Obama and Palin: Publicity Saints

Much has changed since I worked in the Fame Factory as an editor, exploiting big names to sell magazines and, in the circular process, enlarging their status as media megastars.

But even in today's climate of disposable celebrities who are quickly used up like Kleenex, there is still the rare publicity saint, where mere mention of a name invokes automatic interest over time, as Barack Obama and Sarah Palin (sorry to say) now do.

Merit is moot--it's the tingle of curiosity that attaches to every sighting or utterance, no matter how trivial or vapid, as evidenced by reports that Palin is signing a $7 million book deal and by a magazine editor's breathless comment that "photos of her just sitting there, looking like a normal person, could go for solid five-figure sums."

At the other end of the substance scale, Obama's imminent presidency recalls the editorial excitement over JFK. I put a black-and-white picture of him with Caroline on his lap on a Redbook cover in 1961, over the protests of the Circulation Department, and it sold out. Now Obama is on the cover of GQ after a photo shoot of less than two minutes, accompanied by a paean from, fittingly enough, Ted Kennedy.

My friend, Dick Stolley, the first editor of People, formulated the rule for best-selling celebrities in the 1970s: "Young is better than old. Pretty is better than ugly. Rich is better than poor. Movies are better than music. Music is better than television. Television is better than sports. And anything is better than politics."

Now that politics has become show business, sports and beauty contest rolled into one, there are, as Bill Maher would say, New Rules. But if we can get an Obama, putting up with Palin is worth the price.

Happy Holidays, Senators

Before leaving for Thanksgiving, Congressional Democrats promised not to give President Bush more money for Iraq without deadlines for withdrawal.

Now they are slinking out of Washington for Christmas after providing $70 billion in unrestricted funds for Iraq and Afghanistan.

"When is enough enough?" asked Ted Kennedy, who supported an amendment to require troop withdrawal from Iraq and a cutoff of combat funds within nine months. "I urge my colleagues to vote against this gigantic blank check." By a vote of 76-17, they didn't.

Russ Feingold's troop-withdrawal amendment failed by 74-21. None of the Democratic Presidential candidates was there to support it.

On his way out the door, Trent Lott, the Republican whip, insisted "we're doing the right thing here for our men and women in uniform," handing in his resignation to do the right thing for Trent Lott before lobbying restrictions on former Senators get tougher.

For the American people who voted last November to end the war, they leave behind stockings stuffed with lumps of coal. If we're really good next year, maybe we can get our own President for Christmas.

Will Ted Kennedy Tell All?

The last survivor of the twentieth century's great brother act is writing his memoirs, fittingly for one of the largest advances of all time, north of $8 million.

"I've been fortunate in my life to grow up in an extraordinary family and to have a front row seat at many key events in our nation's history," Ted Kennedy said in a statement.

He will be the first of his generation to live long enough to tell the story of those lives that were marked by grandeur, scandal and grief.

The youngest of nine children, Edward Moore Kennedy was thrown out of Harvard for cheating but, with one brother as President and another Attorney General, he overcame adversity by winning Jack's former Senate seat, which had been kept warm for him by a family friend until he turned 30 in 1962 and was eligible to run for it.

In the 1960s, he was seen at TV funerals of both brothers, became the surrogate father of their 13 children and ended the decade, on the weekend of the first moon landing, driving a car into the waters off Chappaquiddick island, resulting in the drowning of the young woman who was with him.

That scandal would have ended any other political career but, in 1980, he was preparing to challenge unpopular incumbent Jimmy Carter for the Democratic Presidential nomination. I know because I published a 90th birthday reminiscence by his mother that summer, arranged by loyal JFK staffers as part of Ted Kennedy's public rehabilitation.

But his heart was not in it. In a CBS special just before announcing the candidacy, his answer to the question of why he wanted to be president was so vague, rambling and unsure that poll numbers plummeted and it was over.

When he looks back on all that and a remarkable 45-year career in the Senate that includes championing gun control, alternative energy and immigration reform as well as voting against invading Iraq in 2002, Ted Kennedy will have a lot to tell in his autobiography but, for better or worse, most potential readers will have strong opinions about him even before they turn the first page.