The lucky lady: Kathryn "Kate" Rogers. We're not sure where the wedding is taking place, yet, but Rush reads the site, so maybe he'll let us know!

Rush loves the holidays: his last wedding was on Memorial Day, 1994. Prior to that, his second wife left him on Christmas.

Clinton was supposed to get married in Martha's Vineyard this summer, but that didn't happen, obviously. Maybe because she wasn't actually engaged yet to her dynastic boyfriend Marc "son of two former congress members" Mezinsky?

Jake Tapper broke the news on his blog, because that is basically how this news was destined to be broken. Chelsea and Marc sent out an email the morning after Thanksgiving, ensuring that no one would report on it until Monday:

"We're sorry for the mass email but we wanted to wish everyone a belated Happy Thanksgiving! We also wanted to share that we are engaged! We didn't get married this past summer despite the stories to the contrary, but we are looking toward next summer and hope you all will be there to celebrate with us. Happy Holidays! Chelsea & Marc."

Congrats, Chelsea. May your reception be free of aspiring reality show characters, and here's hoping Marc doesn't mind the title "First Dude."

Just as the smoove moves Obama deployed as a fedora-sporting youth to win Michelle were used to interpret his political sexing of the American people during the campaign, Kantor writes:

...examining the first couple's relationship - their negotiations of public and private life, of conflicts and compromises - offers hints about Barack Obama the president, not just Barack Obama the husband.

Long before many Americans, Michelle Obama was seduced by his mind, his charm, his promise of social transformation; long before he held national office, she questioned whether he really could deliver on all his earnest pledges.For nearly two decades, Michelle Obama has lived with the president of the United States. Now the rest of us do, too

Now that we have been seduced by his mind, we live with Obama. But not in his house. Just metaphorically—in the house of America. So, what can we learn from the Obamas' "negotiations of public and private life... conflicts and compromises" in their real house? Compromise is just another word for "settling," and clearly that's the stage the public is at in its metaphorical relationship with Barack (Which should be followed by a few years of passive-aggressive sniping, followed by a messy divorce in which our children are the only losers.) Then, of course, there was just that big compromise on health care. And in fact the compromises detailed in the Times piece seem as one-sided as Republicans would like to claim that health care one is. Consider the "compromise" that facilitated Barack's 2004 U.S. Senate run:

During that race, Michelle was still a somewhat reluctant partner: at the outset, they made a deal that if he lost, he would get out entirely. "It was a compromise," Marty Nesbitt, one of the president's closest friends, told me. "O.K. One. More. Try," he explained, banging out each word on a side table.

This was not a compromise. This was Barack getting to do what he wants to do, and not doing it if he fails to do it. In the Barack-Michelle household, it seems most of the compromises had a similar sort of uncompromising character. Which is sort of how the bail-out was passed in our house?

Also, now that we all live with Barack we put huge pictures of him and his family all over everything—just like he and Michelle do in their real house:

Here is a shot of the Obamas entering a Cinco de Mayo reception, his arm draped protectively around her back. Next, a photo of the president placing a kiss on his wife's cheek after his address on health care to Congress. Poster-size versions of these and other photographs are displayed in rotation along the White House corridors.

The number of pictures reflects the quantity of our love.

And, living with Barack—at least in the good old days—we would sometimes get sexy with him in a very public way:

Friends who visit the White House describe occasionally turning corners to find the first couple mid-embrace. They also seem unusually willing, for a presidential couple, to kiss, touch and flirt in public. It may be that they are broadcasting their affection to the rest of us, an advertisement of their closeness. Or they may simply be holding tightly to each other as they navigate new and uncertain terrain.

But the most important thing about our lives with Obama is that when things get rough, we don't break down or seek counseling or engage in awesome hate sex. We take it down a notch. We have a teachable moment, like Barack and Michelle did when the stress of Barack's first, failed campaign for U.S. Senate threatened their marriage:

Did you ever seek counseling? I asked.

The first lady looked solemnly at the president. He said: "You know, I mean, I think that it was important for us to work this through. . . . There was no point where I was fearful for our marriage. There were points in time where I was fearful that Michelle just really didn't - that she would be unhappy"...

