Before the Salahis crashed White House, this crasher made Oscar history -- and naked too

The hubbub about Tareq and Michaele Salahi, who crashed the first state dinner hosted by President Obama, got us thinking about other unauthorized appearances at notable events.

Perhaps the most famous party crasher is Scott Weiss, who successfully found his way into the Grammys and — in his most audacious moment — the Oscars. His antics were described in detail earlier this year in a highly readable and entertaining Column One by our colleague Chris Lee.

And speaking of the Oscars, who can forget the time a man crashed the live television broadcast while the inimitable David Niven was preparing to give out an award? Unlike the Salahis, the uninvited man was easy to detect, mostly because he wasn’t wearing clothes.

The video below shows not only the streaker (with naughty bits chastely blurred) but that the suave Niven didn’t need a script to deliver, with perfect timing, the perfect punch line. The Niven snippet comes about two minutes into the video (it's worth the wait). You also get to see some very funny Oscar moments from Whoopie Goldberg, Doris Day and others.

-- Steve Padilla

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Oprah talks about what Sarah Palin talks about

As we pointed out here last week when the manager of Barack Obama's never-ending presidential campaign agreed to go on the dreaded Fox News Channel to sell his book, book tours have a way of making superficial friends out of past opponents.

Thus, we will be treated Nov. 16 to the sight of Oprah Winfrey, arguably Obama's biggest celebrity booster, chatting up Sarah Palin, arguably America's most argued- over celebrity politician in recent years.

The subject, of course, is Palin's new book -- "Going Rogue: An American Life" -- which goes on sale the next day, with 1.5 million copies in print so far.

Palin took Piper and Willow with her to Chicago for the interview, which was taped at Oprah's studio Wednesday.

As The Ticket reported Wednesday night, Palin wrote on her Facebook page that the unlikely pair had such a great conversation that they ran overtime.

Which, goldarnit, means that Oprah will have extra exclusive minutes of video she'll simply have to post on Oprah.com for folks to click on. One thing exiting audience members said was that when asked if she wanted her own TV show, Palin did not say no.

And then, of course, Barbara Walters gets second crack at Palin, which will be broken into five parts on various ABC platforms midweek. What's-her-name and what's-his-name over at CBS don't seem to be on the Palin schedule just yet.

Right after Palin left the studio, Oprah (who looks shorter without makeup) made a short video here to....

...describe the O-P encounter and what all they talked about: inside the campaign, The Pregnancy, both babies and, well, pretty much everything.

Related items:

What's actually in Sarah Palin's book

Palin's roguish book tour schedule details

The secret Sarah Palin speeches we never heard

Sarah Palin breaks with GOP to endorse Conservative Party candidate

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Joe Burbank / campaign pool.

C-SPAN talks with Ken Auletta on new media vs. old

Word on the street has it that there's something out there now called new media that's going to somehow change society in unimaginable ways. Even politics, like Obama's $750-million campaign haul last year.

And this Internet Web thingy moves fast and doesn't need wires (How is that possible?). And somehow all this change threatens the old media that hadn't changed much since Johannes Gutenberg carved his first wooden letter of type about 600 years ago.

Well, that's all silly, of course. Traditional media has changed plenty; it doesn't use wooden type anymore, for one thing.

But Ken Auletta has gone ahead anyway and written another one of his intriguing looks at modern media. He wrote it in book form, though, one of those cursor-less collections of paper pages that you open by hand to read and then turn the pages to continue. Amazingly ancient. Called "Googled: The End of the World as We Know It."

So tonight, C-SPAN's Brian Lamb, who has talked very calmly with every author who's ever written a book since Gutenberg, interviews Auletta about what he found. It's pretty interesting, even without antacid commercials.

We're going to watch because we're addicted to Lamb.

So we obtained for Ticket readers a little sneak peek here of the interview. It will air on....

...the "Q&A" program at 5 and 8 p.m. Pacific tonight and again at 3 a.m. Pacific Monday. Set your TiVo, not the alarm.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Q&A with Max Blumenthal, author of ‘Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party’

Max Blumenthal is excavating secrets about the nation’s ultra-conservatives.

Showing us their text messages, exposing the psychology behind their actions, and getting behind the curtain to show us who holds the strings.
 
He’s taking investigative journalism to a more visual landscape -- not only telling, but showing readers (and viewers) what he sees out there. His viral videos from the 2008 presidential campaign trail have become popular hits, especially with young audiences.

In his first book "Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party," the writer minces no words. He is clear that the GOP has seen its heyday and is left now with a radical right, Christian base that seeks to replace democracy with theocracy, and permanently keep moderates out.

Blumenthal talked about his book, the future of the Republican Party -- which he called the "party of birthers, deathers and Civil War reenacters" -- and how he feels about being called a muckraker.

Why’d you write this book?
I’ve been covering the radical right -- primarily the Christian right -- for six years, particularly their role in national politics and how they took over the Republican Party. I covered the 2008 campaign intensely, and I covered the 2006 midterms. So, this book is really just a culmination of my reporting and my research and my analysis.
 
