Arnold Schwarzenegger mugging for the cameras at McNally-Jackson (Photo: Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke)

Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger held an impromptu book signing at indie bookstore McNally-Jackson in Nolita this afternoon. Mr. Schwarzenegger announced the surprise signing via Twitter and in a note on Facebook leading a crowd of over 100 almost exclusively male fans to rush downtown to shake the Governator’s large hand and have him sign copies of his tome Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story.

Mr. Schwarzenegger's arrival was preceded by a surprisingly mellow soundtrack featuring Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel and Leonard Cohen. Just about five minutes after the scheduled start of the signing, Mr. Schwarzenegger strolled in, wearing a dark suit, cowboy boots with an Americana pattern and a skull ring nearly as large as his finger. The body builder-turned-politician then sat down to autograph his autobiography at a table next to a cardboard cutout of him in his prime (i.e., flexing in a bikini).

“Thank you so much for putting this together so quickly,” whispered a publicist from Simon & Schuster, the book’s publisher.

Although the Governator’s handlers claimed the event was planned last night, bookstore staff told The Observer they were given a head’s up about the signing late last week.

“You working out? You look pumped up,” Mr. Schwarzengger said as he shook hands, signed books and posed for pictures with fans.

“You know anything about watches? This is a Legacy,” Mr. Schwarzenegger told one fan who complimented the timepiece sticking out from the cuff of his suit jacket. Apparently, the Legacy watch is a good choice for those with large forearms, as it dwarfed Mr. Schwarzenegger’s sizeable wrist.

The Governor was not supposed to pose for pictures or sign anything other than books, but he generously did both.

Reporters were allowed in a small roped off area adjacent to Mr. Schwarzenegger's table and informed they would not be permitted to ask questions. One brave soul from Inside Edition attempted to circumvent the ban.

“You were great on GMA,” she yelled before being gently reminded the Governor was not speaking with the press.

Probably due to the crackdown on reporters, the only remote reference to the love child scandal Ms. Schwarzenegger endured last year at the signing was a fan who said to him, “What happened happened...You are doing the right thing.”

“Thanks. Have a nice day,” the Governor mumbled, before posing for yet another cellphone picture.

Outside the event, where the line of Mr. Schwarzenegger's admirers snaked around Prince Street and more media staked out the signing, it was a different story. Another Inside Edition reporter and a cameraman interviewed fans who exited the signing and asked their thoughts on the Governator's past transgressions.

"You can't judge somebody," said one man who identified himself as a member of an online Schwarzenegger fan club.

"Yes you can!" shouted another man who had been standing in the street watching the proceedings.

An earpiece-clad member of Mr. Schwarzenegger's security team kept watch over the line, enforcing a rule that only those who purchased books could have an audience with the Governator and helping several bewildered patrons who showed up to shop at McNally-Jackson with no idea they were walking into an autograph signing. At one point, we overheard him on the phone with a colleague saying, "Find me a cigar store."

Knowing Mr. Schwarzenegger is a big fan of fine, hand-rolled cigars, we piped in and recommended nearby Mulberry Street Cigars in Little Italy. The security staffer dispensed Mr. Schwarzenegger's personal assistant to check out the cigar shop.

Inside, all 162 copies of Mr. Schwarzenegger’s memoir in stock at McNally-Jackson sold out before the line finished. Fans who were unable to buy books asked if they could pre-order with the store or online and still get pictures with the Governator. The security team informed them there wouldn't be enough time, but, in an attempt to alleviate the disappointment, Mr. Schwarzenegger posed with his last remaining admirers.

One of his handlers told him he had to retake the picture because it was too blurry.

“So don’t shake,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said. “Somebody is schvitzing.”

“Don’t worry, he’ll be back,” somebody said, as the Governor and his entourage departed the bookstore.

Outside, Mr. Schwarzenegger entered his car without taking questions from any of the assembled media. Thinking that, perhaps he and his team had taken us up on our cigar store recommendation, we headed down Mulberry Street to see if we might have another shot to speak with the Governator.

When we arrived, we found Mulberry Street Cigars had the lights off and was closed for the day. It seemed both The Observer and the cigar store missed our respective shots at having a moment with Mr. Schwarzenegger.

Allen West (Photo: West.House.gov)

Conservative Florida Congressman Allen West is having a fundraiser in New York City October 1, however, in spite of what the invitation says, he won't be holding the event in a Meatpacking District nightclub that is at least a decade past its heyday, Lotus. The official invite for the luncheon says it will be held at "The Lotus Club," which has been closed for years. Mr. West's event is actually being held at The Lotos Club, a private "literary club" on the Upper East Side.

Mr. West's fundraiser is being hosted by  the authors George Minkoff and Diane B. Saxton. Mr. Minkoff is known for his In The Land of Whispers trilogy, a historical fiction series based on the life of the English explorer Captain John Smith. Ms. Saxton is the author of the upcoming "psychological novel" Peregrine Island.

