Court docket “isn’t going to be a very exciting year. I guess the most interesting thing we will have is to revert an argument we already have on one of the Guantánamo Bay cases and an argument on the second amendment case.”
As for The State of the Union, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff assured us that, “we are safer than we have been, but we cannot afford to rest because the other side is always out there. If we stand still we go backwards.” The rest of his conversation was in color codes, most of which we haven’t figured out. As far as we know, yellow is yesterday’s orange.
In an opposite corner, Susan Lucci was doing her own color thing, applying makeup before her entrance: “I’m Italian and my husband is from Austria, which borders on Italy, she said. “I always say they have the best of both worlds: The trains are always on time and the people are always singing.”

The grand entrance was an endless conga line. As for the program, Academy Awardwinning director Martin Scorsese gave an emotional tribute to the late Jack Valenti, and Connie Stevens stole the show with a video retrospective of her days entertaining the military. “I’m from Brooklyn, New York, and I’m a street kid, I really am,” she said after the glamorous re-reruns. Recounting a difficult, but encouraging childhood, she thanked her grandparents for their loving support and for her nickname, “Bella.”
But Rudy Giuliani owned the evening. After receiving a long and loud standing ovation and an introduction by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, he let loose. “I came from Brooklyn like Connie. That is a cheap applause line.” And the applause didn’t stop until he did.
Suggestion to presidential candidates: There are 25 million Americans of Italian descent living in the United States, you may want to fake your heritage as soon as possible.

Readers wishing to get in touch with Janet can
email: columns@washingtonlife.com.