NOT-SO-SUPER DELEGATES

Racial politics at play, revealed by a Missouri congressman.

According to the KC Star's Prime Buzz blog:

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri said Thursday that black Democratic superdelegates who support Sen. Hillary Clinton have been “bludgeoned verbally” to prod them to switch to Sen. Barack Obama.

Cleaver, who is African-American and a superdelegate, has backed Clinton since last summer and this week re-emphasized that support. He said that he himself has not been pressured, but that black superdelegates from all over the country have been subjected to harassment, threatened with primary opponents and called “Uncle Tom.”

He said they have been told, “You’re not black if you’re not supporting Barack Obama. ... It is ugly.”

Cleaver thinks he's gotten a pass from the arm twisters because Obama won Missouri narrowly, and only thanks to GOP crossovers and independents.

PULLING A KEVORKIAN

In name and deed, indeed. NBC San Diego reports:

According to police, Sevan Kevorkian's girlfriend found him hanging from a closet rod in his apartment ... last Saturday. Investigators said that after she cut him down and revived him, Kevorkian, 36, started pulling her around the room by her hair.

Police said the altercation was noticed by a man and woman who were pulling up in a vehicle in the neighborhood. The man climbed through a window to stop the assault and put Kevorkian in a carotid restraint, which is sometimes called a sleeper hold.

Kevorkian lost consciousness and was taken to the hospital. Officials said he died a little before midnight on Thursday.

Definitely deserves a Darwin.

SUNDAY GRAFS

•Guilty eyeball pleasure No. 1: This Vanity Fair article about Lou Pearlman, the man who made 'NSync and Backstreet Boys into household names. VF has sources claiming Pearlman enjoyed more than music from pretty boys:

Some, especially the teenagers, shrugged and giggled when he showed them pornographic movies or jumped naked onto their beds in the morning to wrestle and play. Others, it appears, didn't get off so easily. These were the young singers seen emerging from his bedroom late at night, buttoning their pants, sheepish looks on their faces. Some deny anything improper ever happened. But the parents of at least one, a member of the Backstreet Boys, complained. And for any number of young men who sought to join the world's greatest boy bands, Big Poppa's attentions were an open secret, the price some paid for fame.

"Some guys joked about it; I remember [one singer] asking me, 'Have you let Lou blow you yet?'" says Steve Mooney, an aspiring singer who served as Pearlman's assistant and lived in his home for two years. "I would absolutely say the guy was a sexual predator. All the talent knew what Lou's game was. If they say no, they're lying to you."

Pearlman's denying the whole thing, of course, but he's also awaiting trial for allegedly milking investors out of $300 million in a Ponzi scheme.

•Guilty eyeball pleasure No. 2: Tony Messenger's Sunday column in the News-Leader. It's about the hilarity that ensues when a radio personality is gulled into believing that the operator of a flophouse coulda woulda shoulda been in contention for a luxury hotel project next to the convention center. Best Messenger line to savor: They got part of the story almost right.

•Guilty ear pleasure: Chamillionaire's Ultimate Victory. Check "The Evening News":

We still haven't found Pac's killer, still haven't found Biggie's either,
30 minutes into the case they got tired and took a breather,
Snoop Dogg just got arrested, everyday he get a new subpoena,
Innocent when murder was the case so the prosecution got a middle finger,
Hip-Hop is sweeping the nation, but the contents seem so degrading,
Most rappers got new albums that white kids are anticipating,
If you don't like it on the radio or the television then switch the station,
Flavor Flav get a lot of ratings, Bill O'Reilly somewhere is hating,
Kanye just said WHAT? the president ain't got time for that,
The White House is going to stay white even tho' we know Obama's black,
9/11 was a calculation, and some would say it was a timed attack,
He gave a speech on CNN, "They bombed us, now we're bombing back,"
Where the heck is Osama at?

•Guilty dirty pirate hooker mouth pleasure: Caribou Coffee Snack Bars, the crack cocaine of granola bars. Or so sayeth the KB, and the man knows his granola bars.

'TIME TO SAY A PRAYER'

The last words of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, a Chicago mobster who thought he was about to be promoted to capo in his city's mob. Instead the meeting was a lure. Spilotro was about to die.

A mobster-turned-squealer testified this week about Spilotro's death. The Associated Press reports:

Nicholas Calabrese, an admitted mob killer, said he and two other men were driven to the scene of the crime by James Marcello, one of those on trial.

Spilotro had been lured with the promise he would become a "capo," or captain, in the Outfit — as Chicago's organized crime family is known — and his brother, Michael, would be initiated as a "made guy," Calabrese testified.

Michael came downstairs first, Calabrese testified.

"I said, 'How are you doing, Mike?' because I knew him," Calabrese testified. But he said a few seconds later, "I grabbed his legs and I noticed right away that Louie the Mooch had a rope around his neck."

While they were strangling Michael Spilotro, Calabrese said, he heard what may have been Tony Spilotro's last words. Several of the mobsters involved, including Louie "The Mooch" Eboli, are now dead.

