So Rep. Rob Andrews played the age card again and again in the runup to Tuesday's N.J. Senate primary and was summarily trounced by the supposed geezer in question, Frank Lautenberg, by nearly a 2-1 advantage.

Yes, if Lautenberg prevails in the November general election, he will be 91 at the end of his fifth term as Andrews' ads repeatedly warned voters.

Guess what? It seems the senator is a bit more "vigorous" than Andrews incessant ageist ads charged.

Turns out times have changed.

In 1972, Lautenberg, then a mere whippersnapper, used age to vanquish Millicent Fenwick. Andrews brought this up repeatedly, as well. Fenwick was 72, a dozen years younger than Lautenberg is now. Fenwick, long thought the inspiration for Doonesbury's Lacey Davenport, was also perceived as a patrician throwback to the past despite her progressive ideals.

Voters have clearly become more sensitive in the intervening years. What worked in 1982, doesn't play now, and a candidate has to run on what he has has to offer not simply on the platform that he isn't old. 

There was something distasteful about Andrews' campaign, which used age above all other charges. It's one thing for Jay Leno and other late-night comics to make age jokes about McCain, another thing for a candidate. 

This is a warning about doing the same with John McCain in the general presidential election. First, McCain is adept at making them himself. Second, Barack Obama seems to have more dignity than this. And, third, it's always important to remember this golden rule in politics: Older people vote. 

 

Anne d'Harnoncourt, age 64, who died at her Fitler Square home Sunday, was a towering presence in Philadelphia. Quite literally, as the elegant director and CEO of the Philadelphia Museum of Art was a regal six feet. She was synonomous with the institution, which she headed since 1982. 

Ms. d'Harnoncourt was known for her outgoing manner, oversized art jewelry and shawls, and a gray mane regularly perched above her head in the manner of a Gibson Girl. She seemed of this age and one much earlier, and she carried herself that way. She was museum nobility, the daughter of Rene d'Harnoncourt, the son of a Viennese Count, who helped assemble the Museum of Modern Art.

Enormously diplomatic, d'Harnoncourt loathed being perceived as prefering one artist or donor at the expense of another. She thwarted many a reporter trying to get a quote. It was possible to spend an hour in her presence discussing major gifts without the director ever mentioning the word money. The New York Times once ran a profile of her correctly titled "Master of the Gentle Sidestep." Ms. d'Harnoncourt would have had an equally illustrious career in the State Department.

Ms. d'Harnoncourt was also the voice of the museum, frequently narrating the acoustiguides for blockbuster exhibitions. Like George Plimpton, William F. Buckley or Julia Child (whose height and vocal timbre she shared), Ms. d'Harnoncourt had one of those throwback, lockjaw, plummy, patrician voices of an earlier era, as musical and entertaining as a Gilbert and Sullivan performer.

She was an enormous, indelible presence. Ms. d'Harnoncourt, with her husband, Joseph Rishel, senior curator of European painting before 1990, constituted the city's first couple of art. Her death is shocking. Her presence still felt. It's hard to think of the Philadelphia Museum of Art without her.  

Who needs afternoon soaps when we have the ongoing saga of CBS3? First, the station has to pay big bucks to keep tabloid-titillating anchorbabe Alycia Lane. Now, her former on-air partner, Mr. Perfect Pancake, Larry Mendte is being investigated for hacking into hundreds of her private emails. We repeat, hundreds.

Mendte's off the air but CBS3 must continue to pay him an estimate $700,000 a year? At this point, the station may be shelling out more for its off-the-air former anchorbot team than the cumulative team it has reporting the news.

As the Inquirer's Michael Klein, John Shiffman and Andrew Maykuth report this morning, station sources report Mendte did hack into Lane's private account. If the FBI finds this to be true, what was Mendte's motivation? Did he do it because he was jealous of Lane's celeb status? Was he trying to assist the career of his wife, Channel 29 newsreader Dawn Stensland, previously crowned the fairest in anchorland until Lane arrived? Or is it simply a bit of both?

Now, the FBI is investigating. If the stories prove true, and if Mendte released information to the New York tabloids and other news organizations, he consequently aided in damaging Lane's career. If so, Lane can sue Mendte for damages. This could prove a potential ratings winner that would trounce any soap.

If the managers at CBS3 are wise, they could recoup their off-air losses, turning these potential embarrassments into gold.

Call the trial, As the News Clots or The Pancaked and the Ruthless or, simply, The Ratings of Our Lives.

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, to hire one newsreader with poor judgment may be regarded as misfortune; to hire both looks like carelessness.

Stay tuned to the next installment of News Soap Opera Digest.

Philadelphia's Santogold is the Next Big Thing. She was born and raised Santi White, daughter of Mayor John Street's good friend, the late Ron White.

Read the latest profile of her in New York magazine. Check out these wicked zipper pants.

Better yet, check out her eponymous CD. Excellent.

http://nymag.com/arts/popmusic/profiles/47368/ 

Some artists attract irrational devotion. Bill Murray is one such love object.

