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Taliban and Karzai In Preliminary Talks To Negotiate End to Afghan War, Sources Say

By Josh Duboff

The Washington Post is reporting that Taliban representatives and Afghan president Hamid Karzai's government have begun “secret, high-level talks” about negotiating an end of the war, based on intel from Afghan and Arab sources. The talks come after meetings held over a year ago in Saudi Arabia which were deemed “inconclusive.” Increasing the chances that an agreement might actually be reached this time around is that Taliban representatives are, for the first time, reportedly “fully authorized” to speak on behalf of the Quetta Shura, the Afghan Taliban organization based in Pakistan. Though the discussions are still considered preliminary, a source the Post describes as close to the talks claims the Taliban is “very, very serious about finding a way out.”

Taliban in high-level talks with Karzai government, sources say [WaPo]

10/05/10

E-mails Reveal Sarah Palin-Joe Miller Clash Over Miller Comments

By Josh Duboff

A leaked e-mail conversation between Todd Palin and the Sarah Palin-endorsed Alaska Republican Senate nominee Joe Miller would seem to indicate Sarah is at least strongly considering a presidential run, assuming the e-correspondence is legit. Alaska politics blog The Mudflats posted an e-mail that Todd Palin sent Miller and others on September 19 in which he expresses frustration that Miller did not answer in the affirmative when asked on television whether Sarah was qualified to be president.

"Sarah put her ass on the line for Joe and yet he can't answer a simple question." »

Amherst President To Become Head of New York Public Library

Anthony W. Marx, a native New Yorker and a “passionate advocate of public education,” will be named the new president of the New York Public Library, according to the Times. Marx, the president of Amherst College, will replace Paul LeClerc, who announced in November 2009 that he’d be stepping down. Marx said he believes there is an opportunity for “a great partnership” between the library and New York’s public schools. He is looking “to create additional programs that give students pre-school and after-school opportunities"... during which the students will probably use the library's computers to research their history papers on Wikipedia. [NYT]

Clinton-Biden Switch "On The Table," Woodward Says

By Josh Duboff

Bob Woodward is the latest to add fuel to the Obama-Clinton 2012 ticket rumor. Chatting with CNN’s John King Tuesday, Woodward said Clinton switching jobs with Vice President Biden is a possibility that is “on the table.” He continued, “Some of Hillary Clinton’s advisers see it as a real possibility in 2012.” Woodward didn’t stop there, adding that a Clinton-Biden swap could be a step toward Clinton eventually running for president in 2016: “Obama needs some of the women, Latinos, retirees that she did so well with during the [2008] primaries and, so they switch jobs, not out of the question, and the other interesting question is, Hillary Clinton could run in her own right in 2016 and be younger than Ronald Reagan when he was elected president.”

Obama-Clinton ticket 'on the table,' Woodward says [CNN]

Donald Trump: I'm "Seriously Considering" Running For President

By Josh Duboff

A day after he told CNN that running for president in 2012 was “not something I talked about or consider,” Donald Trump has changed his tune. In an interview on Fox News Tuesday, The Donald said he is “seriously considering” a presidential run.

"I'm a Republican so if I did anything, I'd do it, I guess, as a Republican," Trump said. "I'm totally being serious because I can't stand what's happening to the country. First time I am being serious about it. I've been asked for years to do it. And I had no interest. This is the first time I am -- at least I'm considering it. That doesn't say I'm going to do it ... but I am seriously considering it."


Trump reiterated on air that the recent New Hampshire telephone poll, in which New Hampshire residents were asked a whole bunch of questions about Trump, was not orchestrated by him, nor did he pay for it. But, he added, he's heard the results of the poll are “amazing.”

Trump 'Seriously Considering' 2012 Presidential Bid [Fox News]

Tony Curtis Was Buried With His iPhone and Seven Packets of Splenda

By Jessica Pressler

Yesterday, a funeral for the actor Tony Curtis was held in Las Vegas. His widow, Jill Vandenberg, insisted her husband be buried in his favorite outfit — white shorts, his favorite white sweater, and an Armani scarf — and lovingly placed a number of items into his casket to accompany him on his journey to the After Life.

Including... »

Arizona Sheriff With a Fondness for Racial Profiling: ‘I’m a Poster Boy on This Issue.’

