The Sleuth

Somehow we didn't think we had seen the last of Cynthia McKinney.

The former controversial congresswoman from Georgia has resurfaced - on a boat in the Mediterranean Sea trying to deliver supplies to Gaza.

Israeli forces arrested McKinney and other passengers on board the ship, according to a group called Free Gaza, which said on its Web site that McKinney and the others "have been illegally incarcerated for their solidarity work with Palestine."

The Israeli Consulate General of Israel in Atlanta, however, accused McKinney and her fellow travelers of waging a "reckless political stunt."

McKinney ran for president in 2008 as a Green Party candidate. She was defeated for reelection to the House in 2006, not long after she was accused of punching a Capitol Police officer who mistook her for a tourist. She had made a brief comeback after being defeated in 2002, at which time her father said he blamed the "J-E-W-S" for his daughter's defeat.

Read more about McKinney's arrest off the coast of the Gaza Strip on Atlanta's 11Alive.com site.

First lady Michelle Obama waves on June 6, 2009 in Colleville-sur-Mer during D-Day celebrations marking the 65th anniversary of the allied landings in France. (Eric Feferberg/AFP/Getty Images)

The White House is refusing to comment today on reports that first lady Michelle Obama got special treatment during her trip to France last month.

Long after her departure, it seems, the first lady continues to be treated like a rock star -- or even like a princess -- in France, especially by President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Sarkozy says he made special calls to get stores opened for Mrs. Obama when she took her daughters, Malia and Sasha, shopping in Paris during their trip last month.

"Is it normal that when Mrs. Obama and her daughters, on a
 Sunday, want to go shopping in Paris stores, I have to make a 
call to get the shops to open?" Sarkozy said Tuesday during a speech
 in the Paris suburb of La Defense. "All the Obama supporters 
were there. Who is going to explain to them why France is the 
only country where shops are closed on Sundays?"

Actually it was the U.S. Embassy that made the calls, according to both Bloomberg News and the New York Daily News.

A few days before President Obama and his family traveled to Paris on the first weekend of June, the U.S. Embassy in Paris called Bonpoint, an upscale children's boutique in the St.-Germain-des-Près neighborhood, asking for the store to be opened for the visiting first family, Bloomberg reports.

The Daily News adds, "Presumably the boutique won't have to worry about paying hefty fines for shops that buck a 1906 law banning most Sunday shopping." The Paris stringer for the Daily News wrote a story Tuesday titled "Michelle Obama enjoys Paris privilege barred to millions in France: Sunday shopping."

(AP Photo/Chris Miller, File)

At least one former campaign aide to 2008 vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin is rushing to her defense in light of the lengthy and blistering profile of the Alaska governor in Vanity Fair.

David Welch, a veteran campaign operative and behind-the-scenes researcher for the McCain-Palin campaign, takes issue with the anonymous quotes attributed to other former campaign aides in the magazine piece.

Welch, who was deputy research director on the campaign, says he was "shocked" by the Vanity Fair article and the allegations made by former staffers.

"Significant parts of the story are based on half truths and gossip from staffers who refused to go on the record," Welch said in a statement e-mailed to the Sleuth, which will be circulated more widely this afternoon. "Purdum did not include quotes from pro-Palin staffers (Mike Goldfarb, Randy Scheunemann have been outspoken in their support) - a clear sign of biased hit piece. If that doesn't convince you, the countless cheap shots and comparison of Palin to Nixon should."

Purdum, it should be noted, does quote John Coale, who established Palin's political action committee, SarahPAC, at length.

Welch also defended Palin's spokeswoman, Meg Stapleton, who Purdum criticizes in the magazine piece for her continued -- and frankly, puzzling -- use of a personal e-mail address rather than her state government account. Welch suggested Purdum was upset that Stapleton denied his request for an interview with Palin.

Purdum describes Stapleton in the piece as someone who has "drawn withering fire from Palin friends and critics alike for being an ineffective adviser."

"The Vanity Fair article was unfair and did not reflect the tremendous amount of respect and pride other staff felt working for her," Welch added. "This article simply accentuated the negative and eliminated the positive."

Among Purdum's many colorful descriptions of Palin is this paragraph:

But there were ominous signs--indications of an erratic nature. This is the third thing McCain could have discovered about Palin--a woman, after all, who kept a pregnancy secret for seven months, flew all the way home from Texas to Alaska with a near-full-term baby while leaking amniotic fluid, and then finally drove the 45 minutes from Anchorage to a hospital in Wasilla, all so that the child could be born in the 49th state. Palin was for the infamous Gravina Island "bridge to nowhere" before she was against it, and reversed herself only when such pork-barrel projects prompted a nationwide backlash. As governor, she hired several old high-school, hometown, or political friends with minimal qualifications for important state jobs. One friend, a former mid-level manager for Alaska Airlines, headed the department that reviewed candidates for state boards and commissions; another became director of the state Division of Agriculture, citing a childhood love of cows as one qualification. Palin communicated with legislators and her staff mainly by BlackBerry, sometimes using a personal e-mail account to avoid having to disclose documents under the state public-records laws.

