Bill Vaughan's TASTY CLIPS

The Republican Party is in big trouble and needs to find a way to move back to the middle of the country, former Secretary of State COLIN POWELL said adding the GOP is "getting smaller and smaller" and "that's not good for the nation." He also said he hopes that emerging GOP leaders, such as House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, will not keep repeating mantras of the far right. "The Republican Party is in deep trouble," Powell told corporate security executives at a conference in Washington sponsored by Fortify Software Inc. The party must realize that the country has changed, he said. "Americans do want to pay taxes for services, Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less."

Powell, secretary of State during the first term of former President George W. Bush, made waves last year when he came out for the Democratic presidential candidate, then-Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.

Powell described the 2008 GOP candidate, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, as "a beloved friend" but said he told him last summer that the party had developed a reputation for being mean-spirited and driven more by social conservatism than the economic problems that Americans faced. Powell also criticized other GOP leaders, for bowing too much to the right. He blasted radio commentator Rush Limbaugh, saying he does not believe that Limbaugh or conservative icon Ann Coulter serve the party well. He said the party lacks a "positive" spokesperson. "I think what Rush does as an entertainer diminishes the party and intrudes or inserts into our public life a kind of nastiness that we would be better to do without," Powell said.

He also said that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate last year, is "a very accomplished person" but became "a very polarizing figure." He said the polarization was created by Palin's advisers. Powell said he does not want Republicans to turn into Democrats but rather to build a vibrant party.

On other fronts, Powell said he was concerned that the Pentagon is reportedly going to create a new command to manage military cybersecurity affairs. "I smell a bureaucratic fight taking place inside the administration," he said. "I'm always nervous when people want to create new commands because new commands create new stovepipes."

According to Obama administration officials and media reports, U.S. government information networks are being attacked by criminals and attackers working for foreign governments, namely China and Russia. Powell (pictured at the Newark Bears home opener) said creating a command might be the correct solution, but he added: "My own view is take it slow, make sure you get it right." - www.nationaljournal.com For more Glen Frieson pics of Powell with Patti LaBelle and Ozzie Smith, visit the blog here.

DICK CHENEY dished out a harsh slapdown to his onetime pal Colin Powell, saying right-winger Rush Limbaugh would make a better voice for the future of the Republican Party. The ex-veep took the swipe at old cohort Powell even as party moderates have sought to soften the GOP's increasingly extreme image. "If I had to choose in terms of being a Republican, I'd go with Rush Limbaugh, I think. I think my take on it was Colin had already left the party. I didn't know he was still a Republican," Cheney said on "Face the Nation" on CBS.

Cheney, whose popularity ratings are barely out of the single digits, added that Powell cast his lot with the Dems when he backed President Obama. "I just noted he endorsed the Democratic candidate for President this time, Barack Obama," Cheney said. "I assumed that that is some indication of his loyalty and his interest." Pressed whether he would take Limbaugh over the former secretary of state, Cheney reiterated, "I would … Politically."

The acerbic comments were particularly startling because Powell had been friends for years with Cheney. The retired general literally saluted his former boss from the podium of the Republican Convention in 2000 after George W. Bush picked Cheney as his running mate.

Democrats said Cheney's views were typical of the increasingly narrow-minded GOP. "What's really telling of the state of a Republican party whose popularity continues to dwindle, is that . . . Dick Cheney chose to endorse Rush Limbaugh's attacks on Colin Powell and suggest that Secretary Powell was no longer a real Republican because he dared to disagree with the party," said Democratic national Committee spokesman Hari Sevugan. - Washington Whispers

In the fascinating Wall Street Journal piece on White House social secretary DESIREE GLAPION ROGERS, we learn that she is the descendant of a Creole voodoo priestess named Marie Laveau Glapion; that she ran an online social-networking unit at Allstate Financial, served as president of Peoples Gas and North Shore Gas, and at age 31 headed the Illinois State Lottery. She graduated with a political science degree from Wellesley and received an M.B.A. from Harvard. At a slim 5-foot-10 she still seems the type of woman who would not go unnoticed. She may be turning 50 in June, but as a young male White House press aide points out, “Man, she sure doesn’t look it.”

There was the night she made room for a dance floor in the State Dining Room so the nation’s governors could dance to Chicago band Earth, Wind & Fire before meeting with the president the following day to debate an economic stimulus package many of them opposed. By the time Boogie Wonderland came on, the Obamas joined the governors on a packed dance floor. A conga line later formed and even Republican Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina, who hours earlier had compared parts of Mr. Obama’s economic plans to “the Soviet grain quotas of Stalin’s time,” nodded his head to the music.