According to Capital New York, Mr. West will also be joined by Queens congressional candidate and Councilman Dan Halloran. The "suggested contribution" to attend the event is $1,000.

Politico's Ben White did not approve of Mitt Romney's taste in books.

Romney's favorite book is Battlefield Earth? That's by far the worst thing I've ever heard about him. That's just... that's awful.

—
Ben White (@morningmoneyben) May 23, 2012

Another Politico reporter, Reid Epstein, was in awe of a hairdo he spotted at an event for Florida Senator Marco Rubio.

I don't have words to describe the hair on the guy introducing Marco Rubio today at US Chamber of Commerce.

—
Reid Epstein (@reidepstein) May 23, 2012

MSNBC host Chris Hayes had a wonky beef with Buzzfeed's Ben Smith.

Wall Street Journal reporter Victoria McGrane asked a good question about the financial industry.

Who on Wall Street isn't being investigated right now? Show of hands please.

—
Victoria McGrane (@vgmac) May 23, 2012

MSNBC's Alex Wagner observed Mitt Romney's rather unique way of dealing with the press.

Romney sorta talks to (at?) reporters on plane: "Listen to these guys. They think just because I walk by they think they get an interview"

—
Alex Wagner (@alexwagner) May 23, 2012

Elizabeth Warren (Photo: Getty)

Earlier this evening National Review blogger Katrina Trinko published a story accusing Democratic Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren of plagiarizing a passage in the book she co-wrote with her daughter, All Your Worth: The Ultimate Money Lifetime Plan. One hour and five minutes later, Ms. Trinko published a correction apologizing for the story.

"I took down my earlier post on Elizabeth Warren plagiarizing from the book Getting On the Money Track," Ms. Trinko said. "I apologize for the error."

Ms. Trinko originally accused Ms. Warren of lifting a passage from a book by the author Rob Black in All Your Worth, which she co-wrote with her daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi.

"That book includes a passage that appears to include parts of two paragraphs directly lifted from a book published in 2005, Getting on the Money Track by Rob Black," Ms. Trinko wrote.

Ms. Trinko incorrectly believed Ms. Warren's book was published after Mr. Black's, but she was actually not looking at a first edition of the book. Her mistake was first pointed out by Salon's Alex Pareene.

"On Amazon.com, the Warren book All Your Worth is listed as having been published January 9, 2006. As it turns out, that is the paperback publication date; the hardback book was published in March 2005," Ms. Trinko wrote in her correction. "As such, it appears that Getting on the Money Track (published in October 2005) plagiarized from All Your Worth, not the other way around."

Ms. Trinko, who dealt with the situation with admirable speed and transparency, is currently using Twitter to send out her correction to outlets that ran with the original story on Twitter.

It seems Mr. Black has some explaining to do.

Update (8:18 p.m.): The Politicker managed to get ahold of Mr. Pareene, who explained how he managed to debunk this story.

"I honestly think that my writing this was mostly a factor of me being one of the few people still at his computer on a lovely day at 7 p.m.," Mr. Pareene said.

According to Mr. Pareene, he and his editor, Ben Crair, initially believed the plagiarism story.

"We'd been talking about writing something about all the mini-scandals surrounding Elizabeth Warren," said Mr. Pareene. "At first, we just took it at face value and we were talking about how serious it was, and then, my editor was like, 'I'm just kind of hoping that they just got this massively wrong.'"

Shortly afterward, Mr. Crair's wish came true. Mr. Pareene said he realized National Review had made a mistake after "just literally a few seconds of Googling the book that they talked about."

"I can see how they got this wrong, but honestly, five more minutes of Googling it would have disproven it before they even published it," Mr. Pareene said.

Mr. Pareene also told us he was disappointed the story was corrected so quickly.

"It was a really exciting few minutes when I thought I was the first one with the story," he said. "And then, they corrected it right away, which was very disappointing."

President Obama at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

A new biography of President Barack Obama by Dave Maraniss reveals the "New York girlfriend" described in the president's 1995 memoir, Dreams of My Father, was actually a "compression" combining stories from several women he dated over the years.

"During an interview in the Oval Office, Obama acknowledged that, while Genevieve was his New York girlfriend, the description in his memoir was a “compression” of girlfriends, including one who followed Genevieve [Cook] when he lived in Chicago," Mr. Maraniss wrote.

This revelation quickly became the latest mini-scandal of the presidential campaign with Matt Drudge, the internet's de facto front page, quickly declaring it evidence of the president "fabricating" portions of his life story. However, over at Slate, Dave Weigel points out President Obama never claimed the characters in his memoir weren't based on individuals.

Dreams of My Father began with a disclaimer that said, "For the sake of compression, some of the characters that appear are composites of people I’ve known." For once, it seems the president being candid about dating multiple women is the end of a campaign scandal rather than the start of one.

