Her Future’s So Bright
The Blues Brothers. Tom Cruise in “Risky Business.” Jackie Onassis. To that list of famous sunglasses wearers, we’re adding Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). [IMGCAP(1)]
The Senator and presidential candidate turned some heads during a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill with Army Gen. David Petraeus last week by sporting dark, oversized shades, even though the classified meeting took place very much indoors.
According to sources present at the Wednesday briefing, Clinton kept the glasses on for most of the session, which focused on the Iraq War. “She walked in, sat down, and popped them on,” a source told HOH.
Now, HOH can think of plenty of practical reasons for sporting shades in the great indoors. But the motivations for donning dark eyeshades with which HOH is most familiar are perhaps less noble: They assist with hangover recovery, shield evidence of a surreptitious nap or make a bold, devil-may-care fashion statement. And after all, Clinton is going full-bore on the campaign trail while still keeping up a full schedule in Washington, a recipe for tired eyes for even the most energetic among us.
It turns out, though, that Clinton’s reasons for rocking the shades indoors look had nothing to do with naps or fashion. Spokesman Philippe Reines told HOH that the Senator didn’t have her regular prescription glasses with her, so during the briefing, she whipped on her sunglasses, which also have prescription lenses. “Which is a lot better than the rose-colored glasses the Bush administration puts on whenever they look at their failed policy in Iraq,” Reines quipped.
Maybe the glasses snafu was fortuitous: Clinton might want to consider making that catchy Timbuk3 song from the 1980s a campaign theme song. “I’m doin’ all right, getting good grades … The future’s so bright I gotta wear shades.”
Drinks Are on Jane. Rep. Jane Harman is usually way up there on Roll Call’s annual list of Congress’ 50 Richest Members, and now it looks like the moneyed California Democrat’s fortune may be increasing even more. Harman, who was the fourth-wealthiest Member in last year’s survey (and the richest Member of the House), is likely to see a boost in the family bottom line from her husband’s sale of his company for a cool $8 billion in cash.
Sidney Harman is getting that jaw- dropping sum for Harman International Industries, which manufactures high-end car stereo equipment.
So … who’s buying drinks?
Close Reading. The annals of Congressional bill names often read like a study in cuteness. Legislative titles, if they’re not grindingly boring, often sound like they were concocted by marketing majors with a few cocktails in their bellies. So overthought are bill titles that we were surprised to realize that the Democrats’ sure-to-be-vetoed war-spending bill, the Troop Readiness, Veterans’ Health and Iraq Accountability Act, has the acronym TRVHIAA.
As an indication of the amount of time Republicans have on their hands these days, the acronym was a cause for mirth last week in certain GOP circles, who got a kick out of the “trivia bill.”
And freed from the tyranny of running the majority (hey, there’s a silver lining there somewhere), they now have time to bring things like this to our attention.
Must-Miss TV. Thursday night’s debate among the Democratic presidential primary candidates was must-see TV among the political-junkie class. And one would think that the colleagues of the Senators who participated in the event — Sens. Joseph Biden (Del.), Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), Chris Dodd (Conn.) and Barack Obama (Ill.) — would be among its loyal viewers. But not Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), who was spotted browsing the “New Releases” section at the Potomac Yards Barnes & Noble Bookstore out in Alexandria, smack-dab in the middle of the much-hyped debate.
A spokesman said the Senator was buying some reading material for his wife and infant daughter and didn’t worry about missing out. “He did so with the complete confidence that his colleagues would do magnificently.” Reed later caught the debate highlights on the news, the spokesman added.
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