Welcome Baby Sarkozy; Hillary and Karzai Mock Herm Cain
Welcome to the Smart Set. Every morning we bring you the gossip coverage, filtered. Today: France's first couple has a new baby girl, Joe Biden told an aggressive interview not to "screw around" with him, and the backstory to the latest Shia LaBeouf bar fight.
Carla Bruni-Sarkozy gave birth to a girl Wednesday in Paris. indicate France's first lady "went into labor shortly after she was admitted to a clinic in the fashionable 16th arrondissement of the French capital." The baby's name hasn't been announced and officials from The Elysee palace in particular has "maintained a frosty silence" when it comes to discussing anything about the pregnancy. [ABC]
GQ Australia has apologized to actor Taylor Lautner if director Gus Van Sant and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black --both of whom are gay -- made a pass at the actor when they had dinner recently. "No, definitely not," Lautner was quoted as saying in the interview. In a post on his blog, he was decidedly more steamed up. I'm shocked that GQ would allow their writer to lean on the scurrilous, outdated stereotype that gay men are by nature sexual predators," wrote Lautner. "I mean, would you have asked this same question if it were Diablo Cody and Kathryn Bigelow at dinner with Mr. Lautner?” [The Hollywood Reporter]
Shia LaBeouf's Canadian bar fight antagonist says the actor "threatened to pull a knife on him in the wake of the fight," though the blade wasn't actually pulled. TMZ talked to Shea Carter, the "local hip hop artist and bar regular" who restrained the actor after his melee out on the street. According to Carter, the other patrons at the Cinema Public House in Vancouver had issues with actor even before the brawl broke out. He says LaBeouf was "drunkenly swaying into several patrons," one of whom said "Hey man, watch out." LaBeouf replied, "Oh yea? Or what? What are you going to do about it?" It was at that point the two decided to go outside and LaBeouf was promptly beaten to the ground. [TMZ]
Vice President Joe Biden wasn't happy when Human Events reporter Jason Mattera pressed Joe Biden on his comments in a speech Wednesday in which he that cutting the budgets of cities has meant "murder rates are up, robberies are up, rapes are up." Mattera asked Biden about using "the rape reference to describe Senate opposition." That led the vice president to say, "Let’s get it straight, guy. Don’t screw around with me." He then fact-checked his speech until aides whisked him away to another appointment. [Politico]
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Afghan president and Afghan President Hamid Karzai "shared some laughs Thursday" about GOP presidential Herman Cain. In an interview earlier this year with Christian Broadcasting Network, Cain complained about gotcha questions from reporters about whether he knows who the president of "Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan." Karzai joked Thursday that Cain was probably talking about "all the `stans." This comment caused Clinton to laugh, begin " gesticulating with her hands," and then say, "All the `stans places." [AP]
Marie Claire editor in chief "took an elegant tumble down a short flight of stairs" after she introduced Katie Holmes at the magazine's Women on Top event Wednesday. The likely cause of slip: Coles' "6-inch purple Yves Saint Laurent heels," which fell as she was getting off the stage. [Page Six]
