Geithner's Father-in-Law Knows All; Prince Harry Is DC-Bound
Welcome to the Smart Set. Today: Timothy Geithner's future, mapped out by his father-in-law, Prince Harry is going to be making a brief appearance in D.C. next month, and Jennifer Aniston's rep swears she isn't secretly scouting nice places to get married in Greece.
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Oh, dear: it seems that Albert Sonnenfeld, father-in-law to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, informed a bunch of strangers at Bar Boulud on Thursday night that Geithner plans to step down after this fall's presidential election. The way Sonnenfeld told it to the five couples he didn't know who also happened to be seated at the restaurant's communal table, President Obama nominated Dartmouth president Dr. Jim Yong Kim to be head of the World Bank so Geithner could get the top job at his alma mater. Trouble is, it seems Geithner no longer wants that particular plum. "They offered him the presidency of Dartmouth," Sonnenfeld said. "But now he doesn’t want it. He wants something else.” (Probably the Ambassadorship to Yankee Stadium.) Sonnenfeld added that his daughter Carole is eager to leave D.C. so she'll no longer be forced to "hold her nose and entertain all these Republicans." The proud, indiscreet papa continued: "Some of them she actually liked, like Jim Bunning from Kentucky. But now he’s gone. Can you imagine having to entertain John Boehner and his wife, with his fake tan?” When asked for comment, a Geithner spokesman responded: “Interesting theory about Dartmouth, but to paraphrase Kissinger: ‘It has the disadvantage of being made up.'" [Page Six]
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Prince Harry is going to be in Washington D.C. the night of May 7 to receive "the Atlantic Council's 2012 Award for Distinguished Humanitarian Leadership" in recognition of his charitable work on behalf of veterans and their families. Good for him. We don't know anything about his itinerary yet -- save for the fact he'll "attend a party at the British ambassador's residence to meet teams of British and American veterans" before the award ceremony -- but we're confident he'll find a way to turn the night of May 7 into a prolonged, citywide reenactment of the last scene from Caddyshack. [People]
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Jennifer Aniston's reps are pushing back pretty hard against TMZ's report that the actress was in Greece taking a gander at possible wedding locations for the summer. Aniston's rep says she was "not in Greece" and calls the report a "total fabrication," which is a weird thing to get all adamant about, even if it is the truth. "How is it," asked the rep, "that one of the most photographed people in the world supposedly goes to Greece to check out a hotel she never heard of and is not spotted or photographed?" Good point. But it's not like The Back-Up Plan or Wanderlust killed it at the Greek box office, or any country's box office: Get her out of Los Angeles and then out of America (and also the U.K., just to be sure) and she could definitely be just another lady looking at suitable places in Crete to tie the knot. [Us Weekly]
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Sinead O'Connor announced on her official website that she will not be touring for the remainder of the year because she is "very unwell due to bipolar disorder." O'Connor has had a tough run of things lately, including a marriage she announced was kaput after 18 days, only to reconsider days later, then re-reconsider in a blog post where she also asked readers for the name of a psychiatrist in Dublin, because she was feeling "really un-well." [Radar]
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Noah Wyle pulled a George Clooney at the Cannon House Office Building yesterday and got arrested on purpose to protest Medicaid cuts. Maura Tierney and Anthony Edwards, the D.C. Metro police can't wait to meet you guys. [The Reliable Source]
Word is former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is on dishwashing detail at FCI Englewood in Colorado. New inmates spend their first 90 days at the facility working in kitchens, but during a recent visit with his legal team, Blagojevich apparently informed them his next work detail will include "teaching his fellow prisoners Shakespeare or Greek philosophy and mythology" and showing Hollywood what a Dead Poets Society reboot would look like. [via Politico]
Top MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines is leaving the network after almost a decade to become vice president of communications for Gannett. [Media Decoder]
GQ.com editor Sean Fennessey is decamping to Los Angeles to hop aboard the good ship Grantland. Fennessey tweets he'll begin work next month, again in an editor-type capacity. [Fishbowl LA]
The Columbia Journalism Review is moving off campus. It's not a kick-off, like in Ghostbusters, the only other depiction we've seen of individuals vacating office space on the Columbia campus. " Apparently, CJR's ground-floor digs are about to be "displaced by the David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation," which according to a news release will feature a $6 million "highly visible signature space." The new offices will be in midtown, according to Columbia journalism dean Nicolas Lemann, who touted the space as "the nicest office [CJR has] ever had in its 50 years of existence." How nice? Per Lemann, it's going to occupy an entire floor "in a nice building. " [Capital]
