It was an extraordinary week for attempts at self-reinvention. Even after his country admitted it provided missiles to Hezbollah, Iran’s president and enthusiastic Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reassured Mike Wallace that “the time of the bomb is in the past … today is the era of thoughts, dialogue, and cultural exchanges.” (The terror cell busted in London for plotting to mix explosive mid-flight cocktails aboard airliners—thus bestowing instant outlaw status upon carry-on toiletries—must have missed the memo.) At the United Nations, proudly undiplomatic U.S. ambassador John Bolton awkwardly attempted to make nice with France over Lebanon’s fate, while Cristal-hata Jay-Z began a crusade for clean drinking water in Africa. Beleaguered party girl Lindsay Lohan spilled the beans about her plan to become an international cultural attaché—on a totally hot Iraq road trip with Hillary Clinton. Freshly minted independent Joe Lieberman assumed the blame for his loss in Connecticut’s Democratic primary (“I bear that responsibility,” said the stand-up senator), after firing his campaign staff. Left-for-dead attorney-general hopeful Jeanine Pirro , whose response to a news-camera light is usually autotrophic, kept an uncharacteristically low profile for a few days and leaped eleven points in polls against Andrew Cuomo . GOP Senate candidates KT McFarland and John Spencer , both of whom aspire to become this year’s Rick Lazio , spent their only debate trading insults. Mets fan favorite Paul Lo Duca spent the week weathering accusations of infidelity and illegal gambling, while the man he replaced, ex-scapegoat Mike Piazza , was welcomed back to Shea with multiple standing ovations. And while Lady Liberty’s crown was once again deemed off-limits to tourists, even if they aren’t bearing toiletries, she conceivably could be joined in New York Harbor by 40-foot fiberglass Rugrats; a list of proposals to develop Governors Island included plans for a Nickelodeon resort on ground that George Washington once defended. Next: An Illegal eBay for Parking Spots?
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