What Extreme Mortman is hearing and what Extreme Mortman is plugging these days:

I’ve learned that marvelous, mischievous media maven Marvin Kalb is working on his next book, something special on the 2004 presidential race that has direct bearing on the 2008 race. Stay tuned in this space for more details.

And while I’m plugging books, two more book-spine-tingling treats for politics lovers come to mind. Eric Dezenhall, America’s top crisis manager/funnyman has yet another book out: “Turnpike Flameout”. It’s Insightful, funny, another brilliant master-stroke. I call it a must-read. In fact, I must read it some day. And what a great book party at his swanky downtown Connecticut Avenue digs above the DC Improv. If anyone can pull off fine Jersey cuisine – featuring strolling mini-cheese steaks – it’s Eric Dezenhall. Oh, the cholesterol.

And you’ve got to purchase Potomac Beach by Eron Shosteck.

Surely you remember Eron from such hits as “Pencilneck” at The Hotline, Elvis
impersonations at weddings, like his own, and “The President’s Neck Is Missing.” Well “Potomac Beach” tops them all, sporting the Federated Association of Taters (FAT) and the Coalition Representing American Plumbers (CRAP).
And speaking of the Hotline, former Hotline pit boss turned NPR political editor Ken Rudin writes in his Political Junkie column about “Eugene McCarthy’s multiple running mates in 1976.”

Which got me thinking back to simpler, happier times, the Seventies. Lots of folks had multiple running mates in 1976 – we were so innocent then! And penicillin still worked.