View the entire letter.

12/20/02
Alec Baldwin's twin towers
While New York is focused this week on several plans to memorialize the September 11 attacks on the twin towers, we've got new details on an alternative plan pushed by actor-activist Alec Baldwin, who wants to put a new Yankee Stadium on ground zero. His plans include a stadium, offices, retail stores, restaurants, and a museum. He explains in a release provided to Whispers that the museum would be "dedicated to ensuring that all visitors are treated to the fullest and most accurate picture of what happened on September 11th."

Read it all here.

12/3/02
GOP pours it on in Louisiana
While the polls are mixed on the chances Republican challenger Suzie Terrell has of defeating Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu in Saturday's runoff, the White House tells Whispers that victory is theirs if the candidate doesn't screw up and if there's enough money for last-minute advertising. Which is why the GOP is sending out an all-points-bulletin to regular donors that begs for hurried contributions.

Click here to read Allen's letter.

10/29/02
Broke, and ready to puke
It might just be fundraising-letter hype, but the treasurer of the Democratic National Committee, Andrew Tobias, is warning donors that his party is broke as it readies a last-ditch effort to elect Democrats in the midterm elections. "The DNC is all but out of funds," he pens. Clinton ally James Carville, in his own fundraising letter to Democrats, says that's enough to make him sick. Who knows if their pitch will work, but it sure sounds like an emergency. Read the letters here:
• Andrew Tobias
• James Carville

10/14/02
First and goal for House Dems
Pollsters love sports metaphors, so with the midterm congressional Super Bowl three weeks away, it was a no-brainer for Republican Tony Fabrizio to use football to size up his team's field position. But the home team rout he found in his third-quarter poll is history; Democrats are rallying. The latest Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates Inc. poll of the 40 closest House races finds the Democrats with Big Mo.
• View the complete poll results

8/7/02
Lott says put up or shut up
Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott is eager for Republican candidates to step up their attacks on Democrats who whine about the economy but offer no solutions. Aides say that the message is targeted to GOP campaigners, especially those in debates where it's expected that the Democratic challenger will hit President Bush's handling of the economy. In general, the advice is this: Ask the challenger his idea for bolstering the economy and ask if he supports the Democratic bid to repeal the Bush tax cut.
• Read the Lott memo to Republicans

8/1/02
Flack swapping for the Clintons
The former White House scandal spokesman extraordinaire, Jim Kennedy, most recently Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's flack, is going back to work for the big guy, Bill Clinton. Starting Monday, he'll be in Clinton's Harlem office speaking for the ex-prez. He replaces spokeswoman Julia Payne, who's taking some time off to hit the North Carolina beaches and consider other political jobs. She has been wooed by several campaigns such as the Jimmie Lou Fisher gubernatorial organization in Clinton's native Arkansas. Kennedy's shift–made official on Thursday–returns him closer to his native Connecticut, where he once served as Sen. Joe Lieberman's spokesman.
• Read the Clinton statement on Kennedy and Payne here.

7/9/02
Activists hit Clinton PR offensive
It was really just the beginning of the crisis. But when Bill Clinton ran for office in 1992, he knew a good issue when he saw it so he seized on AIDS. He gave lots of promises, many of which he fulfilled. But it's the big ones he didn't handle right that will dog him as he tries to claim AIDS as his post-presidential issue. ACT UP, the Aids Coalition To Unleash Power, is calling on participants at the world AIDS conference in Barcelona, Spain, to boycott the former president's address.
• Read a memo to participants from Wayne Turner of the influential active Washington, D.C., chapter.

6/21/02
Clinton's secret to attacking Bush
Making the rounds at Democratic fundraisers, former President Clinton has begun to articulate a way for the loyal opposition to attack the popular President Bush in the fall elections. It boils down to this: Terrorists win if they shake up Washington so much that the administration diverts money needed for critical domestic programs to the war. And, guess what? Clinton said that Bush was doing just that. Clinton laid out his battle plan this week at a Senate Democratic fundraiser hosted by powerhouse Washington lawyer Weldon Latham.
• Click here to see who attended the private fundraiser.