Updated, 1:45 p.m.

Is reality TV having a trickle-down effect on politics these days, or what?

A fundraiser in San Diego for a Democratic candidate for Congress got so out of hand last weekend that police showed up, arrested the host of the fundraiser and used pepper spray on the partygoers. The San Diego County Sheriff's Department said in a statement it has ordered an internal review of the handling of the incident.

Meanwhile in New Hampshire, the mayor of Manchester, Frank Guinta, who is a highly touted Republican candidate for Congress, is being questioned for his involvement in a bar brawl that reportedly left one man's leg severely broken. Guinta is running to oust Rep. Carol Shea Porter, one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents in the country.

Guinta was at the bar with his friends the Garrity brothers -- Mike Garrity, an alderman, and Pat Garrity, a firefighter and state representative -- when at least one of the Garritys was accused of beating up a man named Thomas English. The alleged victim's family tells the Manchester Express they were furious with Mayor Guinta and Mike Garrity for leaving English injured on the floor and departing the bar before an ambulance showed up.

Guinta told the Express: "It happened so fast I didn't see it." He added that he "had no idea that [English] had injuries to the extent that he did. I'm not a doctor."

The New Hampshire Democratic Party, quite naturally, has weighed in questioning why Guinta didn't call the police from the Fish and Game Club and why he left the scene before paramedics arrived.

"Frank Guinta tried to make a name for himself by having liquor licenses pulled from downtown bars where violence occurred, but when it involved a fight at the Fish and Game Club, he refused to call the police," says Victoria Bonney, New Hampshire Democratic Party Communications Director. "He has clearly put himself and his career before the safety of the city he was elected to lead."

In the San Diego kerfuffle, there were no broken bones, but the host of the fundraiser -- in the upscale Cardiff-by-the-sea neighborhood, no less -- was arrested for assaulting a deputy who was responding to complaints about noise, according to the San Diego county Sheriff's Department.

The deputy on the scene arrested Shari Barman, 60, deployed pepper spray and called for backup, says the sheriff's statement. "Another individual was cited at the scene," according to the statement.

The fundraiser was being held for Francine Busby, a Democrat seeking a rematch against Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.). Busby told the Los Angeles Times that the deputy who used pepper spray on her supporters "clearly overreacted."

"There was no noise, there was no problem, these were middle-aged men and women talking very quietly," she said.

It isn't just Republicans like John Ensign and Mark Sanford who are making headlines for political sex scandals these days. Democrat John Edwards' name has resurfaced, thanks to a report that Andrew Young, a former close aide, is writing a bombshell tell-all book.

Oddly, the Sleuth has noticed, the subject of that former aide is so sensitive that Elizabeth Edwards couldn't bring herself to mention him by name in her recent best-selling book, "Resilience" -- the same position she took toward her husband's one-time mistress, Rielle Hunter, who also goes unnamed.

"I will call him Jim," she writes of an aide she described as an "obsessed fan" whose "unbridled loyalty" to her husband and "willingness to do anything John wanted" obviously still rankle. That "pathetic" individual first started working with the Edwardses during John's 1998 Senate campaign, she writes, just as Young did.

Former Edwards aides have stepped forward to tell The Sleuth that the references to "Jim" are really about Young, resolving a mystery about the aide's identity that had perplexed readers when her book was released.

"Jim's" loyalty was on full display last year when Young publicly declared through a lawyer that he was the father of Hunter's baby.

But now, according to the New York Daily News, Young will pen a book in which he denies he sired Hunter's baby. John Edwards is the baby's father, Young will write in his book to be published by St. Martin's Press, according to the Daily News' "Rush & Molloy" column.

"Young says that his belief in Edwards ran so deep that he agreed to take the fall for the candidate, inviting the pregnant Hunter to live with him, his wife, Cheri, and their three children," the columnists wrote. "Later, after Hunter delivered the baby, Young and his family moved to a different home in California."

Less intriguing but more salacious is Young's claim that Edwards and Hunter made a sex tape together, according to the Daily News.

Other interesting allegations in the column include:

• Mrs. Edwards holds Young partly responsible for her husband's affair with Hunter.

• Hunter told Young that she and John Edwards talked about getting married one day.

• Mrs. Edwards suspects Young of stealing the baseball card collection of her late son, Wade.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) would like to amend that little joke he made earlier this week about Sarah Palin when he said he wished it had been the Alaska governor who had gone missing instead of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.