Rogers says she and Mrs. Obama have asked the White House kitchen to tone things down and use American wines and locally grown produce. “We wouldn’t do caviar,” she says. In Washington, Rogers lives in a Georgetown apartment that she is finally getting around to furnishing. Her only child, Victoria, is 18 and a freshman at Yale. In 2003, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and, after several surgeries, overcame the illness. “There’s no time to waste. Every day there needs to be movement on something,” she says. At the president’s request, she says she plans to arrange intimate dinners with American icons this summer—from Hollywood stars to Nobel Prize winners. “He’s got to have some fun, too.”

GIANCARLO ESPOSITO on his part as the assassin in Malcolm X: "If you can play a role really well and you do your job, people are going to dislike part of you. For years, people walked up to me and said, you killed Malcolm X. I have to deal with that. By the way, Thomas Hayer just got out of jail last year and lives in Brooklyn a very quiet life. The story from him may be very different at this point than what we ever imagined or could think of. I really enjoy playing historical characters because it give you a template immediately from which to draw from.  is the true history of what happened. The backlash from people who don't understand that you may be separate from the role you play is just something you have to deal with.

I did not meet him. I hope to meet him soon. I know he's out now and he's sorry for what happened. I think that everyone, as it says in the Bible, should be grafted back in and be able to be an upstanding member of society. Especially if they're remorseful, and they try and take it back and publicly state I was young and wrong and didn't know what I was doing.  I served my time and I feel differently now. That's part of their life journey.  Unfortunately we have to learn from our mistakes and equally as unfortunate some people don't want to accept us again after we've made those mistakes.  I'm of the mindset that forgiveness is part of what we have to learn in this lifetime.

I think that they were monitoring everybody and there was certainly some complicity by some of the big law enforcement organizations in terms of what was going on with Malcolm.  Malcolm was a big danger to so many people. So I don't see how they could not have been complicit."

Rating President Barack Obama: "I think he's a ten only because he's a cut above and a ten above the president we had before. He's an intelligent human being and so I trust him to guide this nation. I do worry that people try to take away his credibility including African-American people who say he's only one tenth black, whatever that's about, because once he makes one wrong move or once there's one misstep, the idea is he's not doing a good job but we're so quick to criticize. We're so quick to tear down instead of build up.  It's the wrong attitude to have. Every president who's been in his position at this time in office has had these challenge but none as big as what Obama's facing.

So just by virtue of the fact that he hasn't cracked. He's opened up Cuba. Went to Trinidad.  He said to the Iranian people that we don't hate them. He's sending the right message. He's bringing people together which is what a president should do.

And he's faced with the daunting challenge of trying to reassimilate an economy that's long been in trouble because of greed from big corporations and I think this is one of the biggest legacies that he will leave behind."

"Barack's name ain't Jesus. Barack ain't gonna improve your child's reading score. There are things we've got to do on our own. He's like any other president. He's a politician and he's got to do what politicians do." - President Obama's longtime minister, the Rev. JEREMIAH WRIGHT at the 44th anniversary celebration of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march.

DELLA REESE to POLI-SIGH! Exclusive!Do you think our president is on the right track? "I absolutely do."  Were you surprised to see a black man in that position in your lifetime? "I had wanted it for a long time, but what has happened in my opinion, Bill is that they have run it so far in the ground if they were ever going to have one this is the time. Let him bear the brunt of it. But he's going to surprise them and he's going to turn this whole thing around." It's like they're criticizing him too soon for everything he does. "He breathes! (pause) And they criticize that he's breathing. (laughs) Look at him. Who does he think he is breathing every day! But he senses the people and the people sense him."

Some say our economy is as bad as it was during The Great Depression.  Do you see conditions today that are similar to what it was like for you growing up? "Yes, I do.  But now, I was born in 1931 so that was in the middle of it and the economy was coming out of it.  My mother and father had to do what they called make ends meet.  My father literally poured steel when they found out he was 74 years old. He should've retired at 65. They bought a machine because they said that the job which he had been on was not a job for a human being.  My mother scrubbed floors and did the laundry for people. I was born in Detroit, Michigan and there was an area called Grosse Pointe where all the rich ladies lived. They had these fancy dresses and cleaning fluid at that time would eat up anything. So they would bring the dresses to Miss Nellie who would do the work to help my father maintain us."

Obama came under fire based upon his religious affiliation with Rev. Wright.  Is that unfair for someone going into public office? "Number one, I don't think that man preaches that sermon every Sunday. They found that. That was another way to attack Obama. The man went to the church for a spiritual relationship with God and that particular Sunday he preached that sermon and they found out about that and they used that to try to beat him. They had to. He was becoming too popular. They pulled out every stick they could find."

