Tabloid update: Bush marital turmoil

One of the joys of cooking is the pleasure of standing in the supermarket checkout line and feeling your whole body give in to the desire to buy The Globe tabloid and read the story headlined, "Laura Flees Boozing Bush."

This is a sensation you miss entirely unless you go to the store to pick out your own steaks. You can ask the waiter at the Palm if he's heard anything, but it's just not as good without the photographs.

Well.

Here's the latest.

The Globe divulges that gossip columnist Ted Casablanca, who writes The Awful Truth column for E! Online (oh, stop judging, you know you want to hear this), was told by "prominent and knowledgeable Washington sources" that Laura Bush is staying at the Hay-Adams Hotel following yet another "angry confrontation" with the president over "the state of their marriage."

The Globe reminds its readers that it has been reporting for twelve months that Laura has "battled to keep the marriage alive despite the president's drinking and her suspicions that he was cheating on her with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice."

That might explain why Laura Bush arranged the seating at Monday night's state dinner so that her husband was seated between Queen Elizabeth and Nancy Reagan while Condoleezza Rice, dressed in a dress so red it looked like Rhett Butler picked it out for her on the way to Melanie Wilkes' party, was seated at Mrs. Bush's table where her every move could be watched.

The dresses were gorgeous. Mrs. Bush looked slender and elegant in a custom-made aqua Oscar de la Renta gown, and Condoleezza Rice looked like Lena Horne. See for yourself:




Secretary Rice might look a little less like a torch singer if she wasn't standing next to the piano player (pianist Rohan de Silva, who performed with violinist Itzhak Perlman).

Is it possible that the tabloid reports are true? If the president of the United States was "back on the bourbon" and sleeping with his Secretary of State, you would think the White House press corps would report it. After all, we're in a war. The president's judgment is an important, legitimate issue.

Then again, Newsweek spiked the story of President Clinton's affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. It might never have come to light if the Drudge Report hadn't posted the unbelievable details, leaked by a frustrated source or reporter, on the Internet.

Is Laura Bush really leaving the president? Time will tell, and so will we. If you don't do your own grocery shopping, come right back here.

Copyright 2007

Editor's note: You might be interested in the earlier posts, "Laura Bush's cover story" and "All right, let's dish."

.