1) The Rules of Washington: #513: "Never throw your former fellow Congressional Intern under the bus." Uber Congressional election expert Charlie Cook, on just-convicted former Louisiana Cong. William Jefferson, whom Cook served alongside as a Congressional intern back in the 1970s: "It's a case of 'Here's a guy who grew up very poor, he wanted to be in Congress and politics, but he just made a decision that he wasn't going to be poor again.' It just broke my heart." Hey, more to the point, did you ever see what he kept in his "lunch bag" in the office refrigerator?
2) Can you take this and put it in a box and sell it? Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D., Mont.), on the need for reforming the health care system: "We have to work together to find out a better solution, which is still a uniquely American solution, which is public and private. We're not, you know, Great Britain. We're not Canada. We're not Netherlands. We're America."
3) The Rupert Pupkin of American Politics: Even after President Obama called Cambridge, Massachusetts, police St. Jim Crowly to apologize for saying the police had acted "stupidly" in arresting Harvard Prof. Henry Gates, GOP Cong. Thad McCotter was still pushing legislation he introduced to demand that the President apologize. Just 48 hours prior to the White House "Beer Summit," McCotter's bill had been co-signed by only three other of his fellow House Republicans. "Hey MAAAA!!!! I'm votin' here!!!!!"
4) Political buried treasures: The best thing about Time's recent cover story about the last days of the Bush-Cheney relationship (besides giving us a glimpse of a confoundingly politically astute president (how did he hide that?)) was the anonymous quote about old Washington hand Fred Fielding: "Freddy isn't afraid of anyone. He will slit your throat with a razor blade while he is yawning."
5) A rip in the political fabric: Looking disturbingly too much like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's spokesman Tony Blankley, Joe Piscopo appeared on FOX's "Hannity" show to offer his take on the issues of the day, particularly health care reform. What's next, Chuck Norris on the "birther" issue? Of wait,.....yeah......never mind......
6) Hey Joe! Distract them with that thing you do.... After Vice President Joe Biden's recent comments about Russia being a weak nation were downplayed by the Obama Administration, the NYT ran a piece just chock full of Russian realpolitik. Alexei Pushkov, anchor of a popular current events program on Moscow television said, "Biden has said this in such a way that the whole world heard it. And then there are secret, furtive calls in the night, dragging Russian officials from their supper. They want to say this is not true. But somehow everybody still thinks it is." And this from Andrei Ryabov, political analyst at Moscow's Carnegie Center: "Nothing accidental can happen in this system. Everything has a hidden meaning."
7) And you should see the looks he gives them..... Embattled Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd (D) recently sent out a fundraising solicitation seeking support for next year's reelection fight. Seeking to position the Chair of the Senate Banking Committee as no friend of Wall Street, the solicitation claims, "The lobbyists can't get meetings with Chris. He won't return their phone calls. He even yells at them during hearings."
8) GOP Vision Quest, take 34: Two GOP Senators recently offered their own views on "what's wrong" with the Grand Old Party. First, the much-quoted Columbus Dispatch interview with Ohio Sen. George Voinovich, in which he offered: 'We got too many Jim DeMints and Tom Coburns. It's the Southerners. They get on TV and go 'errrr, errrr.' People hear them and say, 'These people, they're Southerners. The party's being taken over by Southerners. What the hell they got to do with Ohio?" And then there's South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, on the majority of GOP Senators opposing the Sotomayor nomination for the Supreme Court: "You're seeing what I'm afraid is going to be the future. It's Mideast politics and Mideast politics, when it comes to judging, will not serve the judiciary well in the long run."
9) When debating public policy, always head for the bottom line: Political analyst Mark Shields, on Inside Washington (7/31/09), in response to talk that a new federal health care insurance program might mean organ rationing: "That's why we need the matchmaker in New Jersey who can get the kidney for you."
10) Things that should make us all feel better about our messy Democracy thingy: Former Liberian President Charles Taylor, on trial in The Hague for war crimes, denied the accusations of a witness who testified that he ate human flesh alongside Taylor at a meeting of his secret society, Poro. Said Taylor, "It never happened. I never ordered any combatant to eat anyone." At the same time, we can never forget one of the most chilling candidate endorsements ever recorded, that being a Liberian voter who supported Taylor in the 1997 election that put him in the presidency: "He killed my mother, and he killed my father, and I don't care - I love Charles Taylor." (NY Post 7-22-97)
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