3/21/02 Boy Scouts, guns, and Ollie North
It doesn't get any more politically incorrect than this. Mix the Boy Scouts of America, shotguns, and Ollie North together, and what do you get? An April 20 fundraiser for the National Capital Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. "This a twofer for political incorrectness. You've got guns and the Boy Scouts. What else could you ask for?" says organizer Jed Babbin. Is he begging for a controversy? Says Babbin: "This is just good, clean fun and serves a great cause." Here's the dope. To help the Scouts, Washington-area lawyers and corporate supporters are hosting a sporting clay competition at the Prince George's County Trap and Skeet Center. It's emceed by radio talk show host Oliver North and sponsored by Outback Steakhouse, Boeing, and Airbus. Anyone can show up for the breakfast, shoot, and lunch, by forking over $250.
3/20/02 Now she tells us
Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who once rejected charges that her 2000 decision that George W. Bush did beat Al Gore was politically motivated, is now using the controversy to raise money for her congressional race. "Because I followed the law, I am the target of unrelenting partisan attacks. That is why I need your help today," she writes donors. But, please, she's not opportunist. Says her literature: "We are a nation no longer willing to tolerate those political leaders who say one thing, then do another."
3/14/02 A political web of money losers
Though there's plenty of speculation about Democratic pols planning to run for president, no one's officially declared his candidacy. So how come Internet domain names for 2004 wannabes–say, feingold2004.com, bayh2004.com, and dean2004.com–have already been purchased? Credit speculators like Pete Lucas, a New Jersey M.B.A. who has registered at least 15 domain names tied to would-be 2004 campaigns for both the Senate and the White House. It's an investment: Purchase a domain for $35 that someone may pay much more for someday. Lucas claims he has been contacted by reps for only one 2004 hopeful–he won't say who–but hasn't sold a thing. "So far, this has been a big money loser," he tells our Michael Schaffer.
3/13/02 Blood libel, hot off the press
Counterterrorism and Mideast policy folks are E-mailing around an outrageous story from this week's Al-Riyadh, a Saudi daily, translated by the Washington, D.C.-based Middle East Media Research Institute. Titled "Special Ingredient for Jewish Holidays Is Human Blood From Non-Jewish Youth," the article is purportedly written by columnist Umayma Ahmad Al-Jalahma of King Faisal University. The story "reveals" how Jews slowly drain blood from victims' bodies to use in pastries for their spring festival, Purim. Antisemitic literature in the Arab world is nothing new, but what's intriguing about this story, say U.S. analysts, is its origin: Al-Riyadh is a government daily, and the author is a professor at a prominent university. "This is a repetition of the ancient 'blood libel' which has been circulated against the Jews for at least a thousand years," E-mailed an ex-military attache with long Mideast service. "It's so outrageous that your first inclination is to think it's a psywar [psychological warfare] operation," counterterrorism expert Larry Johnson tells our David E. Kaplan. "But, if true, it's further proof that Saudi Arabia is part of the problem, not the solution."
3/7/02 Dear Erskine: Shut up!
What a coup! If ads are to be believed, North Carolina Democratic Senate candidate Erskine Bowles appears to have the backing of Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott. Well, no surprise, he doesn’t. But the ad, described by the Raleigh News & Observer, does show the two, and that, Lott fears, could lead some to think he’s endorsing Bowles, not his fave, Elizabeth Dole. In a letter sent Thursday to Bowles, Lott orders a cease and desist:
“It has come to my attention through the media that you are using footage of me in your television campaign ads. The use of my likeness in your ads could leave the impression with voters that I am backing your candidacy. I respectfully request that you pull this television ad and cease any further use of my image or name in your campaign.
“We had to work together when you were chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, but obviously my candidate to be the next senator of North Carolina is Elizabeth Dole, who has my enthusiastic support.”
3/5/02 Wash. Post scoop stirs it up
That Washington Post scoop about President Bush setting up a "shadow government" to handle things in the event of a major attack on Washington has media tongues wagging. It all started last week when the paper broke the story and bragged about it on TV and radio. U.S. News editors realized it was a very long version of a very short Whisper published in October, and we said so on this siteThe Cleveland Plain Dealer then told us they, too, had the news earlier, and we put their story on our Web site. The shoving match then made a popular media site, Jim Romenesko's Media News.
Now, like a good local story, it's being fought in the letters section of Romenesko's Web site. Post reporter Barton Gellman complains about the "snarky" tone Washington Whispers took in poking at his scoop. "I confess," he writes, "I did not notice Paul Bedard's three-sentence 'Whisper' in US News about the bunkering government managers. Not sure I buy his snarky tone." Gosh, we're so sorry.
Sabrina Eaton, who wrote about the administration's contingency plans for the Plain Dealer, reacted with a tough review of the Post's reporting. "The Post's 'first' boast is especially puzzling since Mr. Gellman's March 1 letter demonstrates folks at the Post were aware of prior reporting in the Plain Dealer, as well as in U.S. News & World Report, before their subsequent stories went to press." She adds: "Why did it take them nearly six months to notice sustained absences of anyone in Washington besides Dick Cheney? Are they that disengaged from the communities they live in and the people they cover?" Ouch.
Finally: The Federation of American Scientists has weighed in, suggesting that details of the "shadow government" have been known for years in public documents. But, they note the Washington phenomenon that unless a story's in the Post or New York Times, it doesn't exist. "If a tree falls in the forest, and it is not reported in the Washington Post or the New York Times, it evidently doesn't make a sound."
3/1/02 About that Wash. Post scoop
If any of you found something familiar about the Washington Post's "scoop" Friday on how the administration has set up a "shadow government" outside the city to take over should D.C. get nuked, you were right. Whispers fans saw the news in October of last year. Better yet, it was short and sweet: Bunkered in
Lost in the news that the vice president was spending nights in a government hide-out is the fact that execs with some 24 federal agencies are still there. It's all part of something called "Continuity of Operations." The thinking: Should Washington be hit with a blizzard–or even nuked–there'd be somebody left to run the government. The scary part: The agencies have been told to stay in the bunkers indefinitely. [Published Oct. 29 for the edition dated Nov. 5.]
3/1/02 Dole: Onto Kabul
Two former powerhouse senators, Bob Dole and George Mitchell, both former majority leaders now affiliated with a Washington law firm, have agreed to act as pro bono lobbyists for the interim government in Afghanistan. Dole and Otilie English, a Washington-based lobbyist for the government, plan to meet in Kabul in a few weeks with the government's top leader, Hamid Karzai, and Abdullah Abdullah, the foreign minister. English says Dole, a Republican, and Mitchell, a Democrat, will be lobbying in Washington "for aid and peacekeepers, two things we desperately need." The former senators will not be charging the Karzai government. English told U.S. News that Dole recently informed Rep. Henry Hyde, an Illinois Republican and chairman of the Committee on International Relations, of his decision to provide advice to the government. She says an announcement is scheduled Monday.