6/19/02
Shocking: Uncle Walt was a liberal
When you get a letter with Walter Cronkite's picture on it above a quote screaming, "For years I kept my opinions to myself, but now I must speak out," you open it. We did, only to find out he was lending his name to liberals who just hate Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan, and Jerry Falwell. "I will not remain silent while these political operatives manipulate religion to condemn those who oppose their narrow view," he says in the letter endorsing the Washington-based Interfaith Alliance, a lobbying group promoting diversity and tolerance.
• See the envelope and fundraising letter here.

6/6/02
We're shocked! Pork in Congress?
The E-mail sent to reporters all around Washington opens: "Here's a shocker!" Of course it's not. Instead it details the grim reality of congressional pork, and the billions added to the legislation slated to fund the antiterror war. What is shocking is the unusual campaign to cut the pork, led by congressional staffers, White House officials, and outside groups like Citizens Against Government Waste. Their campaign includes help from Sen. John McCain, the Republican maverick known for fighting defense pork.

• See the pork E-mail here.
• Read Sen. McCain's letter: Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4

5/30/02
Bush 'Crusading' for votes
If congressional fans of the terminated Army Crusader artillery program feel they'll get the $11 billion program back on the drawing board, they'd better think again, because President Bush and the White House are readying a campaign to crush them. First, they have to overcome the expected Bush argument that the Pentagon shouldn't be wasting money on outdated weapons. Then, they have to fight among themselves now that the president has decided to spend the Crusader money on nine other weapon systems. "The beauty of that move," says a Bush official, "is that now the money is in dozens of cities." Specifically, it's to be spread around some 24 cities in 13 states. See the list of weapons and impacted areas here.

5/22/02
Scare-tactic smoking gun
Republican congressional leaders are warning Democrats that they plan to rat out political lies and attacks in the upcoming midterm elections. "This is not the good old says where you throw this all up and see what sticks," says Rep. Tom Davis, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. "If they yell and hit us below the belt, we'll hit them in the eye." For evidence, Davis on Wednesday released the copy of a Democratic E-mail revealed here Tuesday in which a staffer for Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur boasts of wrongly hyping an attack on President Bush's Social Security reform plan. The topic is a draft editorial on the Bush program about which legislative aide Julie Little writes, "not entirely accurate." How did the Republicans get the March 26 E-mail? Davis says it was accidentally sent to a GOP staffer with the same last name as one of the Democratic staffers.

• Read the E-mail.

See what the Republicans say:
• National Republican Congressional Committee news bulletin
• NRCC supplemental memo

5/2/02
Lessons on selling prescription drugs
Class, today we get a lesson on just how the political sausage is made in Washington, D.C. Our teacher is GOP pollster and language tester Frank Luntz, who has just wrapped up work on his latest poll, this one on how to sell the Republican prescription drug plan. The bottom line in the memo he's sending around is DO SOMETHING. If Republicans sit around and gripe about the Democratic plan, he adds, the GOP and not Democrats will be blamed in the fall elections.

Read his memo here:
• Page 1    • Page 2    • Page 3    • Page 4

4/12/02
Christian right teams with Jews
It's not just American Jews who are pushing the Bush administration to stifle calls for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to yank his troops from Palestinian territories. Oddly enough, Christian-right leaders are doing it too, led by the Rev. Jerry Falwell and 2000 GOP presidential candidate Gary Bauer. Earlier today, says Bauer, the group of evangelicals dispatched a letter to President Bush asking that he mute his criticism of Tel Aviv and quiet Secretary of State Colin Powell's urgings to withdraw.

See the letter here:
• Page 1
• Page 2

4/3/02
New York's Governor 9/11
Officially, of course, nobody's trying to profit politically off September 11. But that's how some are looking at New York Gov. George Pataki's American flag-decorated re-election fundraising letter to GOP-ers. Three times he directly cites the date, noting repeatedly that the Big Apple is recovering nicely, presumably with Albany's support.
• Click here to read his fundraising letter.

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.
• Click here to see the brochure.

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."
• Click here to see her handwritten letter.

