Forget Gore, can we draft Tim Gunn?

While Al Gore's was busy winning Oscars, ex-Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney's super-secret presidential strategy PowerPoint presentation somehow found its way to the Boston Globe this week, offering us all a chilling, yet tantalizing whiff of the horrific phantasms that haunt Republicans' nightmares:

The plan, for instance, indicates that Romney will define himself in part by focusing on and highlighting enemies and adversaries, such common political targets as "jihadism," the "Washington establishment," and taxes, but also Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, "European-style socialism," and, specifically, France. Even Massachusetts, where Romney has lived for almost 40 years, is listed as one of those "bogeymen," alongside liberalism and Hollywood values.

... Enmity toward France, where Romney did his Mormon mission during college, is a recurring theme of the document. The European Union, it says at one point, wants to "drag America down to Europe's standards," adding: "That's where Hillary and Dems would take us. Hillary = France." The plan even envisions "First, not France" bumper stickers.

My, that's catchy. And almost borderline sensical. Come on, children, did we learn nothing from "freedom fries?" And aren't Hillary's pantsuits bad enough without adding a beret?

Speaking of the politics of fashion, amazing how it took almost one full news cycle to get the first Al Gore fat jokes and stories about how Hillary's camp is on "girth"-watch for a sudden bout of bid-signalling weight loss.

Now, I thought the comic execution of Gore's orchestrally abbreviated Oscar bit was spot on. And for everyone ripping on how he was straining the seams of his tux, cut the man some slack, he looked roundly presentable. (Apparently the "feminists" couldn't spare a few voices from the Jennifer Hudson-hailing chorus to protest, "But, he's not fat, he's real!")

Not that the bar was set particularly high above the red carpet -- if not for Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gwneyth Paltrow and the unflappable, incomparable Cate Blanchett, I would have thought my Oscar broadcast had somehow been crossed with the live feed of some especially tacky high school prom. Where did everyone shop this year, a discount bridal warehouse? Have all the Hollywood stylists gone east and metamorphosed into Washington image consultants?

Not that some of the '08 candidates couldn't use the help -- but if your own internal strategy documents use the word "rapacious" to describe you, having hair that "looks too perfect" is probably the least of your worries.

For style itself is a form of substance, and either you have it, or you're out.

It's not exactly rocket science

Aww, look, President Bush already has his Halloween costume picked out:


There's another possibility for post-presidency relevancy -- Bush could always be the next, endearingly bumbling incarnation of "Bill Nye the Science Guy." Uh... Kansas edition?

But, then again...

Traveling to North Carolina to highlight his push for ethanol -- which is, after all, basically moonshine -- President Bush couldn't resist uncorking a couple of jokes.

At one stop on his plant tour, Bush held up a beaker of ethanol, took a whiff and reminded his audience -- and perhaps himself -- that "I quit drinking in 1986."

Then, after listening to company executives describe the role of enzymes in reducing the cost of ethanol, Bush asked, "So is this like a distillery?"

... there's always rehab. Every public figure worth his or her martini salt is going in and out for every conceivable faux pas these days, and coming out none the worse for wear PR-wise.

When is Bush just going to give it up, shave his head, ride his bike around Crawford in a diaper and pin the entire Iraq war on the devil in the bottle? ("He blinded me, to prescience!") You know, trade in the rose-colored glasses for a nice set of beer goggles and be done with it already?

"My fellow Americans, heh, what can I say -- I guess I just had one too many mojitos and uh, got a little carried away. How's about pouring your fearless leader a nice, foreign policy Bloody Mary and uh, starting over?"

Too bad Bush can't just blame it on his upbringing, like all those poor urchins in need of Mitt Romney's downright visionary education plan, traditional marriage.

Because this is news to me, but apparently not every child splintered off from a broken home has had the good fortune to absorb enough marriage miasma from his or her more "deserving" peers to succeed in spite of tragically blighted roots.

But seriously, don't these silly conservatives realize what this country really needs are more qualified teachers?