In the end, what seems more unusual than the Obamas' who-does-what battles - most working parents have one version or another - is the way they turned them into a teachable moment, converting lived experience into both a political message and what sounds like the opposite of standard political shtick.

And then Obama holds us for a long, long time.

Heche started out seeming candid and kooky in a sort of charming way. She said her ex-husband Coleman Laffoon wants her to "watch him run around in his little white shorts, playing soccer." The highlight of the above clip comes at about minute 1:00, when Heche starts talking over Dave, making awesome witch-fingers, and explaining that her ex "wants to still hang out with me [...] because I'm so fantastic." She seems a little wacked out, but hearing her unrestrainedly bash Laffoon is a lot more fun than watching some publicist-polished actress cross her legs and simper. Things get a little weird, though, as she repeatedly makes insinuations about the state of Dave's marriage. But not as weird as this:

Sorry Homer, your mom thinks you suck at soccer. Of course, since she thinks soccer practice is called "rehearsal," she may not know a lot about it. More importantly, though, Heche seems to have taken leave of her senses a little bit (on her marriage: "It's ovah ... red Rovah!"). Given her public battle with mental illness, this is kind of unsettling to watch. Even if she isn't having some kind of episode here (and to be fair, it must be annoying to have bunch of strangers speculating about your mental health every time you go off on your ex), it seems pretty unnecessary for her to mention her child while she's insulting his father on national TV. And if I were Dave's wife, I'd be a little pissed about all of Heche's eye-rolling about marriage.

Her ex definitely isn't happy. He fired back to Us about her allegations that he's a "lazy ass":

After coming home from showing two different clients two different condominiums, I was disturbed to see Anne taking out her personal frustration on the father of her child on national television.

He also wrote on Facebook,

I wish Anne Heche could see that public bullying isn't good for the soul or positive for her child. It's mean.

We kind of agree — but it's still hard to look away.

Anne Heche's Ex "Disturbed" by Her Letterman Appearance [Us Weekly]

It's simple: Ruth's greatest PR and legal need right now is to prove that she was ignorant of her husband's activities. Here, proof! The NYT drew a quote from Ruth's reluctant and doubtless heartbroken attorney:

Ruth Madoff, who has been married to Mr. Madoff for almost 50 years, knew nothing about the "alleged affair," said Peter Chavkin, her lawyer. While that, unfortunately, will not ease the pain of the people destroyed by the Madoff fraud, he continued, the allegation "stands as a powerful reminder, to those who say Ruth must have known of her husband's criminal scheme, that there are some things that some spouses - however close they are - do not share with each other."

In the best of all possible worlds for Ruth, Bernie would also turn out to be gay.
[Pic: AP]

Alex VF is Diane von Furstenberg's son, and now the presumptive heir of her new husband, IAC megamogul Barry Diller. He owns a surf shop in Malibu! Now what happened was that former Indiana Pacers star Reggie Miller, who by the way can totally blow me for beating the Knicks all those times, had some sort of little text message-based fling with Alex's fiancee, Ali Kay. The New York Post says their attraction was mutual, according to a lawyer, at least:

But fiancée Ali Kay sent two provocative photos of herself to the NBA announcer during a three-month phone flirtation, the former hoop star's lawyer Marty Singer insisted.

"There was one of her in bed and one with a bathing suit on," he said.

Pics or it didn't happen, Marty Singer. So! The average man, confronted with this situation, might 1) Break up with this girl; or 2) Keep this whole thing quiet, reasoning that the fact that one's fiancee is hot and heavy for a pro athlete is not something that reflects well on you, her ostensible man; but probably would not 3) File a restraining order against Reggie Miller, and then also hire a plane to fly over beaches in Southern California towing a banner that says "Reggie Miller Stop Pursuing Married Women."

But that is the course that Alex von Furstenberg chose to pursue! Strange also since his fiancee is not a "Married" woman! (However, as the Post points out, Alex was very "married to Duty Free heiress Alexandra Miller" — no relation to Reggie — when he first started dating young Ali.) But I guess that's just how Lakers fans do it! Barry Diller, your empire is in good hands.

Ojo's appearance at the hospital sent hospital employees flying to the phones to call their favorite tabloid reporters. Ojo was only too happy to describe the dramatic incident in detail!

