Don't let Paris be a candle in the wind - She can't do this alone

America doesn't have royal families, but we have something similar: Industrialist dynasties. Families with household names that adorn the walls of museums and hospitals built with their massive fortunes; families like the Vanderbilts, the Gettys and the Hiltons. And while they don’t technically hold the titles, the children of these families definitely behave like princes and princesses, but too often without the requisite social graces. Case in point: LA County’s most famous ex-inmate, Miss Paris Hilton.

Paris’ first act in public life has been a disaster. It started with Rick Salomon making a bundle of money selling footage of her having sex, and ended with the American media horde making a bundle of money selling footage of her in tears being taken back to jail. Along the way, she starred in her own reality TV show, she released an album, shot music videos, starred in a horror movie, and basically took being a Hollywood party girl to astounding new heights.

In her second act in public life, the first thing Paris needs is some serious image control. The most valuable commodity any celebrity owns (especially one who is famous mainly for being rich and famous) is his or her image; and the bigger the celebrity, the more important image control becomes. Take Michael Jordan, for example. He’s been in the public eye for the better part of 20 years. For most of the ’90s, he was the most recognizable person in the world. But you never saw him do anything wrong. I have a friend who has worked with him on a few commercials. He tells me Michael would arrive with six or seven lawyer/agent/assistant types and go straight to his dressing room. Two minutes before he was supposed to be on set, they would all emerge. Michael would do what he had to do, they’d all go back in the dressing room, and a few minutes later, they’d all leave. Even on a closed set, Michael’s "people" kept Michael away from his "public." And that’s exactly what Rick and Kathy Hilton need to get for their little girl: Some "people."

While they’re at it, they can get Paris a new house in a gated community (so nobody knows where she lives), a car with heavily tinted windows (so nobody knows where she travels), and a 400-pound driver/bodyguard to take her wherever she wants to go and protect her when she gets there.

More important than image control, for her second act, Paris needs a purpose. There, she’s on to something already. She says she wants to open a halfway house to provide services for women coming out of jail because "these women just keep coming back because they have no place to go." I hope she’s successful putting this together. When she’s done, she can take on other humanitarian projects. She could do the same thing Angelina Jolie was trying to do before she fell for Brad and they decided to adopt every poor, brown kid they could find and move them to Malibu. While she may never become the United Nations Goodwill Ambassador, Paris Hilton could use her fame and the fact that cameras will follow her wherever she goes to call attention to the needs of under-served populations everywhere. She could become America’s Princess Diana: An advocate for those less fortunate than her (in Paris’ case, the whole world).

I give Rick and Kathy Hilton (and their attorneys) credit; ever since the debacle that was Paris’ early release and subsequent return to jail, they’ve done well. They got Sheriff Lee Baca to say Paris was being treated unfairly. They got City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo explaining why Paris is in jail, but his wife (who is no poster child for safe driving herself) is free to damage more city vehicles. And they (finally) stopped talking to the press. Good for them. But their work is just beginning. What they cannot do is leave Paris alone and unprotected from the media army and its reconnaissance troops — the paparazzi.

Left to her own devices, the Hiltons’ little girl will get eaten alive. NBC was prepared to pay her $1 million to sit for an interview after her release, despite the fact that none other than Barbara Walters and ABC passed on the interview (and refused to pay for it). The media has put a bounty on Paris’ image and anyone who loves her can’t sit idly by while the price continues to rise. Because that’s what happened to Diana Spencer, no longer the mythical "Princess Diana," that night 10 years ago in a tunnel in Paris, France — her image so valuable that she paid for her privacy with her life.

The party's over: GOP is to blame - Hyposcrisy & I. Lewis Libby

The countdown to irrelevance for the Republican party has begun - and they have only themselves to blame. They've done nothing to counter the perception they're hypocrites who will compromise their beliefs for power and campaign cash. And while they can't stop their demise from happening, they don't have to accelerate it like they did last week.

It started monday with a no-confidence resolution on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. This is a man who fired 10% of the US Attorneys in the Justice Department, but didn't (and doesn't) know why they were fired or why they were considered for being fired. He oversees a Justice Department where an official actually feared if she testified truthfully about the performance of her job duties, she could be prosecuted for breaking the law! Senate Republicans called the resolution a political stunt which would do nothing but get Senators up for re-election on the record so their vote could be used against them on the campaign trail and used a procedural move to block it from coming to the floor for a vote. Well, if the resolution itself is just a political stunt, then what do you call the move to block the resolution from coming to the floor - if not a political stunt? I call it hypocritical.

Then came the news that now the "16 words trial" is over, Scooter Libby is going to jail while his appeal is pending. Conservative editorial boards, columnists, and rank-and-file Republicans called for the President to pardon him. He may have perjured himself, they say, but nobody was charged with committing the underlying crime so there should have been no trial in the first place. This was a prosecutor who was out of control.

