Supermodel Campbell drops in on Argentina’s Cristina

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Naomi Campbell, fashion goddess-turned-journalist, fresh from her interview with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, has chatted up another South American leader: Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Campbell and Fernandez had a conversation last week, the Argentine media reported. The state news agency quoted Campbell lauding Fernandez as ‘a very warm woman who speaks from her heart.’’ Fernandez, like her husband, ex-President Nestor Kirchner, has a combative relationship with journalists and seldom grants interviews. But the press says she is keen to meet world leaders and celebrities.

Campbell recently debriefed Chavez for the British edition of GQ. The fashionable Fernandez surely appreciated Campbell’s effusive praise after their meeting, which comes at a difficult juncture: The nasty scandal of an intercepted suitcase from Venezuela with $800,000 in alleged campaign contributions marred Fernandez’s first days in office. Argentina’s first woman elected president calls the affair a ‘garbage’’ operation dreamed up in Washington to discredit her and Chavez, her close ally. While in the neighborhood, Campbell is said to have crashed at the mansion of Colombian pop star Shakira, near the hyper-chic Uruguayan beach resort of Punta del Este.

-- Patrick J. McDonnell and Andres D’Alessandro in Buenos Aires