"I didn't know what had happened. By the time I woke up, the skin was falling off," Ojofeitimi said.

"It sounded like a woman screaming," a neighbor in their Springfield Gardens building said of the 6 a.m. attack.

Between the Daily News and the Post, this story got a total of nine bylines today. If the Al "Grits" Green incident happened today, an entire spinoff paper would need to be launched. Tabloids: there when we need them.
[NYDN, NYP]

United Technologies Chairman George David will buy his hard- won freedom from his countess wife by tossing her a few extra million bucks — in the $10 million range. That's on top of the $45 million coming to her via their bitterly dis puted 2005 postnuptial agreement, according to sources on both sides of the talks.

Let us tip our hats to the lady for taking significantly less than the $100 million she initially demanded, which would have been only fair recompense for spending a few years with an older rich dude. Pray tell, will her meager sum be sufficient to fulfill her $650 weekly dry cleaning bill, and her $8,000 weekly "travel" bill, not to be confused with her $700 weekly car service bill? We must hope.

Any greedy, predatory younger men looking to soak an older rich woman for millions, now's your chance.
[NYP. Pic via]

Why does George David attract so many of the ladies? Because he is a generous sucker. He bought his mistress thousands and thousands of dollars worth of fancy items at La Perla, though he probably did not foresee the fact that one day he would have to have this exchange about it in open court:

"And La Perla is a women's — uh — lingerie store?"
"Bathing suits," said the mogul.
"High end?" asked the lawyer.
"I don't know enough to know that," the mogul snapped at the well-dressed lawyer, whose brightly colored socks are something of a trademark. "I suppose you know more than I do."
"Well, do you buy clothing for yourself there?" the lawyer asked, apparently trying to pin down just whose posteriors the purchased La Perlas were destined to barely cover.
"As far as I know, not," the mogul answered.
"What does that mean?" asked the lawyer.
"Well, I don't think they have clothing for men."

This is why most fabulously wealthy corporate titans just buy themselves sex trafficking victims and stash them in prison-like apartments in various third world countries, I imagine. Far less legal peril than cheating on countesses. Anyhow Andrea Peyser also reports that George David wears bad suits, is "insane," and is the World's Biggest Pussy.
[NYP. Pics: Getty]

Weiner, who knows she is way outside his league, confirmed the engagement on Sunday. Abedin is Hillary Clinton's longtime aide and currently works at the State Department. He proposed last May, just days before he published his editorial about why he would not run for mayor. There were hints! Like: "I believe I have a contribution to make in Congress fighting for New Yorkers. (I'd also like to build a family.)" See, the first bit there is the meaningless spin, and the parenthetical bit is the grain of actual truth.

Good luck to the happy couple! Also, Mr. "Amnesty International and the New York Times hate Israel so much" is marrying a Muslim! Maybe he will be less of an asshole, now?

Obama gave the commencement address at the New Economic School in Moscow earlier today, as one of the stops on his trip to Russia. Warming up the crowd, he ad-libbed this little gem:

I don't know if anybody else will meet their future wife or husband in class like I did, but I'm sure that you're all going to have wonderful careers.

Not true! Politico, ever-vigilant in catching the lies of politicians, fact-checks:

But the truth is that the couple met not "in class" but at a law firm in Chicago, Sidley Austin, in 1989. Obama was a summer associate (essentially a legal intern) there and Robinson was an attorney completing her first year at the firm.

The Politico piece is by Josh Gerstein, a man. Come on, Josh! If you misspoke about how you met your wife, would you want to get all called-out on it? Cut a brother some slack. Now he's going to have to buy her one of those Russian nesting dolls or something to make it up to her. Hasn't Judd Apatow taught us anything?

Oddly, it's the ladies at Newsweek's Gaggle who are rushing to Obama's defense:

The Obamas officially met in Chicago in 1989, when the future president was a summer associate at the Sidley Austin law firm and Michelle was assigned as his mentor. Was what Obama said wrong? Technically no, considering Obama was still going to school when he met his wife. But for those keeping close watch on Obama trivia-ie, the White House press corps-the statement did seem a wee bit off.

Exactly! Why get bogged down in all these "official" and "technical" details baby? You can't put a date on love. Can you?