Floating in zero gravitas

Why I love America: Interest in the House Page program has reportedly swelled since the Mark Foley scandal.

As Speaker Nancy Pelosi's spokesperson Drew Hammill said, "I don't think it's surprising. It's an incredible opportunity for a high school junior to come to the Capitol and be so close to the legislative process." And how.

Is it a coincidence this revelation emerges around the same time as the crazed astronaut love triangle story that's been gripping the nation like a sturdy set of hardware-store improvised kidnapping implements?

Think about it: NASA's constantly struggling financially while the terrestrial cowboys in the Defense Department get an (ever-expanding) open range, Earth's orbit is becoming critically saturated with shiny but deadly refuse, an entire planet got "plutoed" -- what better to raise an agency's profile than a tawdry tale of betrayal, malice and wallowing in one's own excretions in hopes of winning a strapping spaceman's affections?

(If Captain Nowak had stopped off at Crawford, then it really would have been suspicious.)

And wanting to be an astronaut when you grow up has been free-falling out of vogue since the Cold War ended -- but what bright-eyed young scamp firing bottle rockets at wildlife and passersby in Middle America wouldn't toss aside all dreams of becoming president upon hearing of such a glamorous, dramatic alternative?

Now NASA just needs to take a cue from the military and re-design its uniforms to better attract new recruits, and heighten the appeal of existing staff. For voluminous silhouettes are at long last reportedly over, and a waist truly is a terrible thing to waste.

Until that terrorist "platoon of lesbians" hell-bent on killing us all develops spaceflight capabilities and the funding climate shifts, what else does NASA have to do with itself?

Takin' care of lady-business

Just when you thought every trite article on female politicians and motherhood (or lack thereof) had been written and maybe, just maybe, the novelty of the notion had run its course, a markedly tipsy Chicago Tribune just had to come stumbling in late to the party.

Notable is not the story itself -- a relatively bland, even by "ooh, how quaint, a lady-lawmaker!" standards piece on the potential political points to be scored by projecting a maternal image -- but the fact that it's flying under the noble banner of "Woman News."

Not "Politics," or "Society" or even the still scurrilous but syntactically sound "Women's News" -- "Woman News." As in, with apologies to Agent Mulder, "Woman, quit reading your woman news and get back in here and make me a sandwich!" news.

But wait, you mean, we get politics now? Isn't that, well, dangerous? Wouldn't we all be better served by a nice recipe with which to satiate our bread-winning menfolk? Or a cuddly puff piece on baby animals or cross-stitching? (Or both, ooh!) Something, anything that doesn't require us to tax our delicate woman brains to such an irresponsible degree?

Perhaps ex-Reagan/Bush 41 aide James Pinkerton best distilled the current state of gender affairs: "In times of war, the instinct is to trust dad more than mom, and the Republicans have benefited from that. But if dad keeps wrecking the car, then there may be reason to change."

Car, tractor, you get the idea. Sometimes you just want to take the proverbial keys away when your leaders have gotten a trifle too sotted to be trusted.

But sometimes, they lose them on their own: Anybody out there gunning for that dreamy John Edwards to be the 2008 Democratic nominee might want to start warming to other possibilities:

One thing Edwards lacked in '04 was "authenticity" -- and to establish it this time around, he "has decided to sell America on sacrifice." Edwards: "I am totally comfortable with the word sacrifice, with asking people to sacrifice for their country." Among the possibilities: tax increases to pay for universal health care, eradicating poverty and cutting carbon emissions, and no new tax cuts for the middle class. Edwards: "There is clearly a political risk, no question. But I actually believe this is what America needs" (1/31).

Asking for sacrifice? Raising taxes? Not venerating the almighty middle class? Good luck with that one, sir. Change your last name to Bush and strangle a few kittens on camera while you're at it.

At least Edwards has a nice, new $6 million mansion to hole up within like a washed-up-politico incarnation of Timon of Athens, gorging himself on ice cream from his Energy Star freezer and cursing that other America.

The rest of us might as well be stuck on the road at bar time.

And that truly is a pity, because woman driving is hard enough as it is.