2/26/02
In with the old
Vice President Dick Cheney and Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels are getting Webby. Daniels is set to release his report on which federal agencies–and there aren’t many–are Web savvy. He’ll also detail new E-government initiatives to get Washington into the Internet economy. In fact, check out Daniels's letter to us about his report card on federal agencies, graded with a red, green, and yellow light. Only one agency, the National Science Foundation, got the green.
• Read Daniels's letter and find out who made the grade.

12/11/01
Another round in Microsoft fight
The whining between Microsoft Corp. and its foes in the ongoing monopoly case has gotten so bad that now they're even bickering over who's complaining most. Just one example: Last week, former Netscape Communications CEO James Barksdale wrote in the Washington Post that the new Microsoft settlement set to be discussed before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week is a loser for consumers. Making sure that no charge goes unanswered, Americans for Technology Leadership, a group that likes the Justice-Microsoft settlement, has provided Whispers a counterstrike. In a letter to Barksdale, ATL Executive Director James Prendergast writes, "We wanted to send you an appropriate present to go along with the whining you continue to do about Microsoft." The gift? You guessed it. "Arriving shortly will be a case of real California wine. I hope you enjoy my case of wine more than consumers enjoy your case of whine."
• See his letter here.

12/5/01
Lawsuit related to the Bill Clinton presidential library and museum
So much for a smooth ground breaking in Little Rock at the Bill Clinton presidential library and museum. In addition to disgruntled union workers, there’s the lawsuit from a group angry with the Clinton team’s elimination of the old Choctaw Terminal on the grounds of the new presidential facility. Historic preservationists wanted to keep the terminal, which was abruptly destroyed last month, reports our Suzi Parker. The Clinton team says it doesn’t fit in.
• Read that lawsuit here.

12/4/01
A female Right Stuffer takes on the Pentagon
All this White House hoopla over liberating Afghan women from their confining burkas is drawing new attention to a controversial military policy: Female troops in Saudi Arabia have to wear a similar get-up when off base. What's more: The rules require female troops to ride in the back seat, second-class style. Air Force Lt. Col. Martha McSally has had it with the double standard and plans to sue Pentagon boss Donald Rumsfeld for sex and religious discrimination.
• Read the lawsuit filed on behalf of Lt. Col. McSally.

11/27/01
White House lists Taliban atrocities
As it enters its second month in operation, the White House anti-terror war room is stepping up its focus on how the Taliban treats women and Afghan citizens. In the latest report, shown here, the White House lists several Taliban atrocities against its people. The report is meant to counter Taliban wishes that it's time to stop the war on followers of Osama bin Laden.
• Read the complete report.

11/20/01
President Clinton trading cards
President Clinton's boyhood home of Hot Springs has roped him again to handle some PR for the fun town. His latest effort is a follow-up to the August distribution of three trading cards featuring Clinton. This time the trading cards feature the ex-prez and his beloved University of Arkansas Razorbacks basketball team.
• See the trading card here.

10/17/01
Postal operations fact sheet
Hours after the nationwide anthrax scare hit Congress Monday, the Capitol branch of the U.S. Post Office issued new handling procedures with a footnote on how to identify suspicious packages. It's a question practically everyone is asking. We thought if the tips are good enough for Congress, they're good enough for the rest of us, so we're posting them here.

10/10/01
War protests: Your tax dollars at work?
Labor unions and independent groups aligned with the antiwar effort sparked by President Bush's retaliation campaign against Osama bin Laden will come under attack this week in the House as lawmakers seek to cut off their federal grants. A new analysis of federal grants to groups involved in the antiwar effort identifies union locals from the United Auto Workers, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and the Service Employees International Union. The Heritage Foundation analysis from census documents [see them here] also found grants to independent groups that have blasted Bush's war.

9/27/01
Bush phones up a coalition
As he builds an anti-terror coalition, President Bush has so far buzzed or met with dozens of world leaders. Virtually all have promised to help. Whispers has the copy of who Bush has called since September 11. See it here:
• Foreign phone calls since September 11
• Foreign meetings since September 11

9/21/01
Gays mourn the loss of their own
Gay Americans, stung by the deaths of their brethren killed in the September 11 terror attacks, say they feel less safe from hate crimes now than before. In an E-mail to associates, Elizabeth Birch, executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, identifies the gays killed in the tragedies, including New York Fire Chaplain Mychal Judge, an American copilot, and one of the passengers on the hijacked jet that crashed in Pennsylvania. [Click here to read]

9/7/01
Ben Stein's ad for New Jersey gubernatorial candidate
Funnyman and GOP activist Ben Stein is joining New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Bret Schundler's campaign this week, appearing in ads slamming foe Jim McGreevey as a tax-hungry politician. The ad, provided to Whispers, was done for the Club for Growth, which donates to candidates who favor Reaganomics, especially lower taxes and a smaller government.
• Click here for the text of the ad.