That's a dilemma he mulls in a new Village Voice interview, in which he says that he's tried for all 46 years of his marriage to figure out who will clean the house and make him all the roasted suckling meats he likes to gulp down with his wine if his wife is too busy doing art projects:

More difficult is my wife, because she has many ambitions and talents, but who's going to be my wife? Who's going to fix the house up and make it nice? It's more difficult with a wife because there becomes a job vacancy if your wife is going to go off and become an artist. Who's going to be the wife? We both need one. I'll do the cooking, but who's going to worry about the household and stuff? That's been a very big, frustrating aspect. I've been married 46 years, and it's never been resolved.

Take my wife, please. But leave the maid! Opposite marriage wins again.

Image via Getty

I think he has to realize that flying to New York is self-indulgent. Go down to the corner bar and have a drink, a shot and a beer. It does not matter where you go with your wife, is that it's with your wife. That's really the point... I would make the argument, the simpler the date, the more normal it is.

Rick Santorum, love doctor [Salon via The Awl]

Matthew Hertenstein and his colleagues at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana asked old boys and girls of the university to answer questions about their current sexual relationships and whether they had ever been divorced. The team then looked up pictures of their volunteers in the university's yearbooks and graded the degree of their smiles. The less a person smiled, it turned out, the more likely he or she was to have been divorced over the course of a lifetime.

Ok so to recap: Smiley kids turn into happy adults and happy adults are more likely to have happy fulfilling marriages. Thanks, science!

What is more interesting, however, is if there is a relationship between senior quotes and marital status. For instance, did that girl quoted "Never did no, never did hide, waiting to see your bright light shine."—R.R., ever get married? (As per Facebook, NO! She did not!) What about the young man whose quote read, "Last night I dreamed I ate a ten pound marshmallow, and I when I woke up my pillow was gone."? That kid, also not married. Now he's the biggest drug dealer in my hometown. But the punk rock kid whose quote was "Mea mihi conscienta plus est quam omnium sermo.", well he joined the Marines and he has a wife and two kids. I think the Kinks wrote a song about that.

Reports WWD:

Marc Jacobs and Lorenzo Martone are engaged. The designer and his ad executive boyfriend, who have been together for about a year, will go public with the news beginning Thursday, when they arrive in Brazil wearing rings.

Jacobs has been getting engaged in the press since at least fall 2007, when the designer was rumored betrothed to rent-boy Jason Preston. The duo were again said engaged in March 2008.

Then last summer came rumors Jacobs would wed his current love Martone, a Brazilian advertising executive.

Jacobs may well be convinced that this time it's for real; he seems the most likely source for WWD's unattributed, voice-of-God item. But we'll just see if his conviction holds up once he realizes that actually getting married means you have to stop announcing to people that you're getting married.

UPDATE: Page Six reports the couple just put a $13 million West Village contract under contract.

New York's Emily Nussbaum is writing an important "reported essay" on the subject. But don't worry! This piece will NOT be "cartoonish," but "novelistic."

Hello! I'm working a reported essay about the economy and New York marriages, with the goal to create something nuanced/novelistic, NOT cartoonish or simplistic. I don't need to use full names, but what I'd particularly love to do is talk to a wide range of people, weaving together a kind of impressionistic portrait of a city in the midst of renegotiating the ways we plan for our futures, divide finances, think about our families, etc.

Here are a few examples of people I'd love to talk to:

- A stay-at-home mom whose husband is laid-off — which might mean positive effects (Dad's closer with the kids) or negative (wife has to go back to work and doesn't want to.)
- Someone going through a divorce, or alternately, who wants to divorce, but can't because it's become so financially difficult.
- A couple for whom money has always been an explicit issue (like a wealthy man who has remarried after a divorce, or a couple with family money that has crumbled.)
- A 50/50-style working couple in which one or both have lost their job(s), and the division of household labor has changed.
- A group of male or female friends who are open with one another about the changing dynamics within their varied marriages.
- A couple who come from very different class backgrounds.
- A childless couple worried about whether they can afford children, or a couple with one kid who are debating whether they can afford a second.

