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In what will surely go down as one of the most splendid flips in the history of ultra-posh New York City real estate, the young hedge fund executive Scott Bommer and his wife Donya, once an anchor for "Good Day Philadelphia," have sold their duplex penthouse at 1060 Fifth Avenue for around $48.9 million, according to a source.

Not only does the sale come in the middle of a relatively sludgy, even gloomy real estate market, but there's the downright flabbergasting fact that the Bommers bought the apartment only this January. They paid $46 million, setting a record for a Manhattan co-op sale.  read more »

If they had it to do over, it’s a good bet that Barack Obama’s campaign would not have moved the final night of the Democratic convention from a cozy basketball arena to an open-air football stadium.

The change in venue, concocted back in those heady days just after June 3 when every quantitative and qualitative indicator pointed to a sweeping Democratic victory this fall, created the expectation that Obama, a man renowned for his inspirational oratory, would deliver a speech with a scope as expansive as the setting.

But something funny happened between then and now: The media started asking the tough questions that it hadn’t during the primaries and John McCain and his Republican allies began pounding away – day after day – at a caricature of Obama as smooth-talking and substance-less creation of the media, a man who knew how to make a crowd feel good for a few minutes but who hadn’t the first clue how to make their everyday lives better as president.  read more »

Producers with ABC News' investigative unit are currently on assignment in Denver, looking in the role that big money donors play at the Democratic convention.

Today, one of those producers, Asa Eslocker, was arrested outside the swank Brown Palace Hotel, where Democratic senators were meeting with donors at a private party.

According to ABC News, Mr. Eslocker is being charged with "tresspass, interference, and failure to follow a lawful order."

More from ABC News' report of the incident:

Eslocker was put in handcuffs and loaded in the back of a police van which headed for a nearby police station.

 read more »

Joe Biden ran for president this past year and even after giving hundreds of speeches, sitting for countless interviews and participating in more than a dozen televised debates, no one really noticed. He finished at the bottom of the pack in Iowa and dropped out. Half the country had no idea who he was or that he'd even been in the race at all.

Tonight, finally, people noticed. For 30 minutes in prime time, with tens of millions of viewers watching on broadcast and cable television, Biden had the chance to introduce himself, to tell his story and to explain why he's in politics and why he wants to help lead this country – exposure he'd never before had in a political career that has spanned four decades.  read more »

What happens when thousands of politics wonks descend on one poor, defenseless mile-high city for a few days? Why, lots of Craigslist posts offering or soliciting politically minded sex, of course.

Take this 39-year-old man, who is offering a "free spa quality sensual massage for Obama supporters!" He adds: "Would love to meet and greet and touch a good energy soul in for the convention. Tall and fun with a great touch."

Or the 32-year-old man staying at the Aurora Hotel who was looking for a "cowgirl": "Are you a lady voting Obama? Are you looking for a little fun tonight during the convention? Perhaps you like to cum over and "Watch" with me? I'm serious about meeting up with a good-looking lady for the afternoon/evening and if you're serious about meeting up with a good-looking guy; what are you waiting for? Get back to me!"

Perhaps this  read more »

In addition to thinking that Cindy McCain's hairstyle makes her look like she's gotten a face lift, Tim Gunn now also thinks that her clothes look "duct-taped." [The Cut]

Mark Ronson will return as the DJ for his sister Charlotte Ronson's Spring 2009 show at Bryant Park in September, after Ronson sibling Samantha took over the turntables for the past few seasons. [FWD]  read more »

As Prepared:

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama

“The American Promise”

Democratic Convention

Thursday, August 28th, 2008

Denver, Colorado

As Prepared for Delivery

To Chairman Dean and my great friend Dick Durbin; and to all my fellow citizens of this great nation;

With profound gratitude and great humility, I accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States.

Let me express my thanks to the historic slate of candidates who accompanied me on this journey, and especially the one who traveled the farthest – a champion for working Americans and an inspiration to my daughters and to yours -- Hillary Rodham Clinton. To President Clinton, who last night made the case for change as only he can make it; to Ted Kennedy, who embodies the spirit of service; and to the next Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, I thank you.

 read more »

DENVER--“America has come very far,” Charity Ngilu said.

