Scott McClellan

Scott McClellan in the press room of the White House
25th White House Press Secretary
In office July 17, 2003 – April 26, 2006
Preceded by	Ari Fleischer
Succeeded by	Tony Snow
Born	February 14, 1968 (1968-02-14) (age 39) Austin, Texas, U.S.
Political party	Republican

Scott McClellan (born February 14, 1968) is a former White House Press Secretary (2003-2006) for President George W. Bush.

On April 19, 2006, McClellan announced that he would be leaving the Administration but that he would remain in the position of Press Secretary until a replacement was selected. Tony Snow was announced as McClellan's replacement on April 26, 2006.

Family

Born in Austin, Texas, McClellan is the youngest son of Carole Keeton Strayhorn, former Texas state comptroller and former 2006 independent Texas gubernatorial candidate, and attorney Barr McClellan. McClellan's brother Mark McClellan headed the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and formerly was Commissioner for the Food and Drug Administration. McClellan is the grandson of the late W. Page Keeton, longtime Dean of the University of Texas School of Law and renowned expert in tort law.

Career

McClellan with President Bush as he announced his resignation as White House Press Secretary.

After graduating from The University of Texas at Austin, where he was president of the Sigma Phi Epsilon Texas Alpha Chapter, McClellan was the three-time campaign manager for his mother, former Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn. In addition, he worked on political grassroots efforts and was the Chief of Staff to a Texas State Senator.

McClellan waves farewell following his final press conference, May 5, 2006.

Karen Hughes, Governor Bush's communications director, hired him to be Bush's deputy press secretary. McClellan served as Governor Bush's traveling press secretary during the 2000 Presidential election. McClellan became White House Deputy Press Secretary in 2003. McClellan replaced Ari Fleischer, who stepped down as White House Press Secretary on July 15, 2003. McClellan announced his resignation as Press Secretary on April 19, 2006; on April 26, it was announced that Fox News pundit Tony Snow would succeed him in the position.

Involvement in cover up of Valerie Plame Affair

At a press briefing on October 10th, 2003, McClellan asserted that the allegations of Karl Rove's and Scooter Libby's involvment in the leak of CIA Valerie Plame's identity were false.^[1] However, in excerpts from his book "What Happened" to be published in the spring of 2008 by Public Affairs Books, McClellan reveals that the statements were untrue.^[2] From the excerpt:

"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

"There was one problem. It was not true.

"I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the president himself."^[3]

Info From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_McClellan

Dennis Quaid

Dennis William Quaid (born April 9, 1954) is an American actor. Raised in Texas, he became known during the 1980s after appearing in several successful films, and has since established a career as a leading Hollywood actor.

Biography

Early life

Quaid was born in Houston, Texas to Juanita Bonniedale "Nita" (née Jordan), a real estate agent, and William Rudy Quaid, an electrician.^[1] Quaid has Irish and Cajun ancestry.^[2] He attended Pershing Middle School (Houston). He studied drama at Bellaire High School in Bellaire, Texas and later in college, at the University of Houston, under drama coach Cecil Pickett.

Career

After his brother, actor Randy Quaid, was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in The Last Detail, he dropped out of the University of Houston before graduating and moved to Los Angeles, California, to pursue an acting career of his own.^[2] He initially had trouble finding work but began to gain notice when he appeared in Breaking Away (1979) and earned good reviews for his role in The Right Stuff (1983).^[2] Known for his famous grin, Quaid is a versatile actor, performing in both comedic and dramatic roles.^[2] Quaid had starring roles in the 1980s films Enemy Mine and Innerspace. He also achieved acclaim for his portrayal of Jerry Lee Lewis in Great Balls of Fire! (1989).^[2]

Quaid's career lost steam in late 1980s/early 1990s, after he fought and kicked a painful cocaine addiction.^[2] However, he continued to prove his worth in a variety of films such as a memorable performance as Doc Holliday in Wyatt Earp (1994) and has experienced a resurgence in popularity since the late nineties.^[2] Some of Quaid's most recent film credits include Traffic (2000) as a lowlife attorney, Frequency (2000) as a fireman, Far From Heaven (2002) as a closeted husband, In Good Company (2004), as an aging advertising executive whose new boss is much younger and The Day After Tomorrow (2004) as the protagonist (which later fall to Emmy Rossum), paleoclimatologist at the center of the story whose son Jake Gyllenhaal is trapped at the 42nd St. Public Library in New York City. Quaid then starred in remake of Yours, Mine and Ours in 2005.

Personal life

Quaid was raised in the Baptist religion and is still a practicing Christian.^[3][4] Quaid is married to Kimberly Buffington of Austin, Texas. The couple welcomed twins born via a gestational carrier on November 8, 2007 in Santa Monica, California. Son Thomas Boone was born first at 8:26 a.m. and weighed 6 pounds, 12 ounces. Daughter Zoe Grace made her appearance two minutes later weighing in at 5 pounds, 9 ounces.^[5]

Quaid has chosen a holiday for each of his weddings (Independence Day, Valentine's Day, Thanksgiving Day): July 4, 2004 – present; Kimberly Buffington (real estate agent); February 14, 1991 – June 16, 2001; Meg Ryan (actress, with whom he has a son, Jack Henry (born April 24, 1992); November 25, 1978 – January 23, 1983; P.J. Soles (actress). Quaid was also engaged for three years to actress Lea Thompson (Back to the Future, Caroline in the City), whom he met on the movie set of Jaws 3-D in 1983.

