In his two years as DNC Chairman, Howard Dean has made more than a few big mistakes, most notably allowing this whole Michigan/Florida debacle to destabilize his party in a year when they should have had a straight shot to the presidency. But we gotta show the guy some love for his appearance on FoxNews yesterday, when he managed to not just stick it to the way biased news department -- but be pretty gracious and effective in doing it. (FF to 3:00 to see what we mean.)
Keep it up, Howard -- and don't waste all your efforts on the opposition. Your notoriously fickle party could use a little firm handing now and then, too. Still, this is a great start.
And for that, he is our first Crush of the Week.
And we can't let this week's CotW pass us by without our giving props to Bethany McLean, who in 2001 was pretty much the first person to call bullshit on the tangled web of lies that was Enron, and whose lush features and soft-spoken skepticism we found so alluring in the 2005 documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, based on the book she co-authored with Peter Elkind. Word came today that she's leaving Fortune for Vanity Fair, where frankly we are guessing the photo department is as eager to get her in front of the camera as the edit staff is to see her copy. Is she a little sleeker than we remember her being? Perhaps. Either way, she's a brainy babe who we look forward to hearing more of in the future.
And for that, she is our second Crush of the Week.