Sitting in a Denver cafe, sipping a cup of English tea, Ngilu—Kenya’s minister for water and irrigation, and the highest-ranking member of a small delegation of leaders from her nation who are attending the Democratic convention—was reflecting on the unlikely rise of Barack Obama. Four years ago, the obscure Illinois legislator introduced himself to delegates at the Boston convention—and, by electrifying extension, the entire world—as a “skinny kid with a funny name.” That name, of course, is Kenyan, and back in the country where it originated, they’re feeling vicariously triumphant that it is now known around the globe.  read more »

On Tuesday evening, inside the Pepsi Center in Denver,  the Media Mob had a moment of clumsiness, involving Karl Rove's laptop computer.

It was a few short hours before Hillary Clinton was to address the delegates. The green room of the Fox News sky box inside the arena was buzzing with activity. Energy was high. The quarters were close.

The Media Mob was sitting on smallish couch conducting an interview with Fox News' dynamic anchor Megyn Kelly, who is reporting from the floor of the Pepsi Center, throughout the convention. A laptop computer, the screen flipped open, rested on one arm of the couch behind me.  read more »

Even this populist Democratic National Convention has a seating chart, and therefore a social hierarchy.

According to the DNC's rubric, The Washington Post is deserving of the better seat than The Times, and Jezebel and Glamour deserve a closer seat than The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Mother Jones and Portfolio.

First, a little background. There's really no bad seat in the Denver Broncos press box in Invesco Field, but there certainly are better ones. There are two rows of tables that curve in the press box from the end zone to about the 20-yard line. You want to be in that first row, which features delightfully unimpeded views of the whole stadium other than the glass that surrounds the front of the press box from floor to ceiling; in the second row, you'll see Barack Obama pretty nicely, but you'll also be staring at the back of someone's head.  read more »

Two years ago, in one of the most awesomely honest interviews ever given about a very, very expensive apartment, Seema Kalia, the wife of hedge fund manager Vedula Murti, told The Observer about her new $7,127,750 triplex in the 104-year-old mansion at 3 East 75th Street. "You know that sometimes people buy great houses and have no taste?" Ms. Kalia said then. "Well, we have no taste, so we put it in the hands of someone who does." She hired Madonna's designer, Jamie Drake, to fix up the space--not to mention The Dirty Sock Funtime Band to play for her 4-year-old daughter's friends in the apartment.  read more »

DENVER—Wednesday afternoon at the Denver Art Museum, Jennifer Lopez, Capitol File and Viacom honored Marian Wright Edelman for her work with the Children's Defense Fund. Before the awards presentation began, the Daily Transom spied the singer Rufus Wainwright, wearing a plaid blazer, striped T-shirt and sandals.

"I'm gay and out and proud, but in saying that I feel that the gay community could be a little more engaged," Mr. Wainwright said. "You can even spell it out. E-N-G-A-Y." Har!

"I guess one of the reasons I'm so vocal is to get some of my community out there because especially gay men-and those are the only ones I can really speak for-they tend to get a little into the lush life and the dance, the DJs, the disco music, and it's fun and everything, but unfortunately I'm a huge pessimist right now.  read more »

DENVER—You'd really have to strain to see any trace of Bill Clinton's residual primary-season resentments in his ecstatically received convention speech about Barack Obama. For 20 minutes, the former president spoke and, but for a few references to his wife's primary campaign at the very beginning, used his time to talk up Obama and to take on John McCain and the G.O.P.

In particular, Clinton vouched for Obama's national security credentials - his prime vulnerability, the G.O.P.'s eyes - arguing that Obama will work for diplomacy but that "when he cannot convert adversaries into partners, he will stand up to them."

