Vito Fossella's Dread Ringer

By Mary Ann Akers And Paul Kane
Thursday, May 15, 2008

Tall, dark and handsome is one thing. But being a dead ringer for Rep. Vito Fossella (R-N.Y.) is quite another.

For years, Fossella and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) have been confused for each other. But now isn't really the best time to be mistaken for Fossella, who was arrested recently on drunken-driving charges and then confessed to having a secret, long-standing extramarital affair and fathering a child with his mistress. All of which presumably was news to his not-so-secret wife and three children in Staten Island.

That led to a story on New York Magazine's Web site Tuesday titled "Vito Fossella: When Sex Overcomes Politics," which included a photo of the congressman with a big scarlet letter "A" Photoshopped around his neck.

Only the congressman in the photo wasn't Fossella. It was Fossella's doppelganger, Issa.

Issa never saw the photo of himself in the steamy online version of the story. His press secretary, Frederick Hill, called the magazine and got it pulled off the Web site in very short order.

The magazine then quickly removed the errant Issa photo from its Web site and replaced it with one of Fossella. Though, perhaps because the Photoshop idea lost its luster in the mix-up, there is no scarlet letter hanging around Fossella's neck in the current photo accompanying the online story.

"By the time I was able to show Rep. Issa a printed copy of the Web page, the photo had already been removed from the Web site," Hill told On the Hill by e-mail. "Upon seeing it, he asked if it was real. I told him it was and he just shook his head."

Hill says Fossella and Issa -- both of them tall and fit -- have been mistaken for each other over the years. Even Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) once mistook Issa for Fossella, his own state's 13th District congressman, according to Hill. Reporters looking for comment from the scandal-plagued Fossella have made the mistake more often, he adds.

Lauren Starke, a spokeswoman for New York magazine, says the mix-up occurred because the photo the magazine got from Getty Images was mislabeled. As for why the magazine chose not to hang the same scarlet "A" around Fossella's neck, Starke said: "In the interest of correcting it as quickly as possible, we did not replace the letter."

"We certainly didn't intend to tar Representative Issa with the same brush," she adds.

But Would Bush Sign It?

We've got to hand it to Rep. Walter Jones Jr. (R-N.C.). He's no shrinking violet.

As the leading antiwar Republican in the House, Jones was challenged in his state's May 6 GOP primary by a conservative who supports the Iraq war. Jones won by 20 points.

So much for the war as a major selling point to GOP voters.

Now, Jones has fired another shot across President Bush's bow over the president's frequent use of "signing statements" to give his opinion on -- or even express his intent to ignore -- laws approved by Congress, as our colleague Ben Pershing reported on washingtonpost.com's Capitol Briefing.

Signing statements have become a source of particular controversy during Bush's tenure. Various press reports -- most notably a Pulitzer Prize-winning series by the Boston Globe -- have documented Bush's aggressive use of the documents, prompting critics to deem the practice an unconstitutional end run around Congress.

The Jones bill would require that such statements be disclosed more quickly and more publicly, and it would demand that "executive staff . . . testify on the meaning and justification for presidential signing statements" when the House or Senate Judiciary committees wanted to hear from them.

Jones's bill wouldn't ban the practice of issuing such statements, but it might provide House Democrats with nice fodder for more public excoriation of the Bush administration's alleged hubris and secrecy. It helps Democrats' case that Jones is a Republican. The North Carolinian has made a habit of late of bucking his party, most prominently on the Iraq war.

For the record, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has said he won't issue signing statements if elected president. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) both have criticized Bush for his handling of the statements, but they haven't gone as far as McCain in vowing to stop writing them altogether.

A Ranking Member

Many authors share the obsession of frequently checking how their books are doing in Amazon's rankings. Some do it hourly, others less often. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has the luxury of delegating the task.

Reid held his book-release party Tuesday night at the Source, Wolfgang Puck's new downtown restaurant adjoining the Newseum. Hundreds of politicians, journalists, lobbyists and others turned out to celebrate publication of the former boxer's new book, "The Good Fight."

Asked how high his book had risen on Amazon's sales list, he immediately answered, "32." (That's actually where the book sales ranked in the political science category, not overall.)

But the senator said he personally has checked his Amazon ranking only once. "I have Susan check," he said.

Susan is Susan McCue, Reid's longtime key adviser and trusted top aide, who, as always, was front and center at Tuesday night's fete.

McCue said she checks Amazon every day for the senator. Yesterday morning she e-mailed that the book was No. 18 among biographies.

Also attending Tuesday evening's event was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), whose own book, "Know Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters," is due out in July. Not that the two Democratic leaders would ever be competing, but Pelosi's book was at 141,765 yesterday on Amazon; Reid's was at 2,147. Pelosi's Amazon ranking, of course, will shoot up once her book is actually published.

Reid gave a very brief speech at the party, summing up his book by saying, "In America, if I can make it, anyone can."

The majority leader's book chronicles his rise from a hardscrabble childhood in the tiny mining town of Searchlight, not far from Las Vegas, where he coped with two alcoholic parents, his father's abuse of his mother and his father's suicide to become a lawyer who battled organized crime and, ultimately, assume the top post in the U.S. Senate.

And, of course, he writes about one of the more infamous stories of his youth: punching out his future father-in-law, who was trying to stand in the way of young Harry -- or "Pinky" as he was known as a child -- marrying his daughter.

Democrats in New Places

A day after Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's GOP candidate lost a formerly safe Republican seat in a special election, his old lobbying firm threw a party officially welcoming its first Democratic strategist.

Earlier this year Michael Meehan-- a former top adviser to Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) -- launched a new PR wing of Barbour, Griffith, Rogers. BGR used to boast of its all-Republican roster, formerly led by now-Gov. Barbour.

Meehan welcomed hundreds of top Democratic lobbyists and staffers into the firm's ornate office on Pennsylvania Avenue. "I am heading-up the firm's efforts to build a bipartisan offering by recruiting more Democrats," Meehan wrote to his friends.

After Tuesday's election, BGR will need those new Democratic friends. Democrat Travis Childers won the special election in Mississippi's 1st Congressional District, defeating a Republican who had Barbour's full-throated backing.