It was a summer day and the man who is now the fourth most senior in the the House of Representatives was in his second term as a New York State assemblyman and preparing to make a run for Congress against a powerful incumbent, Adam Clayton Powell. Mr. Rockefeller called Mr. Rangel to an office in the State Capitol building in Albany.

"There were all these guys on the floor poring over a map of the state of New York. They had slide rules and string, and grease pencils and data about the population of the various counties and cities from the recent census," Mr. Rangel wrote. "They were actually drawing the congressional district reapportionment lines for the 1970 elections."

Mr. Rockefeller smiled, wished him happy birthday and handed him a pencil.

"I proceeded to draw myself a wicked district in Manhattan," Mr. Rangel wrote.

Mr. Rangel has since earned a reputation as one of the G.O.P's most outspoken opponents on Capitol Hill, but during his years in Albany, he developed what he described as a "special relationship" with the Republican governor. Though Mr. Rangel has always been a Democrat, in his early congressional campaigns, Mr. Rockefeller arranged for him to run on the Republican line too. In 1972, a billboard on Broadway proclaimed "Re-elect President Nixon and Congressman Charles Rangel--both Republican." Later on, he would make Nixon's enemies list.

The congressman held on to his tailormade congressional district for over forty years thanks to an Albany tradition, which dictated the dean of the delegation got their district drawn before the rest of the map was figured out. This year, Mr. Rangel's allies in Albany attempted to draw him another favorable district, but their plan fell through.

Kirstin Gillibrand (Photo: U.S. Senate)

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand launched an online book club today affiliated with her Off The Sidelines campaign to get women more involved in politics.

"Off The Sidelines is about bringing women's voices to the forefront. So we're starting a book club that focuses on the issues and stories that are important to us," Senator Gillibrand wrote in an email inviting supporters to join the club. Senator Gillibrand said the Off The Sidelines Online Book Club will feature "Facebook chats and live streams with authors and other panelists to discuss some of the best books of yesterday and today." Off The Sidelines was started by Senator Gillibrand over a period of several months last year. According to its website, the mission of Off The Sidelines is "to make more women aware of the need to be involved in the decisions that affect their lives every day."

Glen Caplin, Senator Gillibrand's spokesman, said the senator isn't announcing which authors and book will be involved yet, because she wants to gather input from supporters.

"We're not announcing the first book yet," Mr. Caplin said. "We wanted to hear what everyone thinks is interesting and what they want to see."

In the past, Off The Sidelines has been drawn criticism from good government groups because its website solicits contributions that go to Senator Gillibrand's re-election campaign, not to Off The Sidelines. A note on the site informs donors "Through Offthesidelines.org, Kirsten is working every day to ensure that women’s voices are heard. ... Stand with Kirsten today and join her re-election campaign by making a contribution below."

Senator Gillibrand's campaign has dismissed concerns about her fundraising through Off The Sidelines. In July, Mr. Caplin told the Buffalo News the Off The Sidelines site makes it painstakingly clear the money is going to Senator Gillibrand.

"The contribution page and the section seeking e-mail addresses are both very clear," Mr. Caplin said. "It is very transparent that it is Gillibrand for Senate."

Senator Marco Rubio (Getty)

Florida Senator Marco Rubio's life story might not be true, but it still landed him a book deal. Sentinel, a division of the Penguin Group, has purchased the rights to Senator Rubio's as-yet-untitled tale of his family's journey from Cuba to the United States. Back in October, Senator Rubio's migration saga was the subject of a Washington Post investigation that identified inconsistencies in his personal narrative.

According to Politico, Penguin purchased Senator Rubio's memoir after winning a weeklong bidding war against five other publishing houses. In a statement announcing the deal this morning, Sentinel President and Publisher Adrian Zackheim expressed high hopes for Senator Rubio's book.

"Marco Rubio is one of the brightest rising stars of the Republican Party and will likely be on the national stage for many years to come,” Mr. Zackheim said. “Of equal interest is the emotional story of his family’s journey to the U.S. from Cuba, their exile experience and how that shaped the Senator’s life. ... This will be a very personal memoir that proves that the American dream is still alive and well for those who work to pursue it.”

Prior to the Washington Post's investigation, Senator Rubio, who was elected in 2010, peppered speeches and campaign literature with the tale of his family fleeing Cuba to escape Fidel Castro's Communist revolution. Documents uncovered by the Post showed the Rubios left their home country years before Mr. Castro took power. In response to the Post investigation, Senator Rubio modified his story to say his family originally planned to return to Cuba, but changed their minds once it became "clear that Cuba was headed full speed toward Communism."

Since his election last year, Senator Rubio has been widely touted as a potential VP pick or future presidential nominee. Sentinel hopes to publish his memoirs next fall pending approval by the Senate Ethics Committee.