3/27/03
Another Watts role: Pushing AIDS help
Will somebody tell former Rep. J.C. Watts that retirement from Congress normally means Washington sees less of you? While he quit to spend more time in Oklahoma with his family, he’s taken on several prominent Washington roles and is popping up in press releases every week. The latest: He’s cochairing a new group to lobby Congress on behalf of President Bush’s request for $15 billion in emergency AIDS relief for Africa. It’s called the Coalition for AIDS Relief in Africa and is affiliated with the Corporate Council on Africa, funded by several major companies. Watts, the former No. 4 House Republican and the highest-ranking African-American in the party, also runs the J.C. Watts companies, was just named chairman of GOPAC, the Republican political action committee that funds state and local party candidates, and is teamed with pollster Frank Luntz. See the latest Watts announcement here.

http://www.africacncl.org/About_CCA/index.asp
The corporate council on Africa

http://www.gopac.org/
Watts and GOPAC

3/26/03
Care packages from Hill pages
Senate pages, the 30 teens that spend their days running notes and envelopes between Senate offices, have joined the war effort. Emily Reynolds, secretary of the Senate, says three classes in the Senate Page School are making “care packages” for troops involved in the war, including little gifts and hopeful notes. Reynolds says of the kids, who earn $16,240 a year: “They’re public servants as well.” House and Senate pages go to school very early in the morning so that they can go to work by 10 a.m. or so.

Read up about pages at:
http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/98-758.pdf

Page alumni association
http://www.congressionalpage.org/

3/25/03
General's orders: Be the hunter
Maybe one of the best things about the U.S. Marines is that they don't pussyfoot around. Even when it comes to pep talks. Take the "Message to All Hands" from Maj. Gen. James N. Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Division. He doesn't need a 30-minute speech or long letter to convey his thoughts. Five paragraphs do it. "Demonstrate," he says, that "There is `No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy' than a U.S. Marine." While the letter, sent out before the war began, was referred to in a few newspaper editorials, we've got the whole thing in living color. You can see it here.

View the entire letter.

The White House has announced that Nichols, a long-time Washington PR exec, will be nominated as assistant secretary of the treasury for public affairs. He is expected to receive easy Senate confirmation.

Insiders say Robert Stanley Nichols was promoted because the White House likes him and doesn't blame him or other press officials for O'Neill's missteps and because he has won Snow's trust. In his first month in office, Snow has met with the media and congressional lawmakers for Q&A sessions more than O'Neill did in virtually two years, and Nichols has been at everyone.

Nichols has a long Washington résumé: He graduated from George Washington University and worked for the Electronic Industries Alliance, Sen. Slade Gorton, Rep. Jennifer Dunn, and for former President Bush as an aide to the White House chief of staff and the transportation secretary.

http://www.treasury.gov/index.html
See the Treasury site

3/11/03
Word's out: Protest at Hillary's tonight
Conservative protesters are rounding up the troops to heckle New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and her Senator guests at a fundraiser in her Northwest Washington home Tuesday night. "It ought to be fun," says protest organizer Kathy Wood, who'll be holding her trademark sign, "Corrupt Democrats Turn Here!"

Wood, of the Washington chapter of the conservative Free Republic, says the focus of the 5:30 p.m.-8 p.m. protest is to encourage Senate Democrats attending the fundraiser to approve the judicial nomination of Hispanic Republican Miguel Estrada.

What's interesting about this protest–complete with signs and flashlights–is how polite the Republicans plan to be. Instead of jeering the senators and high-dollar donors as they get out of their car at the Clinton residence, they plan to stay a block away at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Whitehaven Street, just below the British Embassy and veep's house. Says a notice to protesters: "Out of respect for her neighbors, we will not protest directly in front of her house. Instead, we'll be on the corner turnoff where all of the guests have to turn in."

But there's another reason for pushing the protest to near the busy intersection, adds Woods. "If we go up too far," she says, "nobody will see us."

Free Republic is one of those groups obsessed with the Clinton era. They've even written a cookbook titled "The Clinton Legacy Cookbook." See EBAY's link here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1979763521

3/6/03
McChicken, Kuwait style
American culture may be under attack around the world these days, but that's not stopping some big U.S. companies from trying to fit in. Consider the sandwich being hawked by McDonald's these days in Kuwait: the McArabia. Grilled chicken with lettuce and tomato on Arabic flatbread. We hear from our war team–Mark Mazzetti, Kit R. Roane, and Julian E. Barnes–that they're selling like, well, McDonald's hot cakes.

3/6/03
French-fried cellphones
As it takes reporters under its wing for an upcoming war, the military has made an odd request: It wants the "terminal ID" numbers of every embedded reporter's satellite phone. It didn't tell the U.S. News war team why, but scribes in Kuwait are drawing two possible conclusions from the request. Either the military plans to jam all media communications during the opening hours of a war to keep them from filing, or it is collecting the numbers so the Pentagon knows which systems not to touch as it fries every other communication device in Iraq.

3/5/03
The duct tape economy
Homeland Secretary Tom Ridge seems to be the only Bushie having a positive impact on the economy. We learn this from the Federal Reserve, which Wednesday issued its latest "Beige Book" of anecdotal info on the economy. Right there in the third paragraph, under the headline "Consumer Spending and Tourism," the Fed says: "Terrorism fears boosted the sales of duct tape, plastic, and other hardware goods in some regions."

Sales of the items Ridge encouraged every American to buy to thwart the effects of a chemical attack jumped in Boston and Richmond. The report said that the manager of a Richmond building supply store "told us even though customer traffic was lower because of the recent storm, his store experienced a run on duct tape and other items recommended for use in the event of domestic terrorism."

Read the Beige Book here: http://www.federalreserve.gov/FOMC/BeigeBook/2003/
20030305/FullReport.htm

3/4/03
We're ready, with or without Turkey
Once President Bush gives the green light for U.S. military action in Iraq, American forces will invade through the north "with or without" Turkey's permission to cross the border, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs said today. "There will be a Northern option with or without Turkey," said Gen. Richard Myers. "Obviously, it will be tougher without Turkey, but nevertheless it will happen."

In a roundtable meeting with reporters, Myers didn't sound worried about lacking Turkey's support. In fact, he sounded confident that the government would reverse its ban on letting U.S. troops stage an attack from Turkey. "We're patient on that, I guess."

Speaking in between bites of scrambled eggs, bacon, and a toasted bagel, he also warned journalists and the nation not to view any war in Iraq as a copy of the 1991 Gulf War. Instead of first a long air war followed by a ground war, he suggested the attacks would come all at once, with ground troops guiding bombers to their targets, as in Afghanistan. "What you'd like to do is have it be a short, short war."

He also said that capturing or killing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is not a goal. But that doesn't mean U.S. forces would let Saddam stay in power. Victory, he said, would come only when Saddam and his gang are out of power, and that could include everything from exile to death.

Meet Gen. Richard Myers: http://www.dtic.mil/jcs/

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