Where do you fall in the debate on legalizing marijuana? "Some people think that that helps them. If it's a medical thing then I don't have a problem with it. There are things that you have to do to help your body survive. Taken for that purpose, I don't have a problem with it.  I am a survivor and I need the tools that I need to survive.  I think everybody has that same right also." Della Reese Presents S.W.V., Jon B & Noel on June 20 at the Wilshire Theatre in Beverly Hills. Comic Tommy Davidson hosts this production of Michael Stone Events. Tix are available through Ticketmaster and at the Wilshire Theater Box Office (323) 655.0111. For more from DELLA, please visit: www.tastyclips.com.

In what is arguably his most significant gift to friend and former South African President Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton is lending his name to the effort to establish a global Mandela Day around his July 18 birthday. The campaign and Clinton's involvement was announced by the Nelson Mandel Foundation and the humanitarian group named after his prison number: 46664. Bubba, referring to the name friends give Mandela, says: "More than any human being, Madiba has been the great inspiration for the life I lead and the work I do, especially in the area of HIV/AIDS. In return for everything Madiba has taught us, we each owe it to him to support his work and legacy by doing and living our own as best we can, not just on this day but throughout our entire lives."

During and after his presidency, Clinton was close to Mandela, 90, and the Clinton Foundation was built around some of the same issues with which Mandela deals, such as HIV/AIDS. Here's the deal: Mandela's foundation is eager to give the apartheid leader his day in the sun. They've established a campaign, www.mandeladay.com, to make July 18 a day to both celebrate Mandela's life and his values. While the campaign launches today, posh parties will take place later in Washington and Los Angeles to herald Mandela Day. In Los Angeles, the actor FOREST WHITAKER and his wife KISHA will host one party. The Mandela Day website adds details on the issues that would be focused on every July 18: Human rights and civil liberties; Hunger and poverty; Education and literacy; and Health issues and medicine. - US News & World Report

The reinvigorated WhiteHouse.gov website is looking to increase its user base by tapping into social networks. The site created profiles on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, adding to existing shingles on YouTube, Flickr and iTunes. President Obama's weekly online fireside chats have already helped spur rapid growth of video consumption on the site, according to Nielsen Online. Unique viewers of video content increased 236% month-over-month, growing from 75,000 in February to 252,000 in March 2009. Total video streams increased 350% during the same period. - Cynopsis

"It's funny how they never caught you smoking, but they somehow always catch you with your shirt off. I know you're into this whole transparency thing, but I don't need to see your nipples ... there was never a nipple portrait of Lincoln!" - WANDA SYKES to President Obama at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

CARLTON HARGO of Creative Loafing - Charlotte to INDIA.ARIE: Speaking of the new album, part of its title is Politics. And I know you've been involved with some political action recently, specifically working with Obama during his presidential campaign. So, what are your feelings about him and how the world is reacting to him now that he's in office? "Well, I had a clear idea before he won. I have this feeling, like, because the world is changing so quickly and so drastically on all fronts ... that clearly he's the right person to be the president of the United States of America at this time in history ... I think he's the right person, but I'm curious to see what that's gonna look like. Because him being the right person doesn't necessarily mean everyone is gonna like him. So I'm looking at his popularity, and it makes me a little bit nervous. I've been in the music industry basically all of my adult life, so the lens I look at the world through is through the music industry. I look at race that way; I look at all of it that way. So when I think about somebody being a star and everybody loving a person, all they have to do is make one little slip and then they're burning your CDs or running them over with a truck or whatever they do. And that's the part that I'm not sure about. I know that he's the right person because he wouldn't be there if he wasn't the right person ... but I don't know what right looks like. I don't know if that means everyone is gonna like him, and it makes me nervous. I was talking to someone on the [tour] bus the other day [and said], "This could really be like a Lauryn Hill." Everybody loved her so much, but she did one little thing. It's not like people don't love her, but now they're like, "She's not what we thought." But that's what happens in the music industry. And like I said, that's the way I look at things. But I don't know how a person can be a star -- like on the cover of Rolling Stone -- and be the president and it not be a very dramatic moment and some point. And I don't think we've seen a dramatic moment yet. I don't even know how to put it into words. It seems like a whole lot to carry." I guess the flip side of that is how much popularity does he need to be an effective president? "There's a whole different popularity that he has. Whenever he puts [legislation] through, it gets cut down party lines anyway. All of us who aren't in Congress, all of us who just support him, all the people who think he's a sex symbol, all the people who think he's the second coming of Jesus, is different from the popularity he needs to get things done. In Congress, if they want to go down party lines that's what they're gonna do. [Obama] is Michael Jackson in the '80s. He is. That's a lot."

