Amy Holmes

Amy Holmes (1973- ) is CNN’s most beautiful talking head, putting a pretty black face to the Republican party line. She started with CNN in 2007. She has also been on Fox News, “Real Time with Bill Maher”, “The View” and BET. She would like to become the next Charlie Rose

She has beautiful eyes I could look at forever! I probably only hear half of what she says!

It is not just me, either: Rosie O’Donnell says she is “very pretty”.

On CNN she talks like a Republican, being careful to savage Barack Obama. But on “The View” she told us she is an independent who is for abortion.

She was born in Africa in Zambia to a black man and a white American mother. Her parents broke up when she was three and her mother came back with her to America, where she grew up in Seattle.

Like Michelle Obama she went to Princeton University, but unlike her she felt at home there. She studied economics. She says it helped her to learn how to think. In those days she was a Democrat, did not eat meat, worked for animal rights and voted for Bill Clinton.

After Princeton she went to work in the music industry in Seattle, but missed the East Coast. She wanted to move to New York, but wound up in Washington, DC where a friend of hers lived. That was in October 1995.

There she started reading right-wing magazines like the National Review, which she read at Starbucks hiding it inside a copy of the left-wing New Republic. One thing led to another and she wound up working for Arianna Huffington.

After only two months in Washington her picture was in the Washington Post as a young new face of the black right-wing! That brought her to the attention of television producers. In time that got her on MSNBC, Fox News and BET.

From 1996 to 1998 she worked for the Independent Women’s Forum, a right-wing think tank.

From 1999 to 2001 she wrote a monthly column for USA Today. She has also written for the Washington Post and the National Review – the magazine she used to hide at Starbucks!

In 2002 she had her own show on BET, “Lead Story”.

From 2003 to 2006 she was a speech writer for Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee. She told him she was for abortion and not against same-sex marriage, but he hired her anyway.

Some say her right-wing views are not heart-felt but just a way to get on television.

Her Republicanism seems more white and north-eastern than black: she is more like Giuliani, say, than Alan Keyes or Condoleezza Rice, whose Republicanism has a strong moral element.

She has a long history of dating the Jewish people, as she puts it. She does not seem to be Jewish herself: she celebrates Christmas. Not that that necessarily proves anything.

Some of the men she has dated were much older than her: Mickey Kaus and Lloyd Grove are both old enough to be her father.

See also:

• Amy Holmes, Let’s Be Friends – from the Black Snob. Funny and some good pictures too.
• political left and right
• Republican
• Democrat
• Washington, DC
• Michelle Obama
• Barack Obama
• Jews

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Tips on visiting Washington, DC

Last week we went to see Washington, DC. Since we will no doubt go again in a few years, I will write down some pointers for myself for next time:

1. Get a good map. It should show not only the chief attractions, but also train and bus lines, parking and which way the one-way streets go. Some streets can no longer be reached by car, like part of the street around the Lincoln Memorial. This should be shown on the map too.
2. Count on seeing only two places a day: one in the morning and one in the afternoon. By five in the afternoon everyone will be too tired for a third place and will only want to sit down and eat. Most places are closed by six in any case.Two places a day does not sound like much, but that is is what winds up happening.
3. Settle on which places to see months before you go. This will give you time to learn about them online and off and reserve tickets (recommended).
4. Reserve tickets when you can.
5. Go when the weather is warm. Because of all the security added since 9/11, you will often find yourself waiting in line outside.
6. Learn the trains and buses. Parking is a pain in the neck. It would be best to park your car in the morning and just leave it, but without taking buses or the underground trains, your party will become too tired out from walking — and what if it rains?The other way to do it is to find parking near each attraction.
7. Bring food. Food in the city is costly.
8. Many places are free and open nearly every day.
9. If your wife lets you come to the front of a line in a museum, quietly refuse. To do otherwise will make either you or her look like an ass.
10. It is hard to get close to many places by car. That is part of the security added since 9/11.
11. Interstate highway 66 goes right into downtown Washington, right on to Constitution Avenue.
12. There is an Old Country Buffet in Fairfax at 236 and Pickett off exit 57 of I-66. There are other places to eat further down I-66.
13. Rough Guides are much more readable than other guides, so they are good for learning about places you might want to see. But on the ground they are often missing important details, the maps especially. For example, their map made it seem that you could drive right up to the Lincoln Memorial. Before 9/11, perhaps that was true, but no longer. I found this out the hard way!The Rough Guide on Washington says next to nothing on parking! Many of its telephone numbers are wrong.

Now that I have some experience with Washington, I will look through the other maps and guides to see how they compare.

See also:

• Washington
• bus
• car
• 9/11
  

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