Jeff Dufour and Patrick Gavin, The Examiner
2007-02-01 08:00:00.0
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Jeff Dufour and Patrick Gavin cover people, power and politics in the beltway each weekday. Email them at yan@dcexaminer.com .

Morris: Hillary will be ‘worst president we’ve ever seen’

Dick Morris is no fan of Sen. Hillary Clinton, having spent much of the past decade writing and speaking out against her. And he took his always-quotable opinions to the offices of Americans for Tax Reform Wednesday at a breakfast sponsored by The American Spectator.

Dick’s greatest hits:

» Although Barack Obama is an “exciting phenomenon,” he is the equivalent of “political stem cells: You can make him into any tissue you want.”

» “It is in the national interest that, if there is a Democratic president, that it not be Hillary.”

» “The Republican field is like the New York Yankees: They’ve got a pitching rotation of really great names who are 45 years old and who probably won Cy Young Awards when they were younger. But they’ll have a sore arm by the World Series and will end up on the [disabled list]. Republicans need to look to the minor leagues.”

» He laid out the political future: “Hillary will be the next president, and she’ll be the worst president we’ve ever seen.” No matter what happens, the situation in Iraq will “assure that the GOP gets massacred in 2008 congressional elections.” In 2010, the Republicans will take back the Congress — “Hillary will give Republicans the same gift she gave them in 1994” — and they’ll win the presidency in 2012, but thanks to demographic shifts favoring Democrats (namely the rising Hispanic and African-American populations), “that will be the last Republican president we’ll ever see.”

• Read the latest on Hillary's bid for the presidency.

Daniels: I’m no William Shatner

“I know I’m not the first and I won’t be the last” actor to moonlight as a musician, Jeff Daniels told us in an interview Wednesday.

The playwright and versatile film and stage actor appears at Wolftrap tomorrow to support his second album of storyteller-type folk material.

As if to forestall the comparisons to Bruce Willis, Russell Crowe and Jared Leto — all actors with vanity bands — Daniels says, “I can’t help the fact that I get on the stage and I’m known for doing something else. I deal with that right off the bat.”

Often he does so with his song “If William Shatner Can, I Can Too.”

He said performing music is unlike acting in that “there’s a nakedness I wasn’t prepared for the first time I went out there”; however, “it’s the best thing I do creatively because no one else has their hands on it.”

He said he has some political and topical material, but he likes to “find out where the audience is” first. He recalled playing in his home state of Michigan right after the 2004 election and playing a song of his called “St. Peter and the Neocon at the Pearly Gates.”

“It split the audience right down the middle, just like the election,” he said, adding, “The country’s divided, and I for one am waiting to be united. But if challenged, I have musical answers.”

Graham, Cumming, Daly join Creative Coalition regulars

The Creative Coalition brought out more than its usual roster of Washington-connected celebs on Wednesday, as Tim Daly, Morgan Fairchild and Wendie Malick joined stalwarts like Fran Drescher and Joe Pantoliano for lunch and dinner with members of Congress.

At lunch in a small room in the basement of the Capitol, about a dozen actors sat with Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., to discuss … energy policy?

Weiner explained: “This is a case of the arts and cinema taking the lead on an issue,” most notably with Al Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

GOP message meister Frank Luntz, who also sat on the panel, echoed Weiner. “As the ugliest person in this room, I don’t know what I’m doing here,” he joked, before adding that actors “all have incredible power to communicate. Every time you perform you make people think things they never thought before.”

He told Pantoliano that he’s “not that guy that Tony Soprano beat to [heck] two seasons ago. I know you’re not the mean, awful characters you play. I hope you never run for office.”

“I’d fit right in,” joked Pantoliano, who entered wearing a crimson ballcap emblazoned with an “H” (although he got it in Cambridge, he insisted it stands for “Hoboken.”)

At one point, it was unclear whether there would be enough food to go around. Originally slated for 30 people, the lunch, priced at $1,200 according to an invoice that was laying around, swelled to 40-plus when aides and other hangers-on were included. Staff were left scrambling for chairs and plates.

Food was not a problem at night, as a lavish spread greeted the celebs — this time joined by Heather Graham and Alan Cumming — at B. Smith’s for a “Welcome Back Celebration: A Tribute to the 110th Congress.”

Jim Talent: Praying for a comeback?

Former Sen. Jim Talent’s back in town, and he was spotted grabbing dinner at Armand’s pizzeria on Capitol Hill Tuesday night, wearing a blazer Obama-style (i.e. no tie, unbuttoned white shirt). The Missouri Republican lost his seat to Claire McCaskill last fall.

But before he and his male dinner companion — whom we were unable to identify as of press time — dug down into their salad bar salads and a shared plate of wings, the two gave it up for the Lord, praying out loud with heads bowed for almost a minute.

Our source says that the bulk of their dinner conversation was sprinkled with talk of “Jesus,” “Bible” and “faith,” all of which Talent will need on his side if he wants his seat back.

Media Mix

Former Rep. Dick Armey, R-Texas, one of the architects of the Contract with America, served as House Majority Leader from 1994-2002. He is now chairman of Freedomworks.org, a national grassroots group dedicated to “lower taxes, less government and more freedom.”

Q: What’s the first Web site you visit in the morning?

Dallas Stars hockey, www.dallasstars.com

Q: What book are you reading?

Ed Gillespie, “Winning Right”

Q: What’s the last movie you saw?

“The Prestige”

Q: What’s your favorite TV show?

Anything on the History Channel

Q: What are you listening to on CD/iPod?

Earnest Tubb