him.”

Wilson declined comment.

“I would love to be able to clarify some of that for you. And I think it would be enlightening for you if I did,” he told HOH. “But I cannot talk to you about that without permission.” And he told us that the Fox News spokesman, Paul Schur, was not in the office.

Wilson did say, however, that he thought The Washington Post story about his actions at the photo op was “fairly accurate. Others were wholly inaccurate.”

For his part, Durbin apologized for calling Wilson a big moose — not to Wilson, but to moose everywhere. “I want to apologize to the Loyal Order of Moose for that reference,” Durbin told reporters later Thursday afternoon.

GOP = Babyface? The journal Science ran a story on Friday that caught HOH’s eye.

According to researchers at Princeton University, more “mature-faced and competent-looking” candidates have a clear edge with voters. The researchers showed pictures of Senate candidates to more than 800 people, who were then able to pick out the winner roughly 70 percent of the time based on appearance only.

The researchers theorized that “babyfacedness,” which they defined as a “round face, large eyes, small nose, high forehead and small chin,” could be a detriment to those running for office. Voters generally believe that these candidates are less competent and mature, and therefore not worth supporting.

Intrigued, HOH conducted a quick scan of Members and Senators to see which ones met the “baby-face test.” Among those who qualified: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Reps. Adam Putnam (R-Fla.), Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) and Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.). Ralph Reed, the ultimate babyface, also qualified for the HOH baby-face contest since he’s running for lieutenant governor of Georgia.

Interestingly, HOH found there are many more Republicans than Democrats who are baby-faces. No clue why that is, but we’re certain that Howard Dean could come up with a reason if asked.

HOH also notes that besides staying cute longer, the researchers found “babyfaced men tend to be slightly more intelligent,” as well as “more highly educated, contrary to impression of their naivete, and more assertive and more likely to earn military awards, contrary to impressions of their submissiveness or weakness.”

John Bresnahan, Teddy Davis and Luke Mullins contributed to this report.

Please send your hot tips, juicy gossip or comments to hoh@rollcall.com.

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