Cheney's Color Choice

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Stoned in Turkey

A female Turkish reporter was stoned for what fundamentalists considered "sexually provocative" behavior while covering a protest of those controversial cartoons of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad... but she is the one who could now face three years in jail for disturbing the peace.

Aliye Cetinkaya was struck in the head with stones and shoes after a group of protesters took offense to her lack of a traditional head-scarf and shouted at her to come down from her vantage point because her way of sitting was "inappropriate" while the Koran was being read.

The reporter was rescued by her colleagues and two men were charged with stoning. But an Islamist group has since filed charges accusing her of disturbing the demonstration — an offense that carries up to three years in prison.

Pastry Police

Iran's confectioner's union has ordered bakeries to change the name of the popular breakfast pastry we all simply call "Danish." The union told bakers they must now refer to the pastry as, "Roses of the Prophet Muhammad." That is supposedly further retaliation over the cartoons of Muhammad, which were first published in a Danish paper.

Iran has already cut commercial ties with Denmark and one bakery owner says the new name is further "punishment for those who started misusing freedom of expression to insult the sanctities of Islam."

Not all Iranians are that worked up about it though. One customer told a shopkeeper, "I just want the sweet pastries."

Cheney's Color Choice

Washington Post fashion critic Robin Givhan says the pink tie worn by the vice president during his FOX News interview was not a sign of his "vulnerability and warmth," but rather, "a mocking nod to the culture's... often absurd — path to forgiveness."

Givhan writes that the tie "registered in the manner of pigtails on a gangsta rapper," saying, "the look is full of macho swagger."

Comparing Cheney's tie to the pink suit worn by then-first-lady Hillary Clinton at a Whitewater press conference in 1994, Givhan notes that, "For Clinton, a pink suit worked like a shield. For Cheney, a pink tie was a weapon."

She concludes that Cheney appropriated the costume of contrition and, "he came out ahead."

— FOX News' Dominique Pastre contributed to this report