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" Daschle denies hugging Michael Moore." We just can't resist passing along that headline from last week's Rapid City Journal in South Dakota. (A shame; we would have loved to see a picture.) The hubbub started after a Time magazine cover story said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle met the controversial filmmaker at "Fahrenheit 9/11's" Washington premiere. Moore's quote: "He gave me a hug and said he felt bad and that we were all gonna fight [Bush] from now on. I thanked him for being a good sport." Nuh-uh, says Daschle. "I know we senators all tend to look alike. But I arrived late, and I had to leave early for Senate votes. I didn't meet Mr. Moore," he told South Dakota reporters in a conference call. Moore's reps said he stands by his comment.

• At least one Northern Virginia moviegoer walked out in a huff after watching just a half-hour of "Fahrenheit," and she wants our readers to know about it. Loyal Republican Lenora Tomalin, 81, called us to report that she left her relatives in their seats at the Regal theater in Sterling and headed for the lobby during the scene when Moore, in a voiceover, suggests thoughts President Bush might have had in a Florida classroom the morning of Sept. 11. "I was enraged . . . I thought it was very sophomoric," she says. "There was laughter and I would just cringe." Tomalin, who happens to be the mother of activist/actress Susan Sarandon, got a refund and promptly gave it to a charity supported by Regal. To cool down, she paced for a while, then waited patiently on a chair provided by the manager.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47817-2004Jul13.html

• Sen. John F. Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry had one of their mushiest public exchanges Monday at a fundraising luncheon that drew more than 1,000 Democratic women to a Boston hotel. "This woman has been unbelievable beyond words. . . . I publicly acknowledge, I married up," Kerry said to raucous applause. "She's grounded. She is pure woman: nurturing, loving, graceful, extraordinary in her reach, the way she envelops the world around her and people who come into contact with her. And so caring, so deeply believing that each of us and all of us can somehow change things and make a difference." [And so deeply loaded with cash!]

For her part, Heinz Kerry acknowledged "some initial doubts about my ability to be a good partner in this campaign. Whether or not I would hurt or I would help. Whether youth and strength is better than age and wisdom." Then she added, "I'm completely convinced that age and wisdom wins every time."

Heinz Kerry recounted her first meeting with the senator, a "young man," on Earth Day in 1990; she was introduced to him by her late husband, John Heinz. Both were scheduled to speak at an environmental rally on the steps of the Capitol. "About three years later, we kind of looked at each other as man and woman instead of environmentalist and environmentalist," she said. "When you get married when you're older, it's different from getting married as some young thing. . . . It's better, and it's not the same." Link