There have been a lot of books about this movement, but I wanted to write something unique that not only told people who the players are and what they do, but why they are the way they are. I think that’s what people want to know. Because that’s what really animates how the movement will behave in the future.

Tom DeLay withdrawing from 'Dancing With the Stars'

It looks like Tom DeLay's time on "Dancing With the Stars" is coming to an end.  People magazine is reporting that the former Texas congressman is bowing out of the dance competition because of foot injuries.

Despite stress fractures on both feet and a doctor’s order to stay on the sidelines, DeLay took to the dance floor Monday night on the ABC program. He’s not as young as some competitors, and certainly not as lithe. But he survived some elimination rounds, although he did falter a bit in last week’s tango portion, when it looked like he was going to drop his partner, Cheryl Burke.

On Monday night, the big question — at least, we presume, among dancing Texas Republicans — was whether DeLay would strut his stuff. “What’s a little pain when you can party?” he said.

And so he danced. Though clearly trying to be careful, he appeared to be having a good time dancing to a jaunty rendition of “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” — a rather bipartisan-themed selection for a man whose hardball tactics earned him the nickname “The Hammer.”  He and Burke were dressed in costumes suggesting Old Glory — she in blue with white stars, he in red and white stripes with the GOP elephant emblazoned on the back of his shirt.

Alas, we don’t have a separate video of Monday night’s performance, but follow this link to ABC’s website for all sort of photos and trivia on the show, or watch the video above of DeLay’s dancing debut.

On Monday, he showed that he can play through the pain, and the judges admired his spunk. His time on the show also produced two memorable quotes. The first from DeLay: “One thing I wasn’t prepared for in learning to dance was getting in touch with my feminine side.”

The other came on an earlier episode when Adam Carolla gave the men a pep talk right before showtime. To DeLay he said: “I know what you’re thinking. You don’t have to practice as hard as everyone else. You don’t have to work as hard as everyone else because you’re a white, middle-aged Republican, and dancing comes naturally to you people!”

-- Steve Padilla

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Photo: Tom DeLay dancing to "Wild Thing." Credit: Associated Press.

Smile! Obama's amazingly consistent facial expression

President Barack Obama has had plenty of face time in front of cameras over the last year. With all those hours spent in front of flash bulbs, Obama appears to have perfected his pose.

Like seriously perfected. Like he turns into a wax sculpture.

Take a look at the video shown at the top of this post. Say "Cheese!"

The photos were taken on Sept. 23 at an Obama reception being held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Eric Spiegelman pulled them from U.S. State Department's Flickr page and edited them into the video.

You might remember Spiegelman for another video he did recently -- a time-lapse of the Station fire. In addition to the random Web videos, Spiegelman produces the Internet show Old Jews Telling Jokes.

After clicking through the State Department's photo gallery, Spiegelman almost instantly recognized the humor in the pictures.

"I was looking through them and thought, man, the President's smile looks really similar in each of these photos," Spiegelman wrote in an e-mail. "And he must have held that smile for a couple hours. Amazing."

"Ladies and gentlemen, your President is a robot," Spiegelman wrote on the video's description page. "Or a wax sculpture. Maybe a cardboard cutout. All I know is no human being has a photo smile this amazingly consistent."

Spiegelman later speculated in an e-mail that every U.S. president elected since the camera was invented has similarly developed a trusty smile, but that the Obama administration is the first one to make all of his photos accessible.

Either way, we're searching for a man-sized sheet of cardboard and a pair of scissors. Anyone want a picture with the president?

-- Mark Milian

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Frank Luntz tells Americans what they really want

What do Americans want?

Frank Luntz, a political advisor, pollster and author of several books, thinks he has the answers. Dozens of curious Americans convened at the Milken Institute in Santa Monica recently to find out.

Luntz paced around the room, animatedly referring to his slides, as he broke down the data and observations he accrued in numerous public opinion polls. Much of that info is condensed in his new book, called "What Americans Really Want...Really."

It took almost an hour, but he eventually landed on a summation of the greater tone he observed:

"All we want is to improve our economy," Luntz said. "It's not about healthcare or nuclear weapons. It's about jobs."

Healthcare may not be the No. 1 priority, but Luntz still has his own tips for how President Obama should have tackled the immense issue.

"The first thing I would have done is look at the Republicans and say, 'No' is not an answer,'" Luntz said. And to the Democrats, "You can't get it all in one year."

Obama isn't the only one that Luntz had advice for. He criticized the American people for their obsession with blabbing about their daily lives, which fills the air on Facebook, Flickr and Twitter. Perhaps we should take a note from Luntz, a noted observer.

"I think we would be a happier, healthier society if we focused on how we take information in, rather than how we put it out," Luntz said.

-- Mark Milian

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Photo credit: Mark Milian / Los Angeles Times

Is there a larger story behind reports on those videos of Planned Parenthood and ACORN?

We’ve all heard a lot about those undercover videos and phone calls to ACORN staffers, especially the video of the advocacy group's employees apparently advising a couple posing as a pimp and prostitute on how to avoid taxes as they set up a brothel.

But do frequently aired clips of the videos and recordings tell the whole story?