By Nitasha Tiku

We always thought dubbing yourself the poster boy of anything — much like giving yourself a nickname — was something you had to wait patiently for someone else to say about you, no matter how much you knew you would make a good "Killer" or "Butch" or "Marilyn." But in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's case, it was probably only a matter of time. "Tomorrow, I'm going up to Colorado to help out Tancredo; I helped that gal in Nevada, Angle,' Arpaio said, referring to Colorado gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo and Nevada's Republican Senate nominee Sharron Angle. "I'm a poster boy on this issue." This issue being illegal immigration. Indeed, the Times says the "dance card of Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County" is a good indicator of just how eager conservatives are to look tough on immigration. Candidates are hoping some of Arpaio's mojo from racially profiling Hispanic residents and conducting raids in Hispanic neighborhoods will rub off on them. "The Arizona law seems to be rewriting not just the rules on immigration, but the rules on how it is talked about on the campaign trail, too," adds the Times, referring to proposed legislation that called for police officers to check immigration status and immigrants to provide authorization.

Recent polls show that only 51 percent of Latino registered voters say they will absolutely go to the polls. »

Now You Can Watch Hillary Clinton Bodycheck Sarah Palin

Not in real life! In the new NBA Jam for Nintendo Wii, which is not nearly as great, but still! The game allows you to unlock a Democratic team featuring Barack Obama, Hillary and Bill Clinton, and Al Gore, and a GOP team featuring George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John McCain, and Sarah Palin. We'll put our money on the Democratic team, since we suspect that McCain and Cheney are not in peak fast-break condition. [USAT, ESPN]

Joe Biden: ‘If I Hear One More Republican Tell Me About Balancing the Budget, I Am Going to Strangle Them’

"To the press: that's a figure of speech," Biden added at a fund-raiser for Minnesota Senator Mark Dayton. "These guys have absolutely no credibility, no credibility on debt. Folks, look, we've seen this movie before. We've seen this movie. We know how it ends." [ABC News]

Parker/Spitzer Ratings Lackluster: Only 460,000 Tuned In to Debut Show

That's compared to 3.1 million viewers of Bill O'Reilly's program on Fox News and 1.1 for Keith Olbermann's at MSNBC. In case you were wondering if anyone was gloating today, I learned this from reading Keith Olbermann's Twitter feed. [Keith Olbermann/Twitter]

Young Carl Paladino and Present-Day Dan Abrams Look Exactly the Same

There is zero significance to this finding, but the resemblance is so uncanny that it's almost unnerving. [Mediaite]

Where Are They Now? The Gourmet Masthead, One Year Later

By Helen Rosner

Photo: Whitney in Chicago/Flickr

It's been a year to the day that Condé Nast announced that they were folding Gourmet. Former editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl commemorated the anniversary with pancakes, tweeting, "Foggy, melancholy morning. Gourmet's end one year today. Fat fluffy pancakes, drizzled maple syrup, crisp smoky Benton's bacon. Full." We're honoring the somber day with a look at where the mag's major players have landed in the past twelve months. (New Grub Street network editor Alan Sytsma once worked there before its demise, but he assures us he was definitely not a major player.) We considered assessing their new lives — Better off? Worse off? Call it a draw? — but really, compared to the way Condé's food properties are going, they're all winners.

Read more »

‘The Katie Couric Deal Will Be the Last Big Deal of That Kind Ever Done’

That's what CBS President Les Moonves told a group of University of Texas students yesterday regarding the massive paycheck he gave to the Evening News anchor to lure her away from the Today show. "Those days are over, because the news no longer generates the kind of revenue or success that's worth doing," he added. "We thought [the money] would make a difference. It didn't." [MarkCoddington via Romenesko]

Jury Reaches Verdict in Connecticut Triple Murder Case

By Nitasha Tiku

After less than one day of deliberations, a jury found Steven J. Hayes, the former parolee accused of a brutal home invasion in Connecticut that left three dead, guilty on 16 of the 17 counts. Six of those crimes make Hayes eligible for the death penalty. The same jury will begin the penalty phase, which could last a month. Hayes and another parolee, Joshua Komisarjevsky, broke into the Petit family home in Chesire, beat and restrained the father, Dr. William A. Petit Jr., then raped and strangled the mother, Jennifer Hawke-Petit. The couple's two daughters, 11-year-old Michaela and 17-year-old Hayley, died of smoke inhalation from a fire set by Hayes and Komisarjevsky. Testimony showed that Hayes sent a text with the word “LOL” anticipating the plan. Dr. Petit, who survived, has called for the execution of both men. The case has fueled debate about whether to repeal the capital punishment law in Connecticut.