8/13/01
Bush's lure isn't the paycheck
There must be some kind of high to working for the first family, because it sure ain't the money. White House salary figures obtained by Washington Whispers show that for most posts–except the very top–annual pay is equal to or less than former President Clinton's rate of three years ago. In fact, President Bush's $23 million payroll is $84,000 less annually than Clinton's in June 1998, although he's employing about the same number of staffers. Office heads paid more by Clinton than Bush: personal secretary, communications, political affairs, and even some on the first lady's staff, including Laura Bush's press secretary and chief of staff. Lowest paid: $25,000 for mail openers. New to Bush: six ethics advisers making an average of $84,900 each.
• See the whole list of salaries.

7/20/01
Quadrennial Defense Review
The bickering between Pentagon brass and President Bush's appointees has reached new highs over the so-called "Quadrennial Defense Review," which will guide defense reform and define the new military. The crux of the problem: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's review rules. The brass say they're not clear. Rumsfeld says they're being ignored. So far, the public hasn't had a chance to look at Rumsfeld's QDR "Terms of Reference" rules. Our Pentagon correspondent Mark Mazzetti got a copy–scrubbed of classified info–and you can judge it for yourself.
Read the report.

7/19/01
Bill Clinton's architectural plans
Just this week, Bill Clinton filed an architectural plan with the Hot Springs zoning board to create the Clinton Presidential Foundation Retreat. Friends say he wants to use the secluded site on Lake Hamilton to schmooze world and corporate leaders. It's amazing how much the retreat copies Camp David, the real presidential resort in Maryland, according to the master plan retrieved by our Suzi Parker.
View the documents:
• Conditional use permit
• Board of zoning adjustment petition
• Existing site survey
• Master development plan

6/20/01
Clinton's thank-you note to former staffers
After months of money-making speeches, golf jaunts, and even a little dieting, former President Clinton is returning to public life. His first step is a small one, for the consumption of his fans. It's in the form of a "thank you" note to Clinton staffers as far back as 1992. Read it for yourself.

5/29/01
Bill Bradley's letter to supporters
Former Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley lives! Or so he says in a letter to supporters. Read it for yourself.

4/24/01
Talking up President Bush
It's not much of a movie plot, but the White House has hastily produced a 100-days script that brags of President Bush as a "strong leader" who's "plain spoken."
Take a look:
• "Historical insights" chart
• Moments to remember
• Final talking points
• Sample essay

3/26/01
Video: Russian Su-37 Super Flanker fighter jet
Air Force officials pushing for the new F-22 jet have new ammo. They've videotaped the eye-popping hyperacrobatics of the new Russian Su-37 Super Flanker fighter jet, built with unique pivoting engines. "We don't have anything that can do that," a senior Pentagon official tells our Richard J. Newman. The video shows a somersaulting jet that turns course on a dime.
What to watch for:
As the plane moves down the runway, the video shows its unique "thrust vectoring" engines pivoting up and down. This feature allows the plane to use the engines, along with conventional control surfaces, to maneuver the aircraft. That allows the kind of acrobatics seen in the rest of the video: end-over-end tumbles, rapid reversals of direction, and turns tighter than any existing fighter jet can manage. • Watch the video.

3/23/01
Paul O'Neill memo
It's not Monica bad, but new Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill is in a world of trouble with Republicans and conservatives who don't buy global warming. A February 27 memo from O'Neill to President Bush has been shown around town in which the money man says it's time to develop an administration policy on global warming that the prez can roll out on Earth Day. We just obtained a copy and rather than lifting a few choice quotes, we are making it available for you to judge for yourself. Just click here (PDF file).

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