They were singing a different tune when the prosecutor was Ken Starr, the investigation was into a land deal known as "Whitewater", the defendant was President Clinton, and the question became whether or not he asked Monica Lewinsky to lie under oath. Talk about no underlying crime - President Clinton was never charged with breaking any laws, Whitewater or Monica-related, but for the crime of lying about getting a little on the side, not only was he impeached, but the Wall Street Journal said the President's offenses were so serious that he, "should be indicted, upholding the principle that even Presidents and ex-Presidents are not above the law." Adding that he "could be considered for a Presidential pardon" if he'd "stop denying his wrongdoings". They went after him for Whitewater, filegate, the travel office firings, and Web Hubbell's suicide - and they got him for lying. Why not let it go? Because "we cannot tolerate perjury," according to Ken Starr.

Libby's crime (perjury) was a bit more serious. He misled the FBI to cover his lies, the Vice President's lies, and the President's lies. They didn’t lie about something serious like whether they had touched a consenting adult in a private place, just about Iraq's nuclear weapons capability - in order to justify a pre-emptive invasion of a country which posed no threat and didn’t attack us. No big deal. It's not like the result of those lies is an open-ended military occupation of a Muslim country by a largely Christian army which has cost hundreds of thousands of civilians lives, tens of thousands wounded, and almost 3,500 dead American military personnel - costing almost a half a trillion dollars and leading to a predictable (and predicted) civil war which is tearing the country and the region apart.

But there was the Journal again, saying "the time for a pardon is now" the day after the guilty verdict, calling the conviction a "travesty of justice". After the sentence was handed down, the Journal was back at it, insulting our armed forces by calling Libby a "soldier" in the war in Iraq who didn't deserve to be "left behind" by the President and insulting the Justice Department by saying Patrick Fitzgerald didn't know if the case was about outing an undercover agent or perjury and obstruction (actually, the case was about perjury which obstructed the investigation into the outing of an undercover agent). If Libby told the truth about what he knew the President and Vice President had authorized, both men would have been charged with the underlying crime.

Of course, everyone knows this - from the Wall Street Journal editorial board down to the rank-and-file Republican, they just want their guy pardoned - despite the fact he has never expressed remorse or regret for what he did. That's why they're seen as hypocrites and that's why when November 2008 comes, they'll lose the White House, seats in the House, and seats in the Senate. And they'll be on their way to joining the once-formidable Whigs and Tories.

Tony Soprano was a bit me, a bit you - "The Sopranos" series finale

Like everyone else, my initial reaction to the end of “The Sopranos” finale was, “What just happened? Did the TiVo cut out?” Of course, the TiVo was fine, but I wasn’t. For eight years, I had faithfully followed these characters and I felt like my loyalty had been betrayed. I felt like a woman I loved had broken up with me - via text message. The first words I actually spoke were, “David Chase is dead to me.” Like everyone else, I wanted resolution. If the best show on television was going off the air voluntarily, I wanted it wrapped up in a nice, pretty bow.

I came home in time to catch the last scene with my roommate, a Golden Globe-winning actress, and another friend, a prominent film critic. When the screen went black, his reaction was, “No! Did the TiVo cut out?” Hers was simply, “Amazing.”

It was in that moment that I understood. I always thought of Tony Soprano as the Don of North Jersey. I had always seen Tony in a $2,000 suit, a $200 tie and a $20,000 watch. But that’s not who Tony Soprano is, that’s me imposing my ideas of who he is onto him. What David Chase spent the last eight years showing us is that, at the end of the day, Tony Soprano is every man. Nothing illustrates that better than the last two scenes of the last episode — the last time (God willing) we will ever see him. In the second-to-last scene, Tony finally goes to see his demented Uncle Junior (who shot Tony in the beginning of the season) in the hospital, but Junior doesn’t recognize him. Thinking Junior is play-acting, Tony sits down and whispers to him, “This thing of ours.” Junior interrupts, “I was involved in that?” Tony responds, “You and my dad...you two ran North Jersey.” Junior smirks and says, “hmm, that’s nice.” Tony almost tears up, then hustles out to meet his wife and kids for dinner.

The last scene of the finale perfectly encapsulates what the show, and its main character, were all about. Tony arrives before Carmela and the kids to a modest family restaurant wearing a cabana shirt and leather jacket. He picks a table where he can see the street through the front door. He drops a quarter into the table’s jukebox and plays "Don’t Stop Believing" by Journey. The bell above the door jingles, Tony looks up, and in walks Carmela(casually dressed and, for once, only moderately jeweled) as Steve Perry sings, "just a small town girl..." The bell jingles again and in walks Anthony, Jr., saying, "onion rings," as he sits down. "Best in the state, as far as I’m concerned," his father responds. After complaining about his new job, A.J. quotes his father saying, "Try to remember the times that were good." Outside, Tony’s daughter, Meadow, parallel parks her car after three tries, then hustles across the street to meet her family. Inside, a waitress delivers a basket of onion rings for the table, and Steve Perry belts out the chorus, "Don’t stop believing!" Meadow gets to the door, the bell above it jingles, Tony looks up, Steve Perry wails, "Don’t stop," and the screen goes black for 10 full seconds of silence before the credits roll.

