Poking around Google a few weeks back to see how various television reporters were playing the healthcare debate, I searched for "Candy Crowley."
Back came the expected raft of citations: government stories, pieces from Election 2008, a link to Crowley's award-studded bio. There was a mention of her elegant obituary of Ted Kennedy.
And this: "Candy Crowley Has Lost A Lot Of Weight."
The blogosphere has been awash for months, I discovered, in other incisive speculation about CNN's senior political correspondent: She must have had a face-lift. No, it had to be gastric bypass. One genius wanted to know if she would change her name to Salad Crowley.
Now we know. A career of sophisticated political observation, graceful writing and determined fairness earns you this: speculation about your metabolism and guesses about your turns under the surgeon's knife. Such is the wonder of our ever-freer public discourse.
Yet even we who admire Crowley couldn't help but notice the change. In the aftermath of a brutal two-year presidential campaign siege, one of the top political reporters on television looks slimmer, healthier, even a little more serene.
When I first contacted her, Crowley wasn't at all sure she wanted to talk about this. I couldn't blame her for worrying that all the hoo-ha might distract from what she does best.
With a slight chuckle, she said: "It's stunning to me that something I consider so separate and apart from what I do for a living has taken up so much space in some people's thoughts. I am a hard-news journalist. That is what I do."
But a few days after I first made contact, the veteran of eight presidential campaigns agreed it might be worth talking, a little, about her new incarnation. She wanted to thank the many fans who have been e-mailing to express their admiration. And she wanted to knock down a few myths.
So here it is, straight up and on the record: There has been no Lap-Band. No gastric bypass. No surgery at all. Rather, Crowley said, she has been dieting, swimming and working out, sometimes with a trainer, since last December.
And, in a change she thinks has made the biggest difference, she has taken up Transcendental Meditation. A couple of times a day, Crowley escapes her break-neck schedule to settle into what the TM website describes as a "natural state of restful alertness."
"I feel great physically. I feel really good," the newswoman told me Tuesday. "I'm lighter now in a lot of ways."