"Get past 'Obama the personality' and see 'Obama the president. Otherwise all you're being is a political-celebrity groupie instead of a citizen. . . . It starts with acknowledging he's my president, and not my homie." - BET host JEFF JOHNSON

KWAME KILPATRICK will have to scale back his lifestyle instead of his restitution payments, a judge ruled. Wayne County Circuit Judge David Groner rejected the ex-mayor’s bid to avoid paying the city of Detroit $6,000 per month to help defray the $1 million he agreed to pay the city as part of a plea deal to resolve the text message scandal. Kilpatrick attorney Michael Alan Schwartz had argued in a March 24 court filing that Kilpatrick could only spare $6 a month from his $120,000 annual salary after paying for expenses like his Cadillac Escalade and the home his family is renting in a posh suburb of Dallas, Texas.

But Groner, who ordered Kilpatrick to make the payments after learning about the ex-mayor's high living since being released from jail in February, wrote that the former mayor “must realize that he is a convicted felon, and will have to balance meeting all the conditions of his probation, including restitution payments, with the lifestyle to which he has grown accustomed.” “In other words,” Groner added, Kilpatrick “may not be able to sustain an upper middle class existence while he still owes a debt to society and a substantial financial debt to the citizens of Detroit.” Groner invited Kilpatrick to request a restitution hearing, but Schwartz instead said he would take his case to a higher court. - Detroit Free Press

"We have a lot in common: He is a person of color. Although not a color that appears in the natural world." - PRESIDENT OBAMA on the "tan" of House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

ZAP MAMA is teaming up with CARE to honor mothers around the world with a percentage of the proceeds from the iTunes download of their song, Hello To Mama, the first single off their upcoming album ReCreation, due out on Heads Up International, on May 26th. In the developing world, one woman, every minute of every day, dies giving birth. The proceeds will help CARE's efforts to reduce persisting high maternal mortality in the world's poorest countries. "A percentage of the hard earned money paid for this track will go to CARE with the vision and hope of setting the people of the world free through truth, love, and education," says Zap Mama's Marie Daulne. View Zap Mama's new video here. For more regarding CARE and its partnership with Zap Mama, visit: http://www.care.org/zapmama.

“The most successful woman in the media is heavyset and black, but mainstream is not looking for Oprah. There are more blondes in the newsroom than in all of America.” - CBS News correspondent BYRON PITTS to Florida International University students.

PROPS TO: Paula Paige for being one of the pioneers in launching www.newjerseynewsroom.com, the aftermath of a number of veteran reporters being bought out at the Newark Star-Ledger. You always had it going on!....Teowanna Clifton for taking her writings to the net with her first blog. South Cak's secret is now ready for the world!....PBS for airing the excellent documentary on the American Indians called We Shall Remain. If you missed any of it, visit here to catch up.

"(Mother's Day) is a tough holiday for [Chief of Staff] Rahm Emanuel because he's not used to saying the word 'day' after 'mother.' " - PRESIDENT OBAMA at the White House Correspondents' Dinner

POLI-SIGH! SPORTS: In this excerpt from The Washingonian interview with writer/sports host MICHAEL WILBON (ESPN's Pardon The Interuption; NBA on ABC) was asked when he met the other guy from the Windy City, Barack Obama: "We met in 2004. I was writing a book with Charles Barkley. Charles wanted to do a book on race and how people saw race in America, and Barack is one of the people we wanted to talk to." At that point, he was in the Senate? "US Senate. We hung out with him for the better part of the day. We walk out of Barack’s office, we go to the car, and Charles and I look at each other across the hood of the car. I don’t know who spoke first. We just said, “Can you believe this guy?” Neither one of us had ever seen anyone like him up close and personal." In what sense? "He was just impressive. The way he can inspire you to feel something. Sort of the call to action, the call to be encouraged. I came back home and told my wife, “This guy’s going to be president.” You said that? "At the time, the notion of some unknown black man from South Side Chicago winning the presidency was unthinkable, but I just thought, this guy, he can appeal to people. I knew the whole story, his interracial parentage and where he was from."

Tyson director JAMES TOBACK on the fighter's former brother in law: Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele: "They have a good relationship. Michael was at Sundance for the screening there. [When we were younger], Michael always said that he wanted to be the first black Republican president. He was obsessed with being the most powerful black Republican."