And as we say good-bye to the Soprano family, we don’t see Tony as the all-powerful Don of North Jersey, but as a man who is just trying to make a better life for his family than the life his parents made for him. His son has been diagnosed with clinical depression, but is doing well in therapy. His daughter is engaged to an Italian-American attorney who describes one of his cases as, "bid-rigging." And his wife has a budding career of her own developing real estate.

I always thought of "The Sopranos" as a story about the Mafia family living down the street and all the secrets which lived behind the front door of their house at the end of the cul-de-sac. I was wrong. "The Sopranos" was a story about the American family living down the street at the end of the cul-de-sac, and how the secrets in their house aren’t much different than the secrets in your house or mine. Men (in general) and men in gangster movies (in particular) generally fit into one of four categories: He’s either a "Michael," a "Sonny," a "Fredo" or a "Tom Hagen." As completely developed as these four characters had become over the course of three "Godfather" movies, for this century, they had become cliché. What David Chase has done is created a fifth category: A "Soprano," the self-aware gangster.

Donkey rising: Dems know what time it is

Some say the fact that the spending bill funding military operations in Iraq passed - without the support of the majority — shows Democrats in Congress aren’t unified, and Nancy Pelosi is a Speaker who can’t control her caucus. In the past, that may have been true, but the 110th Congress is very different from any Congress in recent memory. The leadership in this Congress isn’t legislating for a 51 percent majority while ignoring 49 percent of “My Fellow Americans.” The Democratic leadership of the 110th Congress is legislating from the center, making the Republican party irrelevant in the process.

For six years, Republicans had unapologetically misused their congressional majority. They shut Democrats out of the process while rubber-stamping the reckless foreign policy and negligent domestic policies (remember New Orleans? It’s still not rebuilt) of a cowboy president who, if you’ll forgive my mixing metaphors, is off the reservation. They over-reached in passing legislation so a Florida judge could stop the removal of Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube, and under-reached when Rep. Mark Foley of Florida was preying on teenage boys serving as congressional pages.

Since January, the Democratic majority has behaved as advertised: They fulfilled their “six for ‘06” campaign promises and they fought so hard on military funding they forced the Commander-in-Chief to veto a bill to fund troops in harm’s way. Further negotiation didn’t lead to a bill which would end military operations in Iraq, but it accomplished two things: It got the president on the record saying we should see results from his “surge” tactic by September, and, because Democratic leaders negotiated with the White House directly, it marginalized the Republicans.

So when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said, “I think that the handwriting is on the wall and that we are going in a different direction in the fall, and I expect the president to lead it,” he was mistaken. The president has had every opportunity to “lead” in a different direction and hasn’t taken it. The Democratic majority will be leading the way, followed by a kicking and screaming president, with Congressional Republicans reluctantly dragging behind.

For Republicans, party unity is and always will be the issue and the problem, as they see it, is too many RINO’s (Republicans In Name Only). Any “true” Republican candidate must be opposed to leaving Iraq, reproductive freedom, equal rights for samesex couples, gun control and opposed to forgiving undocumented immigrants for the unspeakable crime of crossing the current, post-1848 border illegally in order to work. The Republican party in 2007 is almost totally defined by the people whose rights it believes should be denied.

By contrast, the Democratic Party is becoming the party of the “big tent.” From the “old line coalition” to the “new left coalition,” there is room for everyone from progressives to “yellow dogs” to “blue dogs” to Libertarians. Even on its signature issue — military operations in Iraq — the voices of those wanting to “get out now” are no more or less important than the voices of those who favor a more cautious approach to re-deployment. Of the 226 Democratic members of the House of Representatives, almost two out of three voted against the funding bill, including the Speaker, while 194 of 196 Republicans voted in favor. In the Senate, four out of five Democrats rejected the measure (which 43 of 45 Republicans supported).

This shows the Democratically controlled 110th Congress did something three previous Congresses would never have done: Brought a bill to the floor for a vote knowing it didn’t have the support of a majority of the majority. Nobody was called a “DINO” (Democrat In Name Only) for their “yes” vote. No Democrat was accused of not supporting the troops for voting “no.” The Democrats in Congress simply did their job: They used their majority status to pass the bill they were elected to pass (which the president vetoed), they negotiated a bill the president would sign, then they allowed members to vote their consciences.

Democrats are one giant step closer to reducing our military footprint in Iraq, picking up seats and keeping control of Congress. It’s Karl Rove’s dream turned into a nightmare — a permanent Congressional majority and the inside track to White House for the next 16 years, but for the Democratic party.