Looking out for Iraq veterans and their kin
Liddy's next move
It's not too early to start whispering about Sen. Elizabeth Dole 's moves to run for vice president, say friends. Allies claim she's got enough votes to win the chairmanship of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which could propel the North Carolina senator into a run for veep in 2008.
Rove's last stand
Take note, future GOP presidential wannabes: Karl Rove is leaving politics with President Bush in 2008. "This will be the last presidential campaign," he vows, "I'll ever do."
Evolve or die
Nothing says Washington like a big-time lobbyist, and few are bigger than Tommy Boggs. But just how good--and politically agile--we're only now learning, thanks to the new insider book The Washington Century. In his page turner, author Burt Solomon describes Washington through the eyes of three D.C. clans, but it's Boggs that caught our eye. He's the son of two Democratic House members and the pre-eminent partner of Patton Boggs. He helped bring Bill Clinton to town and advised him to stand fast when threatened by impeachment and Monica Lewinsky. But Solomon tells us he's not a Democratic patsy, having told Bubba to his face that his muddled politics were to blame for the 1994 GOP capture of the House. Boggs's firm has cozied up to the GOP, and now just about half of its lobbyists are Republican. "Evolve or die" is how Solomon sizes up the Boggs story.
'The Project'
One of the more interesting journalistic ventures is how Newsweek embeds reporters in presidential campaigns every four years to produce an insider account of how it all went down. They call it "the Project." But this year's try is under fire. Bush campaign officials say they gave little access and did so only after Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas "begged" for it. The result: "The story reads like a dime-store novel. It's fiction," says a Bushie. And Democrat James Carville tells us that despite Newsweek 's account, he didn't leak former President Bill Clinton 's hospital-bed phone call to Sen. John Kerry. "I can assure you I did not," Carville says. Mag spokesman Ken Weine says, "We stand behind the reporting, and we'll let readers decide how much access our team was able to gain."
One more memorial
Sen. John McCain, the former Hanoi Hilton POW, reveals that he wasn't a big fan of "the wall" when the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was built. "I thought it was too funereal and too dark," he says. But that changed when he witnessed two fellow Vietnam vets crying and embracing by the wall in a sign of reconciliation. And if it worked for Vietnam, why not Iraq? Says McCain: "Someday there will be a memorial to those who sacrificed in the Iraq war, on the Mall."
Ambassador of Rock
Andras Simonyi, Hungary's ambassador to Washington, is fast winning the reputation as the "Rock-and-Roll Envoy." A guitarist who believes the power of rock helped bring down the Iron Curtain, Simonyi this week plans to shake up Embassy Row with his own concert and gabfest featuring a guest appearance by 1970s punk rocker and native Hungarian Tommy Ramone. Simonyi plans to strap on his guitar to play three Ramones tunes with Chuck Young of Rolling Stone on bass and Alexander Vershbow , the U.S. ambassador to Russia, on drums.
usnews.com To subscribe to Washington Whispers E-mail newsletter: www.usnews.com/whispers
With Ulrich Boser, Angie Cannon and Thomas Omestad
advertisement
