Inside the Beltway

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She ain't that bad

Martha Stewart's indictment couldn't have come at a better time for Washington-based damage-control guru and author Eric Dezenhall.

Mr. Dezenhall's new novel, "Jackie Disaster," about a "deliciously loathsome doyenne of good taste and domestic living" who finds herself embroiled in an ugly corporate scandal, was released by St. Martin's Minotaur Books the same day as Mrs. Stewart's recent indictment on charges relating to insider trading.

Because of his day job and literary subject, Mr. Dezenhall has become the pundit of choice to address Mrs. Stewart's situation across the media spectrum.

"What's scary is that some of the tactics Martha is really using to divert attention parallel stunts in the book," he says. "Except for the murders, blackmail, arsons and narcotics-related frame-ups."

Nobody bothers Colin

Yes, that was Jhoon Rhee, nationally known martial-arts master and spiritual philosopher, recently giving a martial-arts demonstration at Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's "Open Forum" in the Dean Acheson Auditorium of the Harry S. Truman Building.

However, Master Rhee prefers olive branches over fighting, sharing with State Department staffers his philosophy of how mind joined with body can achieve spiritual contentment and happiness.

Pardonable conviction