A sharp-eyed Ticket reader, John Pellizzari, sent an e-mail raising some intriguing issues concerning one of the undercover actions, and we’ll present two versions of the sting operation to let you decide. In this instance, activist James O'Keefe, the one who posed as the pimp, was recording an exchange he had with a staffer at Planned Parenthood.

O’Keefe has conducted sting operations on Planned Parenthood offices to argue that staffers there have been guilty of unethical, even racist, behavior. As the Ticket reported last week, O’Keefe called a Planned Parenthood in Ohio and he asked whether he could direct donations for abortions of African Americans. Referring to an NBC video report on O’Keefe, the Ticket wrote the following:

“Meanwhile, NBC aired audio of O’Keefe during an earlier campaign when he called Planned Parenthood and tried to make a donation to abort African American babies. ‘There’s way too many black people in Ohio, so I’m just trying to do my part,’ he told a staffer. Her response, ‘Whatever.’ Then she hung up.”

Until Pellizzari pointed it out, the Ticket didn’t realize that the conversation continued, even if the NBC report on it did not. Eventually the staffer says, “Well, for whatever reason, we’ll accept the money.”

Give a listen to both versions of the conversation and see what you think. And listen for something printed quotes can’t quite convey: the tone of the staffer’s voice. Is she endorsing his anti-black comments? Is she trying to keep things on a professional level? Or is she a bit perplexed and not sure what to do?

Here’s the NBC report:

Here’s another version of the Ohio conversation, close to the beginning of the video: 

-- Steve Padilla

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White House aide’s 9/11 conspiracy theories cloud his future. It’s not easy being green.

He is the green jobs czar at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the aide who’s supposed to offer inspiration and input on how to convert the nation’s creaky, Saudi-dependent oil economy into the idyllic bliss of energy independence.

Van Jones is much respected in enviro circles, praised for his bestselling book, “The Green Collar Economy.”  Former Vice President Al Gore told the New Yorker, “I love Van Jones.” And actor Leonardo DiCaprio said of him in Time magazine, “Steadily -- by redefining green -- Jones is making sure that our planet and our people will not just survive but also thrive in a clean-energy economy.”

But right now Van Jones is in a toxic dump full of trouble.

Wednesday he had to apologize after video surfaced of an appearance he made in Berkeley in February in which he called Republicans an anatomical expletive deemed inappropriate for this family newspaper, which this isn't but rules are rules.

Then Thursday the Yale University grad, a onetime Marxist who was arrested during the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, was forced to issue a statement apologizing for his signature on a petition. The petition, to then-New York Atty Gen. Eliot Spitzer, urged an investigation into whether 9/11 was an inside job by George W. Bush to soften public opinion for a war in Iraq.

“In recent days some in the news media have reported on past statements I made before I joined the administration -- some of which were made years ago,” he said in the statement. “If I have offended anyone with statements I made in the past, I apologize. As for the petition ... I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever.”

Score one for Glenn Beck, the Fox News commentator who has been hammering on Jones for days. Take a look.

Turns out, as our friends at The Times’ Show Tracker noted, that Jones co-founded Color of Change, an African American political advocacy group that organized an advertising boycott of Beck’s show. 

They used to say that the power of the press belonged to those who owned one. I guess these days it’s those who have the loudest megaphone.

 Either way, the White House is standing by Jones, for now.

-- Johanna Neuman

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Cheney in 2012? Now there’s a real September surprise

When George W. Bush selected Dick Cheney to be his running mate in 2000, some political observers thought it was a smart move.

After all, Cheney had cut his political teeth working for the candidate’s father and had already endured several heart attacks. So, the thinking went, the 60-year-old Cheney would not be a political rival to the new president, staging occasional rear-action insurrections, just a steadying veteran hand.

Right. In fact Cheney became the most powerful vice president in history, and Barton Gellman argues in his book "Angler" that Cheney did most of the steering in George W. Bush’s first term.

Now, nine years later, having survived heart seizures and eight years of the Bush administration, Cheney has emerged as an energizing force in Republican politics, becoming the most outspoken Bush-era critic of the Obama administration.

While the former president maintains a dignified public silence about his views, his former vice president has turned into a media pit bull -- accusing the new president of putting the country at risk by closing Guantanamo Bay and banning torture, accusing Atty. Gen. Eric Holder of politicizing the fight against terrorism by investigating CIA interrogators.

On Moday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs let him have it, accusing the former vice president of getting his facts wrong, of "the same song and dance we've heard almost from the first day."

Now comes James Taranto, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, who is suggesting that Cheney would be a terrific presidential candidate in 2012. If national security emerges as the key issue in the election, he argues, “Republicans would be wise to nominate someone with both toughness and experience. Under such circumstances, it’s hard to think of a better candidate -- assuming, of course, that he could be persuaded to run -- than Richard B. Cheney.”

The calculus: If the Afghanistan war worsens, it will become Obama’s war. And if terrorists attack this country again, a fierce voice on national security might have a chance. Plus, Cheney is writing his memoirs, a sure route to the presidency.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Dick Cheney speaks at the Gerald R. Ford Foundation's annual Journalism Awards ceremony on June 1. Credit: Getty Images

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