Sofia Coppola wrote Lost in Transaltion for Murray, and only Murray, though he played his usual hide-and-seek game in making Coppola suffer for her art. This, even though he had already starred with her cousin, Jason Schwartzman, in Wes Anderson's Rushmore, one of the most charming American movies made in the last few years, worthy of being compared to Preston Sturges.

There are many of us who will watch Murray in anything. His projects, of late, have been few. He recently showed up for a cameo in Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited, which is a visual treat and drenched in deadpan.

Alas, to love an artist is not the same as to live with one. Today in the Inquirer's SideShow, Tirdad Derakshani -- the world's leading existential gossip columnist -- reports that Murray's wife of a decade, Jennifer Butler Murray, is filing for divorce. 

The reasons are not pretty, as Tirdad quotes "adultery, marijuana and alcohol addictions,...physical abuse, sexual addictions and frequent abandonment." Court papers state that in November Murray "hit his wife in the face and then told her she was 'lucky he didn't kill her.' "

Sigh. In Rushmore, Murray played a petty, alcoholic businessman who felt no affection for his sons but utter competition with a gentle, outcast teenage boy. It's a remarkable performance, one of the best. Murray will soon appear as Agent 13 in Get Smart, opening June 20.

At times, it would be nice if the old studio system were in place and such knowledge of wonderful performers wasn't known yet we feel for Jennifer Butler. It's a quandary as to how to appreciate artists who may be lesser people when they're not performing.  

Here are the sad documents from The Smoking Gun:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0529081murray1.html

While you were working, New Jersey's former Luv Guv Jim McGreevey and his not-yet-former wife Dina Matos McGreevey, four years after the Gay American speech, continued to produce sound and fury in state Superior Court in Union County.

Turns out both of them are rather bad with the money.

In that neither one of them seems to have any, which makes the whole business seem like a collossal waste of time.

McGreevey claims he is $415,863 in debt. Matos McGreevey claims she owes her attorney $250,000.

Dina wants to return to the custom in which she lived before he quit the post in August 2004 after putting his lover-or-then-again-not on his payroll. Before that she was living in the lovely governor's manse Drumthwacket -- which is Celtic for "Princeton is not New Jersey." She's asking for more than $50,000 monthly in support.

Now, her life is very different.

"Well. Obviously, I don't have the state vehicles. No driver. No security. No housekeeper. No staff. No chef," she said on the witness stand, the Newark Star Ledger reports. "Now I pay a mortgage, utilities and all the household expenses." 

Just like other citizens.

In prior testimony, McGreevey revealed that he continues to be a kept man, first by the state, and now by his beau, Mark O'Donnell, whom he owes $250,000 for rent, taxes and legal bills. They live in a Plainfield, N.J. designed by Frederic Law Olmstead. McGreevey has earlier testifed that he's had trouble finding work.

Therefore, he's attending Episcopal seminary to become a priest.

One more way to have other people pay his bills.

Matos McGreevey fought today with McGreevey's attorney, Stephen Haller, after he charged her with being a nuisance to the governor.

"Was this about the time when you began calling Mr. McGreevey 20 times a day that campaign staffers thought you were a stalker," Haller asked.

Superior Court Judge Karen Cassidy asked them to stop bickering. "I am going to control this cross examination, alright," the Newark Star Ledger reports. "I will walk off this bench. I've done it before."

This thing has dragged out for almost four years. Can't they get this over and be done with it?

When we think of Atlantic City, and we do all the time, seldom do we think of Jimmy Buffett.

Clearly, we were wrong.

The Trump Marina is being sold for $316 million to a New York concern and turning into a Mrgaritaville, it was announced Thursday.

(In his typical bloviating ways, Trump announced "“It’s a great deal for both of us. They’re buying a wonderful building in a great location," not adding that it was the lowest performing of his three AC locations.)

Now Buffett always seemed too sunny, too Southern (born in Pacagoula, Miss.), too laid-back for an A.C. mindest.

Then again, the loud Hawaiian shirts and floppy hats will be right at home on the Boardwalk. And what's not to love about a drink with salt? When he puts in a personal appearance, perhaps Buffett can sing about a "Cheesesteak in Paradise." And his pirating can be in removing money from his customers' Hawaiian shirts.

A study commissioned by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute argues that race should be a factor, though not the only factor, in adoption and recommends amending laws that made it easier for families to adopt African American children.

The study study's urges changing the Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994 and its 1996 amendment, the Interethnic Adoption Provisions, which made it illegal for federally funded agencies to address race. A third of all wards in foster care are African American.

"The status quo isn't working," the institute's Adam Pertman told the Chicago Tribune. "And if we're going to be child-centered, we need to recognize reality and not what our ideal may be." He added: "The objective is not to be colorblind but to be color-conscious."

Aren't we already color conscious, perhaps too much so?

Consider Barack Obama. Though not adopted, he was raised by a white mother, then white grandparents in Hawaii where few people looked like him. In his books and speeches, he frequently addresses adjusting to racial differences and distinctions as a child. Though exceptional, Obama is certainly not an exception. A household containing multiple races demands that the family daily consider the issues, making them all more sensitive and aware, not a bad prescription for society at large.

A mere half century after he launched his career....

Neil Diamond tops charts for first time

 

Billboard.com