Four mobsters are on trial in Chicago, including Nicholas Calabrese's brother, Frank. Ratting out your own brother seems low, even by mob standards. Then again, this was a gang that doled out nicknames like "The Ant" and "The Mooch."

O.J. SIMPSON KICKED TO CURB

It's Tuesday's feel-good story. O.J. Simpson walks into a restaurant in Louisville during the Kentucky Derby weekend. The restaurant owner walks over to Simpson and tells him to get lost.

Jeff Ruby owns the eatery. WCPO reports:

Ruby said he found Simpson in the Churchill room of his "Jeff Ruby's Louisville" steakhouse and told Simpson, "I'm not serving you."

Ruby said he did it for the Goldman and Brown families, referring, of course, to the families of the people O.J. was accused of killing.

Simpson was found not guilty in the criminal trial, but liable in a civil trial.

After telling Simpson to leave, he said the former NFL football star was "classy" about it, rounded up his party and left.

Then, Ruby said, he went into the Churchill Room to be sure they were gone and people at other tables started standing. "They all got up and gave me a standing ovation, started applauding."

O.J. Simpson in a steakhouse filled with knives. We'd applaud, too.

WHAT'S IN YOUR FRIDGE?

An appropriate question to ask in the wake of Anna Nicole Smith's death, especially now that TMZ is reporting that Smith's fridge was devoid of food and instead filled with French's Worcestershire Sauce, mustard, yogurt, spray butter, methadone and Slim-Fast.

Mmm. Spray butter and methadone.

Smith, as you know, was spokeswoman for TrimSpa, another weight-loss product. Her apparent preference for Slim-Fast doesn't sit well with TrimSpa CEO Alex Goen, who said on Court TV that if Smith drank Slim-Fast, "it would definitely be a violation ... it would definitely be one of those things we would question. We would not want her taking any other weight loss products." Heroin dealers are probably upset by Smith's preference for methadone over their powders, but they at least have the class to stay quiet about it.

RUMSFELD RESIGNS

The latest casuality in the midterm elections. Just breaking on The Associated Press.

This is a surprisingly tone-deaf side of the Bush Administration. Just last week President Bush reaffirmed his support of Rumsfeld and said he would stay on through the end of Bush's term. Now, in his news conference, Bush admits the change was already being planned when he misled reporters. Had Bush been able to get out the word that Rumsfeld was on his way out, the midterm elections outcome could have been much different -- and much better -- for the GOP.

ANSWER: TO MAKE SURE HE'S DEAD

The headline of the Sun-Sentinel story: Kin of man who killed deputy want probe into why he was shot 68 times

The deputy was from Polk County, Fla. The family of the dead cop killer wants the governor, Jeb Bush, to rustle up an independent investigation into the shooting of their loved one. The Sun-Sentinel reports:

Nine SWAT officers fired a total of 110 bullets at 27-year-old Angilo Freeland last week after he fatally shot a Polk County deputy and his dog and wounded another fleeing from a traffic stop. "This is not about a lawsuit. Nobody is suing anybody," the family's attorney, Grady Irvin, said at a Thursday afternoon new conference. "What this is all about is this death is uncommon in the means and manner by which Mr. Freeland died -- 68 bullet holes. His family just wants to put this issue to rest and they want a search for the truth, that's all." An Orlando-based civil rights group also on Thursday called on U.S. Attorney Alberto Gonzales to look into the circumstances surrounding Freeland's death.

An uncommon death caps an uncommon life.

HENRY HYDE STILL DANGEROUS

The 82-year-old congressman from Illinois is retiring. You may remember him as one of the GOP gang that pressed the impeachment of Bill Clinton.

Speaking with Robert Novak, the columnist, Hyde spilled this little gem:

"I'd like to go back and do the impeachment again ... I was soft on the treatment we received from the Senate. We couldn't produce a witness without their permission. I should have had the president come in and testify. And if the Senate wouldn't let me, I should have gone before the body and Chief Justice Rehnquist and made a motion. That would have dramatized that the Senate was not letting us try our case. A lot of things could have been done differently."

Heh-heh. He said he was "soft."

NURSE STRANGLES INTRUDER

With her bare hands. The Associated Press reports on the strange story from Oregon:

Susan Kuhnhausen, 51, ran to a neighbor's house after the confrontation Wednesday night. Police found the body of Edward Dalton Haffey 59, a convicted felon with a long police record.

Police said there was no obvious sign of forced entry at the house when Kuhnhausen, an emergency room nurse at Providence Portland Medical Center, got home from work shortly after 6 p.m.

Under Oregon law people can use reasonable deadly force when defending themselves against an intruder or burglar in their homes. Kuhnhausen was treated and released for minor injuries at Providence.

Haffey, about 5-foot-9 and 180 pounds, had convictions including conspiracy to commit aggravated murder, robbery, drug charges and possession of burglary tools. Neighbors said Kuhnhausen's size - 5-foot-7 and 260 pounds - may have given her an advantage.

"Everyone that I've talked to says 'Hurray for Susan,' said neighbor Annie Warnock, who called 911. "You didn't need to calm her. She's an emergency room nurse. She's used to dealing with crisis."

Owned by a big nurse with strong hands.