The Breakfast Table

Gore’s Secret Weapon Against W.

Does Nick know you’re reading W.? Is that like a guy getting the Victoria’s Secret catalog? I don’t blame you, no matter what anybody says. Too much time with bad-sex scenes in the fashion-starved Holy Land would leave anyone vulnerable. Still, I doubt that Babes With Brains will do much to elevate the more conventional theme of Babes With Boobs. (See: Cosmo, Maxim.) Even Talk magazine, in which I foolishly placed some hope, turned out to be all about Gwyneth and Angelina with cleavage and come-hither looks. Anyway, if W. didn’t mention Jodie Foster, the editors are unqualified to rate BWB.

I write aboard the 8 o’clock shuttle to Washington, on which Pat Buchanan just strode down the aisle in jut-jawed disdain for the captain’s seatbelt command. Whatever happened to him, anyway? Has he got Ross Perot’s Reform Party money yet? Is he Gore’s secret weapon against Dubya? How about Dubya’s surprise running mate? You heard it here first.

Speaking of mates, my favorite story so far today is the  NYT’s rendition of the Tony and Cherie Blair story. You know, the one where the lawyer spouse tells the prime minister of England he should take a week off to spend with his about-to-be-newborn child. Cherie Blair, nine months pregnant, is also suing her husband’s government for excluding 2.7 million union parents from maternity and paternity leave. She likes to tweak Tony in public about the time-off thing, and this week he gave her an equally public reply. “I know what everybody wants me to say,” he told the NYT Magazine. But surely, dear, “You’ve got to have some common sense about it …” Something tells me that was not a helpful line to take on the home front.