March 13th, 2007

Chris Keeley

AIPAC TODAY

Cheney:  Iran, Iraq a package deal
Ron Kampeas
Addressing AIPAC's annual policy conference, Vice President Dick Cheney found that the Iraq war is hardly a rallying cry in the pro-Israel community.
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Dick Cheney’s message to AIPAC was typically blunt: You want to take on Iran? It’s a package deal with Iraq.

"My friends, it is simply not consistent for anyone to demand aggressive action against the menace that is posed by the Iranian regime while at the same time acquiescing in a retreat from Iraq that would leave Israel’s best friend, the United States, dangerously weakened,” the vice president admonished the 6,000 delegates attending the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s policy forum March 12.

Cheney’s appeal is part of Bush administration efforts in recent months to shore up support for the Iraq war in quarters it once took for granted: Republicans in Congress, the Christian right and now the pro-Israel community.

His message was not received enthusiastically: Only about one-third to one-half of the audience in the cavernous Washington Convention Center hall applauded politely.

Behind Cheney, some AIPAC board members sat stone-faced, including Amy Friedkin, a past AIPAC president who is close to Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and a fierce critic of the administration's handling of the war.

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Chris Keeley

They tried to make me go to rehab / I said, 'No, no, no,

Some singers have whiskey-soaked voices. Amy Winehouse has a whiskey-soaked oeuvre

Amy Winehouse's new R& B album sets a high-water and -whiskey mark. Amy Winehouse's new R& B album sets a high-water and -whiskey mark.

That Winehouse Buzz? Believe It

By J. Freedom du Lac
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 13, 2007; C01

 

Some singers have whiskey-soaked voices. Amy Winehouse has a whiskey-soaked oeuvre.

"They tried to make me go to rehab / I said, 'No, no, no,' " the British soulstress sings at the outset of her marvelous new album, "Back to Black." A punchy single with shimmering, '60s-style girl-group production flourishes, "Rehab" tells of Winehouse's refusal to heed a former manager's sobering advice. "I always keep a bottle near," she belts.

Booze is to Winehouse's music and public persona what sex is to R. Kelly's. Her drunken behavior has become the stuff of tabloid legend -- at least in England, where Winehouse has been a star since her 2003 debut, "Frank." (The album was never released stateside.) No story about her is complete without noting that affinity for alcohol. Not since Dean Martin has liquor been such a career gold mine. Only in her case, it's Cuervo Gold.

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Chris Keeley

Fast-Riser’s High Hopes and Sudden Fall

Fast-Riser’s High Hopes and Sudden Fall
By ERIC LIPTON

WASHINGTON, March 12 — D. Kyle Sampson has never worked full time as a federal prosecutor. But for much of the Bush administration he played a considerable role in vetting who served in the Justice Department. And last year he used his post as chief of staff to the attorney general to make a bid for a job as a United States attorney in Utah.

In many ways, until his resignation Monday, the rapid rise of Mr. Sampson, from a low-level aide on the Senate Judiciary Committee to one of the most senior advisers to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, is like that of many other young, ambitious lawyers who come to Washington with a passion for politics.

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