"Too bad, if a governor had to go missing, it couldn't have been the governor of Alaska. You know, Sarah Palin," Kerry told a group of civic and business leaders on Tuesday, according to the Boston Herald. That, of course, was before he and the rest of us learned Sanford had lost himself in Argentina with his secret mistress.

Conservative women rushed to Palin's defense after the Kerry joke. Ethel Fenig at American Thinker wrote, "Tee hee! Letterman, Kerry -- all afraid of strong, independent women! Kerry should find a job with David Letterman -- who would miss him?"

Kerry's spokeswoman now tells The Sleuth the senator really didn't mean what he said, though his clarification would hardly qualify as an apology.

"We stand corrected, the truth is every Democrat hopes Governor Palin is in the public eye for a long, long time, especially on the 2012 presidential ballot," Kerry spokeswoman Jodi Seth says. "Lately it's been Vice President Cheney that everyone hopes would lose the cameras and go for a long leisurely hike on the Appalachian Trail. And good grief, if anyone thinks John Kerry is afraid of strong, smart women, they sure haven't met his brilliant wife and two independent daughters. It sounds like getting crushed these last two election cycles cost some of these Republicans their sense of humor."

We'll see how funny Palin finds this.

They certainly weren't getting many C-SPAN viewers anyway in light of the 24-7 coverage of Michael Jackson's death. So what better time for members of Congress to break for a moment of silence in honor of the pop superstar than during today's debate on the climate-change bill, one of President Obama's highest legislative priorities?

"We pay tribute to the culture that he has left behind, his legacy," said Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.) of the celebrity she called a "multi-talented person who entertained the world."

"Madame Speaker, if there is a God -- and I believe there is -- and that God distributes grace, and mercy, and talent to all of his children," Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. began. "On August 29, 1958, he visited Gary, Indiana, and touched a young man with an abundance of his blessings. With that gift, that young man, Michael Joe Jackson, would touch and change the world.

"His heart couldn't get any bigger, and yesterday, it arrested. I come to the floor today on behalf of a generation to thank God for letting all of us live in his generation and in his era," Jackson said, before calling for a moment of silence.

Meanwhile, Rep. Jackson's father, Rev. Jesse Jackson, who defended and counseled the pop singer when he faced child molestation charges, had this to say: "We are out of our joy. He is out of his pain.... He was constantly challenged in the press and all he really wanted to be was the greatest entertainer and he was that."

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs goes splash in the dunk tank at the luau for members of Congress and their families. June 25, 2009. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Updated 9:14 p.m.
Sasha Obama was the star of the first-ever White House luau, wowing the crowd with a pitch so tough that the 8-year-old sank her dad's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, in the dunking booth, according to Sleuth informants who were there.

Dad, wearing a purple lei, followed suit, sinking Rahm on his first try.

President Obama took the tradition of the annual White House picnic for members of Congress into uncharted territory tonight. There were hula dancers in grass skirts, fire dancers, inflatable sharks floating in the pond, volleyball and a feast of Hawaiian delicacies.

And there was plenty of arm-twisting going on behind the scenes at the party on the South Lawn in hopes of getting enough members of Congress to jump aboard and support the president's energy cap-and-trade bill, which he hopes the House will take up Friday before leaving for the Fourth of July recess.

Oh, just your typical scene at an everyday White House luau.

"Aloha!" Obama yelled out to his guests. "I wish I could have given you a trip to Hawaii. Given our budget crunch, we can't do that, so at least we can bring Hawaii to you." (The DJ played "Super Bad" by James Brown after the president finished speaking, according to a brief pool report of the event, which otherwise was closed to press.)

A very wet Rahm with a towel slung over his shoulders walked around the party and schmoozed with his old Hill colleagues, we're told. The Beach Boys blared over the speakers and guests sipped Mai Tais and nibbled on Lomi Lomi salmon, Kalua pig, BBQ baby back ribs and strawberry tiramisu and chocolate bars.

Emanuel wasn't the only victim chosen to occupy the wet seat tonight. Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, Phil Schiliro, head of the White House legislative affairs office, and OMB Director Peter Orszag were also on tap for potential dunking by rival pols, and first children for that matter.

One guest at the luau "lost count" after Orszag was dunked for the 12th time.

The leader of the free world also sank Gibbs, though it took him a few tries. Eventually, he hit his target and his press secretary plopped into the water.

As if the press corp doesn't splash enough cold water on Gibbs during the ritualistic parry-and-thrust in the White House briefing room each day, they also were given the rare privilege of trying to sink him in the dunk tank before the start of the picnic, when they would be shooed off.

They asked, after all. And Gibbs obliged.

