Short Cuts

He's Back: As we start to focus on a country that even the glossy travel sites describe as "vast, hot and nasty" look who surfaces as a fixer. In his own oily way, Jesse Jackson out-slicks the Head-Slickster, BJ Clinton, for making a mess and walking away scot-free. In this piece Kenneth Timmerman (the author of the excellent unauthorized bio of Jackson, "Shakedown") brings us the tale of a pile of diamonds that went not-so-mysteriously missing. Let's hope we keep our involvement there extremely limited.

Flipside: The level of hypocrisy among New York's chattering classes and not a few TV talking heads is getting Adam's-apple high as they savage the author of new dish on the JFK, Jr. marriage by talking about how awful it is to talk about it. Many say the couple are not public figures and deserve to be left alone. Huh? We have never had a more public figure than JFK, Jr. And now more tales of Carolyn's drug use have surfaced thanks to the publication the high-minded hide inside their copies of the New York Review of Books.

One Ringy Dingy: The astonishing popularity of the Do Not Call plan is not quite as surprising as learning that the American's need to be nice is so powerful. Although millions have already registered their phone numbers at this official site on the web, story after story on the success of the program quotes people who felt sorry for telemarketers and couldn't bear to hang up on them. This makes us feel bad as we kept a police whistle next to the phone. It was amazing how effective one piercing blast down the phone could be.

Special: It's hard to keep the Kennedy-Cuomo marriage bust-up story moving when the primary players have all shut up but the New York Post tries. Here we learn that the wife of the polo player who caused all the trouble didn't want people to know he was a philanderer and is angry at Andy for spilling the beans. (Bet she didn't hang up on telemarketers either.) Women like that are a special breed. They even had a role model make it to First Lady.

-Your LComStaff