4/29/03
Sweeps week for Syria
Coming soon to your television screens: Syrian President Bashar Assad. The leader of what the White House has dubbed a "rogue" state for its alleged pursuit of chemical weapons and support for terrorism and ex-Iraqi prez Saddam Hussein, will debut in interviews on American TV, newspapers, and magazines shortly after Secretary of State Colin Powell visits Damascus in May. Syrian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Bouthaina Shaaban says Americans "will really be surprised. They will find him engaging, humble, and intelligent." The media blitz will show that the 38-year-old leader, who is a medical doctor is "very open, and open to the West," she tells our Thomas Omestad.

4/23/03
Santorum not likely to step down
Despite the outrage expressed by gay groups and liberal Democrats, Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the No. 3 Republican leader in the chamber, is not likely to step down or even lose his powerful post for making statements that appeared to liken homosexuality to incest, bigamy, and polygamy. "He'll weather this," says a senior Senate GOP source. Gay activists and supporters find Santorum's remarks to the Associated Press on a par with former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's recent controversial comments, read to be supportive of racial segregation. Lott fumbled in the aftermath and lost his position. But Republican lawmakers say Santorum will survive for two reasons. Unlike Lott, he isn't the top Senate GOP leader and is unknown to most Americans. Second, while the administration supported Lott's resignation because the controversy appeared to spoil the White House outreach to African-Americans, the White House isn't trying to woo gays.

http://www.hrc.org/
See what the nation's largest gay lobby has to say about the issue.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15994-2003Apr22.html
Read the senator's unedited remarks.

http://santorum.senate.gov/pressreleases/record.cfm?id=203106
Santorum's statement that the AP story was misleading

4/10/03
Ridge to team with Red Cross
Tom Ridge, secretary of Homeland Security, is expected to join the governing board of the American Red Cross in a sign of coordination between the two agencies. Red Cross officials say the announcement could come at any minute. He's to replace Joe Albaugh, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. A Red Cross source says having Ridge on the board makes sense because the two agencies have jobs that overlap. The board of governors are appointed by President Bush. Others include Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

See the other federal officials on the Red Cross leadership team at: http://www.redcross.org/pubs/car02/02ldrship.pdf

4/10/03
Master's moment: Bubba's cheating
Former President Clinton's cheating style of golf is back in the news, thanks to a Sports Illustrated story about how the fun-loving hack likes to play by his own rules. In fact, SI calls Clinton's vast expansion of using occasional "mulligan" freebie shot "Billigans." But we never learn just how many shots over his score Clinton took. Enter Robert Patterson, Clinton's former military aide. Patterson reveals in his new book Dereliction of Duty that he and Clinton's presidential doctor kept score during an August 1997 game in Martha's Vineyard, where the first family vacationed. Both scribbled Clinton's actual score on the top of a box lunch carton. In the end, they totaled his score at 92. What did Clinton claim to the press?: 79.

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