CBS correspondent Bill Plante hit his target on the first try, and Ben Feller sunk him on his third attempt. Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times "had the biggest wind-up" of any of the reporters, according to one White House aide, but she missed.

She was proud of her pitching arm, however, and boasted on her blog that she "came close." ("I always wanted to throw like the boys," she wrote.)

Obama watched from a nearby perch, but declined reporters' entreaties to join the fun. "He won't let me take a shot," Obama shouted.

The evening -- after the riffraff reporters were cleared out -- was a much looser affair than the White House congressional picnics of years gone by, according to those on the scene.

Even the typically stiff Larry Summers, Obama's chief economic adviser, had his tie loosened as he chatted with Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and her husband, Sidney Harman, said one eyewitness.

Spotted in Hawaiian shirts were Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), according to the press pool report.

Debbie Dingell, who attended the party with her husband, Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), told us, "I haven't seen people just have a good time like that in a long time. And Republicans were having just as good a time as the Democrats were."

You might think the Republican Party would want to avoid the topic of secret gubernatorial travel right now.

Given that one of the party's top governors, Mark Sanford of South Carolina, is clinging to his political life after flying off to Argentina to meet with his girlfriend -- without telling anyone where he was going -- you would think the whole subject of governors' comings and goings would be one GOP spinmeisters would do anything to avoid. Right?

Well, you would be wrong.

From the Department of Bad Timing, the RNC's research/communications team sent out an email today highlighting an editorial in the Richmond Times-Dispatch that criticizes Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine's secretive travel schedule for the Democratic Party.

The irony seemed lost on the RNC.

Apparently the view in Virginia is: if South Carolina can have its travel scandal, so can we. The Republican Party of Virginia subsequently sent out a release this afternoon with the headline "Post Nails Kaine," highlighting the Washington Post's coverage of Kaine's apparent conflicts representing Virginia and the DNC simultaneously.

"I think the taxpayers should know when the governor is or is not on duty," says Pat Mullins, chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia. "Clearly, Tim Kaine is out of the office rather frequently. We'd like to know when that is and where he's going."

Unlike Sanford, whose mysterious absence from South Carolina over the past week was more hormonal than professional, Kaine's travel woes stem from his demanding duties as chairman of the DNC flying around the country to raise money.

(The Virginia GOP failed to mention that Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore served as chairman of the RNC during his last year in office, although the Times-Dispatch editorial makes note of this fact, while pointing out that it didn't work out well for Gilmore either.)

Legitimate or not, the RNC and Virginia state GOP's press releases complaining about another governor's travel issues struck some Republican strategists as embarrassingly unfortunate timing. As one veteran Republican campaign strategist told us, "How did these chuckleheads end up running my party?"

The State newspaper briefly explains in today's coverage of its blockbuster exclusive on Gov. Mark Sanford's secret getaway to Argentina and his extramarital affair why it sat on the story for six months.

In a nutshell: State journalists were unable to contact the woman in Argentina with whom the South Carolina governor was corresponding via e-mail. The newspaper obtained the e-mails back in December. But when reporters there reached out to "Maria" to verify the authenticity of the steamy love e-mails, they never heard back from her.

The juiciest nugget in the tale of how the paper got its scoop appears in today's New York Times. The Times reports that this week, on Tuesday, the State got an anonymous tip that led one of its reporters to find Sanford in the Atlanta airport.

A supposed airline passenger - or, hmmm, could it have been a private investigator? - told the State: "We've seen your governor on an airplane. He's not on the Appalachian Trail." And the tipster suggested the governor would be returning from Argentina, the Times said.

That's when editors at The State sent Gina Smith to the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to find Sanford.

Smith herself, in a first person account of her interview with the governor at the airport, writes today that she couldn't believe she was the only reporter there to meet Sanford.

Here's what she writes:

"And why is there no other media here?" I wondered. "Could we be the only ones onto this story?"

It's how you think when you're playing a hunch, following an anonymous tip that Sanford would be on the plane and anonymous, unverifiable e-mails about an alleged affair between Sanford and woman from Argentina.

Intriguing. She says the tipster told The State that Sanford "would be on the plane." And according to the Times, the tipster claims to have seen Sanford on the airplane - presumably on the flight from Buenos Aires that arrived in Atlanta Wednesday morning.

So the tipster had to be someone who knew about the South Carolina governor's bizarre disappearing act and knew what he looked like. Or, perhaps the tipster was someone who had a vested interested in tracking Sanford's whereabouts.

And of course there's the even bigger question: Who sent the e-mails - from Sanford's personal e-mail account, no less - to The State newspaper in the first place? Seems to us like someone was mighty intent on outing the South Carolina governor for his philandering ways.

Also today, in case you haven't seen them, The State released the full contents of the love e-mails between the governor and his beloved Maria.