Perhaps more effectively than any other speaker at this convention, Clinton also went after McCain, prefacing his critiques with praise for McCain's heroism and his willingness to stand up to his party on several high-profile issues.  read more »

On September 4, former Ford model Abigail Lorick will debut her Spring '09 collection. Ms. Lorick's line, Lorick New York, is the real-life fashion line behind Eleanor Waldorf's fictitious fashion house on Gossip Girl. According to Steven Rojas, a spokesperson for Archetype Showroom (which will be producing Lorick's New York Fashion Week show), Blake Lively, Taylor Momsen, and Leighton Meester have been invited. But it won't be the first time that they'll be seeing Ms. Lorick's latest collection.  read more »

DENVER—Bill Clinton walked onto the stage of the Pepsi Center on Wednesday night to sustained, roaring and amorous applause. Instead of signs with the names of Obama or Hillary, the hall waved American flags. Every time the ovations seemed to subside, they roared back up again. The time clock above the teleprompter froze at 10 minutes. With the tribute not eating into his speech, Clinton let them applaud. Not that he could have stopped them if he wanted.

When the applause finally died down, Clinton didn’t waste any time putting to rest the speculation about how enthusiastically he would make the case for Barack Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden.  read more »

To follow Bill Clinton as a speaker is almost impossible on any occasion, let alone after a speech as strong and stunning as his endorsement of Barack Obama.

But the speech delivered so doggedly by John Kerry—as the cable anchors talked over him—was analytically sharp and politically compelling. He gave himself the satisfaction of denouncing Karl Rove by name for the Swiftboat smears. More important, however, was his enunciation of the failures of Republican foreign and security policies—and how the Bush administration has tardily come round to the use of diplomacy with North Korea and Iran. Which happens to be the same approach favored by Obama. That photo op of Michelle with Obama's World War II uncle, who looks like he came straight from the VFW hall, wasn't bad either. Nice of the Obama team to give Kerry that moment.

The Hills' Whitney Port may have already started her new job working as in-house PR for Diane von Furstenberg. [NY Daily News]

Gotham magazine editor and socialite Cristina Greeven Cuomo is reportedly next in line to make an appearance on Gossip Girl. [P6]  

Jonathan Leitersdorf--real-estate investor and former owner of Noho's Sky Studios, an 11,000 square foot event space where the Seinfelds got married and several episodes of Sex and the City were shot--owns a 178-foot yacht that was just attacked by pirates off the coast of Corsica. The men were carrying "rifles and guns" and made off with $200,000 in cash, jewelry, and art work.  read more »

The New York Post's Keith Kelly reported yesterday that Michael Wolff’s book on Rupert Murdoch and the Dow Jones takeover is coming out in December, instead of February as initially intended. This spurred Media Mob to get in touch with Mr. Wolff and find out why. We did, pretty much right away, and the answer was just “Christmas,” so we stayed on the line for another few minutes and asked Mr. Wolff some more things.

Below, the conversation is reproduced, though be warned that while none of Mr. Wolff’s words were changed or rearranged, the questions in bold have been reconstructed from memory.  read more »

"I have a real affinity for the folks from Guam," said Megyn Kelly.

Since Monday morning, Ms. Kelly, the 37-year-old news anchor with Fox News, has been reporting from the floor of the Democratic convention in Denver. Her channel's riser is located between the delegations from New Mexico and Guam.

"Guam in on the floor," said Ms. Kelly. "Rhode Island is in the nose bleeds. How does this happen? They told me, it's because they went for Barack Obama and Rhode Island went for Hillary."

"They are so excited to be on the floor," she added.  read more »

Bill Clinton's speech to the Democratic convention got rave reviews—Andrew Sullivan thinks it was one of the best speeches he has ever given. [Atlantic]

Howard Fineman agrees. [Newsweek]

Jonathan Chait calls the speech "graceful." [The Plank]

Ben Wasserstein notes one place where Bill Clinton conflicted with Obama's message. [The Stump]

Times's Karen Tumulty calls John Kerry's speech "electrifying." [Swampland]

Candy Crowley wonders where this Kerry was four years ago. [CNN]

Joe Biden was introduced by his son, Beau, the attorney general of Delaware who is deploying to Iraq this fall.  read more »