Wonkette

Crazy week for Teddy Kennedy, right? First he bags $8.5 million for his autobiography, which fetched more than Hillary Clinton’s Living History ($8 million) but fell short of deals for Tony Blair ($10 million) and Bill Clinton ($12 million). Then the woman who allegedly had Kennedy’s love child sued the National Enquirer over last year’s cover story which claimed Uncle Teddy got her preggers, paid her a measly $15,000 to shut the fuck up, and had her apartment “ransacked and evidence of their relationship removed.” She also says she fears for her life and warns that she could end up like Mary Jo Kopechne. You know, dead. But apparently she’s under psychiatric care, so, you know… Court docs, and original story after the jump!

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…is, of course, investigative reporter Murray Waas, who’ll be “editing and assembling” an INSTANT BOOK of the transcripts of the trial, according to a press release from Sterling Publishing. MORE »

• Venezuelan owned CITGO gas stations facing boycott by people whose giant vehicles need the most refilling. [GOP and the City]

• George Allen’s “ethnic rally” from the point of view of the “ethnics” in attendance. [Shaking Her Assets]
• Flight Attendants resort to lying to get you off your damn phone. [Freakonomics]
• Why are oil prices dropping? Because of the growing stability in Iraq and the decreasing possibility of an invasion of Iran, duh. [Blogs For Bush]
• Ever relevant Consumer Product Safety Commission wants you to take product safety TO THE EXTREME! [Consumerist]
• Tragically misunderstood Mahmoud Ahmadinejad respects Jews like George Allen, has several Jewish friendsters. [Captain's Quarters]
• Richard “Leakmeister” Armitage threatened to bomb Pakistan “back to the stone age.” Unless he didn’t; buy President Musharraf’s book on Monday to know for sure! [ChicagoTrib]
• Lynn Westmoreland thinks torture is fucking hilarious. [Echidne of the Snakes]

• Names & Faces: Al Gore on An Inconvenient Truth: “The production schedule was so grueling, I told the producers they should have called it ‘Kill Al Volume 1.’” [Life via WP]

• Heard on the Hill: Rep. Katherine Harris’s latest shoeless incident also involved a car wreck… A television ad for Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-OH) misspelled Pryce’s name. [Roll Call]
• Lloyd Grove’s Lowdown: Sen. Ted Kennedy says that Al Gore is keeping his options open with respect to a presidential bid, describes Sen. Hillary Clinton as “an extremely significant contender,” and expresses pride in his son, Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI). [NYDN]
• Liz Smith: Did Roger Ailes have advance notice of the attack on Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi? [NYP]
• Washington Whispers: Journalist Robert Draper is working on a biography of George W. Bush, due out next year… Dave Matthews likes to read the Nation, which “seems kind of moderate” to him. [USNWR]

Or didn’t get a book deal? This just in, from the Times: MORE »

* The Marine Corps Marathon registration started today, but that information is totally useless to anyone reading this. [Metroblogging DC] MORE »

We’ll spend the weekend wishing we had a $2.5 million book deal — congrats, Valerie! — and disappointment that the new CIA director is probably going to be Gen. Michael V. Hayden (rather than the uber-hot Fran Townsend). But here are a few things that you can do on this glorious spring weekend: MORE »

Via our media-obsessed sister, who regularly reports on the latest book deals, we learn: MORE »

* Rush Limbaugh on Hillary Clinton: “She sounds like a screeching ex-wife.” Heh, he should know. [Media Matters] MORE »

Arianna Huffington passes along the rumor that Judy Miller is working that book deal, supposedly for $1.2 million. For those of you who were keep track, that’s about $14,117 per day. Do you think Matt Cooper’s reconsidering how much he’d miss his son? MORE »