HILLARY. To run, not run, isn’t the question. The answer is how smart she is.
The Clintons won’t leave the stage. Write a book, chair a foundation, push Chelsea. Meanwhile, whether she decides to make that big jump to that big chair is for now beside the point. The point is, she wants opponents thinking it might happen.
When shoving the secretary of state job, the world flat-out knew she’s finished, done, outta there, long before it happened. With this possible upgrade in jobs, it’s who knows, we’ll see, could be. She’s coy. Minus a definitive decision in advance, she dries up financing to possible opponents. Everything freezes until her announcement. Possible contenders stay cemented in place, nobody’s donating to anyone, they’re holding off until she puts the word out.
Mr. & Mrs. Nostradamus weren’t as smart as the Clintons.
ELLE Varner, outstanding new artist at the NAACP awards and the Grammy-nominated for Best R&B Song “Refill,” sang with Stevie Wonder at the UN and is being mentored by him. She’s the Obama girls’ favorite. They brought her to meet Mama. Mama liked her. Elle asked could she invite the daughters to be her guests at the Grammys. Supposedly, Mama said yes.
WE said bye-bye to one of our most colorful mayors — Edward I. Chutzpah. I loved him. But he was what he was. Aggressive, tough, cranky, pungent. As New York as a Sixth Avenue pushcart hot dog.
His 88th birthday was at Siro’s. Lunch. Longtime staffers, maybe 40 people. The chocolate and vanilla cake had eight candles. Thanking everyone, he said: “I so wanted everyone to come today. And I’d really like to celebrate my 100th here . . . but I don’t know if I’ll even make my 89th.”
During his reign, my friend Bess Myerson, another quintessential New Yorker, was his shield. His plus-one date. 1945’s first Jewish Miss America, then on TV, then a Senate candidate, then Ed’s consumer affairs commissioner. Then her personal life made headlines when her lover was jailed. It nearly did her in, too.
I personally lived through this. On trial for months, she came daily from the courthouse to my house. Nobody knew. I fed her. Comforted her. Never gave her up until she said I could write the Nov. 9, 1987, frontpage story.
Who gave her up was Koch. We all knew he’d drop anyone who developed a hangnail. Asked will Bess return as commissioner, he replied, “Depends. We’ll see.” At a subsequent movie opening, she slithered by him in dark glasses, no makeup, babushka. He pretended not to notice. I noticed. I was with her.
This most famous Miss America ever is still with us. But frail.
Hard to believe “Old Jews Telling Jokes” is still running — and Ed Koch is gone.
RuPAUL’s drag race featured JWoww, Nicole “Snooki” and their enhanced breasts. Somebody said: “I think Snooki’s a drag queen.” She answered: “We all are.”. . . Heidi Klum, dating her bodyguard, “dresses up in the bedroom and gets naughty.” Sharing this is nice. Maybe next up, a fireman . . . In his Beverly Hills home best-seller Jonathan Kellerman fund-raised for The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s musical instruments department. Like the world’s oldest piano, vintage guitars, antique Egyptian music makers.
ABC-TV’s running either hot or smart. Despite the absence of Robin Roberts, its morning show’s getting numbers. Between CNN’s slide into the lavatory and 2013 trends, ABC figures programming news is as gone as Al-Jazeera’s pal Al Gore for president.
They’re going fun fun fun. Lighter stuff. Headlines are “GMA’s” first half-hour then gossip, recipes, fashion, the new depilatory for under your arms, etc.
CNN big-mouths say lifting “20/20” co-host Chris Cuomo and White House correspondent Jake Tapper is because ABC no longer has room for a newsmaker, because soon “60 Minutes” alone stays a real news magazine.
It’s maybe why G. Stephanopoulos, who works five mornings a week, is hot to keep his Sunday “This Week” show.
But, as I’m getting used to, experts will probably say I don’t know what I’m talking about.
OFF-B’WAY’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Song: The Music of Harold Arlen” offers Valentine’s Day marriage onstage. Buy two orchestra seats, sit up front, get “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” sung, NY officiant, certificate, Champagne and witnesses . . . Bette Midler bought a cashmere top at Mad Ave.’s Christopher Fischer . . . Schwarzenegger’s last movie “The Last Stand” might be his last stand. All age groups voted it a “C.”
NEW York story. This guy’s hunting a Moroccan visa for a vacation in 10 days. National Moroccan holiday. Office closed. Tucks the documents into his pocket, grabs a cab. Next day finds the envelope. No passport. Goes crazy. Two days tears the house apart. In it was his wife’s green card. Replacement online meant 47 pages of forms, $450, and “The process takes 3 1/2 months.”
They go to the Israeli Consulate. The consul leaves. Minutes later returns. With her missing passport. And green card. Finding it in the taxi, a Good Samaritan, on a freezing day, went to 42nd and Second and handed it in.
This is to hope the person reads this so Geoffrey Weill can say thank you.
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.