Quaid golfing

Aside from acting, Quaid is a musician and plays with his band the Sharks. Quaid also has a pilot's license and is a scratch golfer and, in 2005, was named as the top golfer among the "Hollywood set" by Golf Digest. He lends his name to the annual "Dennis Quaid Charity Weekend" (formerly the "Jiffy Lube/Dennis Quaid Charity Classic") in Austin, Texas. The golf tournament attracts numerous celebrities with the proceeds split among local children's charities. He is a member of the Bel-Air Country Club in Bel-Air and tries to stay at homes on private courses when he is on the road.

Quaid works with the charity "International Hospital for Children in New Orleans." He makes trips to Central America to help build medical clinics and transport sick children back to the United States for treatment they cannot get locally.

In a 2006 interview with Best Life magazine, Quaid said that in the mid-1990s he suffered from anorexia nervosa, saying, "I'd look in the mirror and still see a 180 lb. guy, even though I was 138 pounds," and "for many years, I was obsessed about what I was eating, how many calories it had, and how much exercise I'd have to do".

On November 20, 2007, Quaid's twelve-day-old twins were mistakenly given 1,000 times the proper dosage of heparin.^{[6] [7]}

Info From:
^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Quaid}

Caroline Kennedy

Caroline Bouvier Kennedy (born November 27, 1957) is the daughter and only surviving child of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Her brother John F. Kennedy, Jr. died in a plane crash in 1999.

Early life

Kennedy was born in New York, New York and lived in Washington, DC in Georgetown until just after her third birthday, when her family moved to the White House. After the assassination of her father in November 1963, she moved with her mother and brother in mid 1964 to New York City, in the penthouse apartment at 1040 Fifth Avenue, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

In 1967, she christened the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy, which was in active service until March 23, 2007.

A photo of a young Caroline with her pony in a news article inspired singer-songwriter Neil Diamond to write his hit song "Sweet Caroline", a fact he revealed only when performing it for her 50th birthday in November 2007.^[1]

Education

She graduated from Radcliffe College/Harvard University and Columbia Law School, after completing her education at The Brearley School and Convent of the Sacred Heart, and Concord Academy in Massachusetts.

Children

They have two daughters and one son:

• Rose Kennedy Schlossberg, born on June 25, 1988 in New York City, New York (named after her great-grandmother Rose Kennedy)
• Tatiana Celia Kennedy Schlossberg, born on May 5, 1990 in New York City, New York (named after Edwin's grandmother and his former colleague, the lithographer Tatiana Grossman)
• John Bouvier Kennedy Schlossberg, born on January 19, 1993 in New York City, New York (named after his maternal grandfather and his maternal grandmother's maiden name)

Kennedy lives in New York City, New York with her husband and family. Her husband is president of Edwin Schlossberg Inc., a multi-disciplinary design company that specializes in interactive exhibit design and museum master-planning.

Death of her mother

Upon her mother Jacqueline's death in 1994, Kennedy was instrumental in planning a private funeral service, when there were plans in progress for a more public event. The funeral was instead an invitation-only event, attended by mostly family and close friends.

Work

Kennedy is an attorney, editor, and writer. She is one of the founders of the Profiles in Courage Award, given annually to a person who exemplifies the type of courage examined in her father's Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name. The award is generally given to elected officials who, acting in accord with their conscience, risk their careers by pursuing a larger vision of the national, state or local interest in opposition to popular opinion or powerful pressures from their constituents. In May 2002, she presented an unprecedented Profiles in Courage Award to representatives of the NYPD, the New York City Fire Department, and the military as representatives of all of the people who acted to save the lives of others during the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.^[3]

Kennedy is currently President of the Kennedy Library Foundation, a Director of both the Commission on Presidential Debates and of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and Honorary Chairman of the American Ballet Theatre. Kennedy is also an adviser to the Harvard Institute of Politics, a living memorial to her father.

In addition, Kennedy has represented her family at the funeral services of former Presidents Ronald Reagan in 2004 and Gerald Ford in 2007, and at the funeral service of former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson in 2007.

Caroline Kennedy also represented her family at the dedication of the William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park in Little Rock, Arkansas in November 2004.

Works published

Kennedy and Ellen Alderman have written two books together on civil liberties:

• In Our Defense: The Bill of Rights In Action (1990) and
• The Right to Privacy (1995)

On her own, she has edited these New York Times best-selling volumes:

• A Patriot’s Handbook
• The Best-Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
• A Family of Poems: My Favorite Poetry for Children
• Profiles in Courage for Our Time

Portrayals of Caroline Kennedy

• Inspiration of the Neil Diamond song "Sweet Caroline" (1969)
• Erin McElroy in Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (1981, TV)
• Jessica Ann Durr in Kennedy (1983, TV)
• Hannah Fallon in Kennedy (1983, TV)
• Robin Morse in A Woman Named Jackie (1991, TV)
• Rachel Merritt in Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (2000, TV)
• Jacqueline Relke in Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (2000, TV)
• Amanda Tilson in Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (2000, TV)
• Ashley Wyatt in Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (2000, TV)
• Maggie Castle in Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (2000, TV)
• Jennifer Van Dyck in Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (2000, TV)
• Alexandra Blasius in Timequest (2002)
• Kirsten Bishop in America's Prince: The John F. Kennedy, Jr. Story (2003, TV)

Info From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Kennedy