For 45 Years, She Was on a Roll

Her wit and presence made her familiar to generations of television viewers, and Walter F. Mondale once quipped that she “has by now far outlasted Walter Cronkite on national television.” For 45 years, Democratic National Committee Secretary Dorothy Bush called the roll of states at national conventions, beginning with the 1944 meeting that nominated Franklin D. Roosevelt for an unprecedented fourth term as President. At her appointment March 1, 1944, she was the youngest secretary in either party and the first woman to serve in that capacity. On Thursday, she gave her last roll call of the states, a ballot to name her successor. Bush, who announced her resignation last August, was “a legend in Democratic politics and a gracious woman who has demonstrated an unending commitment to the party . . . ,” DNC Chairman Ron Brown said at the balloting. Democratic National Committee members cheered a filmed remembrance of the 72-year-old secretary’s appearances, and Bush recalled her first meeting with Roosevelt in 1944, when the President said to her: “Young lady, what this party needs is more young women like you.” Bush will be succeeded by Louisiana party Vice Chairwoman Kathy Vick.

--He’ll stay in hiding to do it, but author Salman Rushdie is so enraged over a magazine’s publication of sexually explicit pictures with unauthorized excerpts of his “Satanic Verses” that he’s filed a lawsuit. The trendy French magazine Passages in July published selections from Rushdie’s controversial novel that included drawings that Rushdie’s publisher, Christian Bourgois, called “frankly scatological.” Two days later, Passages Editor Emil Malet withdrew the issue from newsstands. Nonetheless, Rushdie and Bourgois filed suit, asking $48,000 for “counterfeiting” the translation without Rushdie’s authorization. A hearing is set for next Wednesday. Rushdie has been in hiding since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called on Muslims to kill him because “The Satanic Verses” blasphemed Islam.

--It was nothing against his royal highness, but two men who scuttled a luxury yacht belonging to the son of the ruler of Dubai said they did have a grudge against his gamekeeper. The $800,000 pleasure boat sank in August near the Scottish town of Dingwall, where Sheik Mohammed ibn Rashid al Maktoum has an estate. Two men admitted in court they scuttled the yacht after the funeral of a local salmon fisherman who committed suicide. “They said the reason for it was in retaliation for the hassle they say the deceased had from the head keeper,” prosecutor David Hingston said.