Michele Obama named Year’s Most Fascinating by B. Walters

Barabra Walters has listed her “Most Fascinating People of the Year.” At the top of that list is Michele Obama. Last year it was her husband, President Obama.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in my husband as a phenomenal leader,” she said. “I mean, that was always the pull — because I always thought, ‘Well, if I wanted somebody as my state senator, or as my U.S. senator, or as my president, I would want Barack Obama.’ And the only reason he wouldn’t do it is if I said no.”

Other members on this year’s list: Glenn Beck, Brett Favre, Lady Gaga, Kate Gosselin, Michael Jackson’s children, Adam Lambert, Sarah Palin, Tyler Perry and Jenny Sanford.

French President Secures Polanski Release

Polish director Roman Polanski’s family is thanking French President Nicolas Sarkozy for being “very effective” in helping to win his release from a Swiss prison.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it is thanks to the President that Roman has been freed, but he has been super,” Polanski’s sister-in-law, Mathilde Seigner, told Le Parisien newspaper. “The President has been very effective.”

The London Times speculated that Sarkozy’s wife, ex-model Carla Bruni, may have pressured her husband to intervene because she used to hob nob with Paris’ artistic community, which includes Polanski and wife Emmanuelle Seigner.

After initially balking at his release, Swiss authorities agreed to let Polanski move from a cell to his luxurious Alpine chalet once he puts up $4.5 million bail.

A bracelet will allow police to monitor Polanski , but the device does not include a global positioning system to track him should he escape.

“We can only check if the person is at home,” Jonas Peter Weber, a professor at the University of Bern, told the Times. “If the alarm goes off and no police is in the vicinity, the person will be able to flee.”

Sarkozy was first criticized for supporting Polanski in October. He expressed outrage after the director was arrested at a Zurich airport on a U.S. warrant from 1977 for having sex with a 13-year-old girl.

Read More at NY Daily

Angelina Jolie Does Not Like Obama

Barack Obama does not have Angelina Jolie’s seal of approval.

“She hates him,” a source close to the U.N. goodwill ambassador, 34, tells the new issue of Us Weekly.

“She’s into education and rehabilitation and thinks Obama is all about welfare and handouts. She thinks Obama is really a socialist in disguise,” adds the source.

But don’t expect to see the Salt actress rally against Democrats on Fox News like her staunch Republican father, Jon Voight.

“Angie isn’t Republican, but she thinks Obama is all smoke and mirrors,” the source says.

And those political views are putting her at odds with Brad Pitt, 45, who is a big fan of the president and even went solo to the 2008 election party in Chicago.

“They get in nasty arguments all the time about it,” says the source. “She doesn’t respect Brad when it comes to politics, but, in the end, this won’t tear them apart.”

US MAGAZINE

Meghan McCain Twitter and Photo

The Internet hills are alive with talk of, well, Meghan McCain’s hills. Last night, the 24-year-old daughter of former Republican Presidential candidate John McCain posted a photo of herself on her personal Twitter page captioned “my ’spontaneous’ night in…” which showed her clutching an Andy Warhol biography to her rather spectacular expanse of nearly chin-grazing bosom. The image quickly garnered attention far outside her 63,500 followers — and resulted in a rash of emotional tweets from McCain herself, including: “so I took a fun picture not thinking anything about what I was wearing but apparently anything other than a pantsuit I am a slut,” and “why I have been considering deleting my Twitter account, what once was fun now just seems like a vessel for harassment.”

Today, she posted an apology, calling the episode “an embarrassing experience but also a learning one,” and tweeting, “I have clearly made a huge mistake and am sorry 2 those that are offended.”

POPWATCH

Obama Calls Kanye A Jackass

See, Kanye, you even pissed off the president!

President Obama calls Kanye West ‘Jackass’

Officially, rapper Kanye West is not a “jackass” — at least not as far as the White House is concerned.

President Barack Obama apparently was speaking off the record Monday when he used that term to characterize the performer’s stunning interruption of Taylor Swift during Sunday night’s MTV Video Music Awards. While Swift was accepting the award for best female video, West rushed the stage, grabbed the mic and proclaimed that Beyonce had made the best video of all time.

ABC News’ Terry Moran tweeted the president’s off-the-cuff comment about West to his 1 million-plus followers on Twitter.

Chicago Tribune