And of course there are many other possibilities — these are just examples! Couples can be gay or straight, but they should be New Yorkers (any borough.) The model for this is something like my piece on families with both adopted and biological kids (http://nymag.com/news/features/35817/), in which I featured three different families with a continuum of reactions to their kids...

If you know anyone who might be good for me to talk to, please pass their contact info along, or give them MY contact info, which is below. I'd be happy to talk to anyone about the ideas behind the piece, on-and-off-the-record issues, and anything else that's a concern! Thanks! And any ideas you have about this subject are welcome as well...

So, yes, if you needed proof that the lifestyle mag that is New York is entirely 100% unsuited for this brave new recessionary New York City we'll all soon inhabit... well, you could've looked at the "Best of New York" issue this week, but this piece ought to do the same.

We're especially excited for the couple "from very different class backgrounds." That means like a Grup married to a (sadly now unemployed!) banker, right?

Perhaps anticipating that eventual query, the couple went above and beyond normal wedding photography on the day they became husband and wife, inviting a photographer into their room after the wedding to photograph them in intimate repose (though we suppose that's NSFW old hat for Duhamel). Kindly, they then made those photos available to Elle, and thus, the world. Still, we're a little perturbed; if there were ever one day to photoshop a veil onto Fergie's labia, we were sure this would be it. Next time?

• Fergie, Josh Duhamel Release New Intimate Wedding Photos [Us]

Wasserstein divorced his wife last summer and took up with "a young Asian beauty," presumably the same "younger Asian woman" that he secretly married two weeks ago.

Is this the start of a flagging dedication to the media? Arthur Carter, the longtime publisher of the New York Observer, fell prey to an outside hobby: he took up sculpture, got written up in the New Yorker for it, and a few years later let Jared Kushner buy the paper. He'd burned out.

So which is more fun for a billionaire like Wasserstein: dealing with angry staffers and shrinking budgets at New York, or cavorting with your new young bride on some private island? When the passion for the media game starts slipping, so does the focus, and before you know it, the big man gets tired of the whole mess. This economy could do that to anyone. Particularly a rich 61 year-old with a beautiful new wife and a magazine that can cause headaches. (And a natural glow). Just saying.

[Odds: The probability that this was the primary reason she pulled out.]

Here's what you've missed if you've had better things to do for the last 24 hours than keep up with the by-the-minute changes in the Caroline Kennedy story. We know she isn't going to be the next junior Senator from New York. We have no idea, however, why not. She announced last night that she didn't want the seat anyway, but in such an incompetent manner that all anyone in political circles has been doing today is collecting the various theories of why she dropped out. These are the five being most discussed.

1. She was incompetent, and pulled out to avoid the embarrassment of not being picked: This is really the most likely scenario. Her push to start at the top was a bad idea from the beginning. She didn't embody the HOPE of the Obama era. At least all her connections and money landed her some political consultants who were smart enough to tell her to get out while she was—if not ahead—at least not totally destroyed.
Odds: Even


2. She had tax and nanny issues: Well, sure, it's quite likely, if you believe the up-to-the-minute prevarications, that she did have issues with taxes and/ or an illegal nanny. So that stands in favor of this explanation. But calling this the primary reason she dropped out presupposes that had she not had these issues, she would have been the pick. And we still want to give Gov. Paterson more credit than than.
Odds: 2-1


3. Her marriage is a sham: One of the unfortunate things about going into politics is everybody wants to pry into your sex life. That's stupid America! So the Enquirer was floating the idea that CK's marriage to Ed Schlossberg was a big fake, and that they've been amiably separated for a while, and who knows what various tabloid-worthy stories might lie behind that? Just scandalous enough to kill her bid? In a state that still loves Giuliani, it's doubtful, but you never know.
Odds: 5-1


4. She had an affair with Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.:The supposed love interest between CK and the NYT publisher remains totally unverified dinner party gossip material. But the Times' close—too close—coverage of CK's campaign didn't do anything to help kill the rumor. At most, this probably added up to one more thing on the negative side of the scale for Kennedy, rather than being the main thing that did her in.
Odds: 8-1


5. She was worried about her sick uncle Teddy: Since Uncle Teddy's own people were pissed when she floated this explanation, and because he was just as sick when she started her bid for the Senate, nah.
Odds: 25-1