Clinton-style Wedding
What else would former President Bill Clinton do with a group of lady rugby players? He joined ’em in singing their team’s fight song at the wedding last weekend of his brother-in-law to rugby player/pediatric intensive care nurse Megan Madden.[IMGCAP(1)]
Madden married Tony Rodham, brother of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), in a Saturday ceremony at the Dumbarton House in Georgetown. The silver-maned former president, who played rugby himself when he studied at Oxford, couldn’t resist when Madden’s Washington Furies teammates, including sister-of-Newt, Candace Gingrich, launched into their team’s fight song, “Delta Dawn.” The rugby gals sang with the ex-prez during cocktail hour, between the wedding and the reception, sources told HOH.
[IMGCAP(1)]One wedding attendee said Clinton “looked like 10 million bucks, as did the Mrs.” The wedding source raved about Mr. Clinton’s “long and flawless” gray hair. “I’m telling ya, the guy is morphing into Cary Grant,” the source told HOH. We’re also told the ex-prez had a “nice, ruddy, slightly burned tan” and sported a fetching tuxedo with a unique, buttonless shirt.
This was Rodham’s second marriage. His first, at the White House in 1994, was to Nicole Boxer, daughter of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). Last weekend, their 10-year-old son, Zach, gave two rousing speeches at his dad’s wedding — the best of them, sources say, at the rehearsal dinner at Tunnicliff’s Tavern on Friday night. (Rodham and Madden met at the Eastern Market watering hole during a fundraiser for the Washington Furies.) Young Zach’s speeches were so mature, witty and insightful that many Rodham buddies are planning to ask the boy for ambassadorships to tropical isles in about 30 years, if all goes well for their party.
Tunnicliff’s was closed to the public while roughly 100 “extended” rehearsal dinner attendees, including Mr. and Sen. Clinton, daughter Chelsea and several Secret Service agents crammed into the joint, sources say.
Megan Madden, incidentally, was a nurse of Mattie Stepanek, the 13-year-old boy poet and friend of former President Jimmy Carter who died last year of a rare neuromuscular disease.
Beginning of Draft? Certain Senate Democrats are outraged at the Selective Service System for pushing a new reinstatement “reminder” to eligible young men.
In an e-mail sent to Congressional offices, the Selective Service suggested that Members attach the reminder to their constituent e-mails to “make it easier to remind young men ages 18 through 25” of the federal requirement to register with the Selective Service System.
“We share your desire that none of the young men you serve forfeit their eligibility for student loans, driver’s licenses, federal employment, citizenship for immigrants or any of the many other benefits and privileges connected to registration,” reads the e-mail, sent from public affairs specialist Dan Amon.
The reminder itself features a graphic of a young guy holding a football saying, “Questions about the Future? Just remember … 18-year-old males must register with Selective Service. Stay eligible for Federal, State and local benefits.”
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) is one Member who’s worried that the service’s reminder outreach signifies a foreshadowing of a possible draft.
“This raises the question about a subject that has been debated in Washington recently — ‘Is it or is it not a precursor to the draft?’” Lautenberg told HOH.
Lautenberg plans to send a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld today expressing his concern.
Amon, the Selective Service spokesman, said the new reminder has “nothing to do with any war or anything that’s going on in the world today.” He said if the U.S. government does reinstate the draft, “it has to be fair and equitable” so that the “third-generation Harvard student and the inner-city or farm kid” have an equal chance of being called up.
In essence, it would seem, that’s why the Service is asking Congress to help get the word out to young guys to register.
Hagel and Jolie. Aides to Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) went wild Tuesday when Angelina Jolie showed up in their office. The Hollywood heartthrob stopped by Hagel’s office while making rounds on Capitol Hill in her role as goodwill ambassador to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
“It caused quite a lot of excitement in the office,” Hagel spokesman Mike Buttry told HOH. Hagel allegedly kept his cool around Jolie, but T.J. Birkel, who sits in the front office, wore a three-piece suit for the occasion. No word on whether Brad Pitt, Jolie’s rumored beau, was jealous of young Mr. Birkel.
Kiss Him Good-bye. Well, ladies, we won’t have Russ Kelley to kick around any more. Elizabeth Dozier will be taking care of that.
Kelley, 27, a press adviser to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), got on bended knee in the Capitol Rotunda last Sunday night and proposed to Dozier at a fundraiser for Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.). The Rotunda is the special place where the two lovebirds shared their first kiss about a year and a half ago, soon after they returned from Kentucky. Kelley and Dozier both campaigned for now-Rep. Ben Chandler (D) in a special election to succeed Ernie Fletcher (R), who won the state’s governorship.
Soon after the special election, Kelly, Dozier and other campaign staffers had a happy hour back in Washington to celebrate their victory. Somehow, Kelley and Dozier wound up in the Capitol, um, necking. “I don’t know whether it was the booze or what that led us back [there]. We ended up making out in the Rotunda. The rest is history,” Kelley told HOH.
The other night, they reprised their make-out session, all alone in the Rotunda, save for a few cops lurking in the hallways. Kelley popped the question, and after Dozier, 25, said “yes,” Kelley took out his iPod and they danced, sharing a headset, to “their” song, “Someone Like You” by Van Morrison.
And if they dare start a wedding Web site, rest assured that HOH will update you.
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