Triple Murder Case Yields Convictions on 16 of 17 Counts [NYT]

Keith Olbermann Owes His Job to Lou Dobbs’s Personal Life

By Matt McCue

One hour before he went on air last night, Keith Olbermann did a "speak and dash" at the Algonquin Hotel to introduce the three finalists for the 2010 Thurber Prize for American Humor. "My plans changed because one of the other news networks is debuting its latest eight o'clock show tonight," he said, referring to CNN's Parker/Spitzer and apologizing to the 100-person crowd. "My original plan was to spend the entire evening with you and get the night off, but my bosses said no." Still, for the ten minutes he was in attendance, he spoke in earnest about the famous hotel and his link to the witty author and cartoonist, James Thurber.

Read more »

Howard Kurtz Leaves Washington Post for Daily Beast

By Chris Rovzar

Well, despite all the rumors that Barry Diller may want to get the Daily Beast off his hands, editor Tina Brown clearly still has plenty of money to throw around. The Beast just announced the hiring of longtime Washington Post media columnist and host of CNN's Reliable Sources. He'll oversee the site's Washington coverage, and continue to write about politics, media and the intersection of the two, according to a release sent out today. He'll continue with his show at CNN also. "I have great respect for Howard as a journalist and newsbreaker, but I admire him most of all for his understanding of media and politics as the story of our era," said Brown. "He is that rare reporter with a metabolism that outpaces the frenetic subjects he covers." Kurtz had been at the Washington Post (where Brown herself briefly had a column) for 29 years.

Warren Buffett: Wall Street Is Doing God’s Work

"Wall Street 'does a lot of good things and then it has this casino,' Buffett, 80, said today at Fortune magazine's Most Powerful Women conference in Washington. 'It's like a church that's running raffles on the weekend.'" [Bloomberg]

Translating Chris Christie

By Dan Amira

Photo-illustration: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

In a recurring feature, Daily Intel will take the things politicians say in their own deceptive, evasive language, run it through our sophisticated supercomputer, the Politispeak Translator 5000 — which takes up four rooms at Daily Intel headquarters and has many blinking lights, so you know it's good — and report back to you on what they really meant. In our first installment, we examine a remark by New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who was in Iowa rallying Republicans for gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad last night.

After his speech, Christie insisted he wasn't planning to run for president in 2012 — even though Iowa, home to the nation's first presidential caucus, is a key destination for those with big political aspirations.

"I'm governor of New Jersey, I'm not going to run for national office," Christie told reporters. "You have to want it more than anything else in the world, and I don't. ... You have to be ready for it, and I'm not."

According to the Politispeak Translator 5000 ... bleep blurp bloop bleep ... Christie said, "I'll be ready in four years."

Dana Milbank: Glenn Beck Is Paving the Way for a Mormon Salvation of America

When Glenn Beck talks about the Constitution "hanging by a thread," is he making reference to a Mormon myth that tells of the day when the Latter Day Saints will ride in "on a white horse" and save America? Columnist Dana Milbank thinks so. Whether it is true or not, the theory is an effective way to undercut Beck's authority with the large numbers of Protestants and Evangelicals in his audience. Those groups may mistrust proselytizing liberals, but they mistrust proselytizing Mormons even more. [HuffPo]

Disgraced Hedge-Fund Manager Forced to Sell Teddy Bear Collection

By Jessica Pressler

Photo: Getty Images

Next week, a lot of 1,300 vintage Steiff teddy bears and other soft toys worth approximately $1.9 million will be auctioned off by Christie's in London. The collection, which has been fastidiously cared for, includes such rarities as the Hot-Water Bottle Bear, of which there are only ten in the world, a perfectly preserved Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and a never manufactured Bonzo the Dog toy. Who would part with such a carefully cultivated collection, one that is so clearly beloved? It can only be one man: Paul Greenwood, the Connecticut hedge-fund manager who was convicted of a $553 million fraud last year.

Read more »

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Senior Editors
Chris Rovzar and Jessica Pressler
Assistant Editors
Dan Amira, Nitasha Tiku
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