Mullings A Political Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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ISBN 0-439-13959-7

Monday, July 10, 2000

From Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
GOP Legislative Candidates' Seminar

I WOULD have stood in line to get the new J.K. Rowling Harry Potter book if I could have stayed up until midnight. I couldn't so I trotted over to a Borders here on Saturday morning to get a copy.

The store manager told me they had sold about 200 copies between midnight and 1:00 AM when they closed up. They had another hundred or so in stacks near the front door and that many again in racks behind the counter pre-sold, with customers' names sticking out.

Published reports are the first printing of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" was five MILLION copies.

Any author who can convince five million kids (well, 4,999,999 kids and me) to read a 734 page, 200,000-plus word novel is someone who should be instantly knighted - or ladied, if that's what the procedure would be for Ms. Rowling.

The Al Gore for President campaign keeps on sailing along, bouncing into every rock and scraping every sandbar in the political seas.

As an example, the other day Gore tried to tie Governor - that would be GOVERNOR - George W. Bush to the Republican Congress which Gore is calling a "do-nothing" Congress.
(a) Gore is, according to my copy of the U.S. Constitution, the President of the U.S. Senate. We know he knows where the President's chair is because he has jumped into it every time he thought he could cast a tie-breaking vote on an important issue. He could take the President's chair any time he wants and goad the Senate into action;
(b) Gore did not invent the term "do-nothing Congress" Harry Truman did;
(c) Al Gore is no Harry Truman;
(d) George W. is no Thomas Dewey.

Read the Terry Neal piece from the Washington Post on how Bush is gaining grudging respect for being a wily campaigner, or as we Texans like to put it: "George is gettin' it done."

Another example: Remember the Mayberry family which was forced to live in a squalid house owned by Al "Rhymes-With-Friend-Of-The-Poor" Gore? After Gore reneged on his promise to find them temporary housing while repairs were made, the Mayberrys have decided to move. They found a place in Ohio and the Tennessee Republican Party has arranged transportation.

Mrs. Tracy Mayberry - who, after a phone call from Gore when this whole thing became public said he seemed like a pretty nice guy - now says "Right now, I still say he's a slumlord. In my opinion that's exactly what he is. If he can't uphold his end of the bargain and do like he promised, he ain't fit to be in the White House." Also Sprach Tracy Mayberry.

Yet, ANOTHER example: With Gore desperately trying to convince voters he is a strong leader, now comes word that the Gore campaign and the Hillary Rodham Clinton Rodham camp are in a battle to determine what her role will be at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles next month.

According to a Washington Post piece by John F. Harris, Gore wants Hillary and Bill to give their speeches on Monday night and get out of Dodge, leaving Gore to an uncluttered stage.

In a shocking, shocking display of self-interest, Hillary wants to speak on Tuesday night so she can - what? - launch her 2004 Presidential campaign in the middle of Gore's convention?

After all that Naomi Wolf nonsense from last fall about Gore being a beta-male and needing to prove he is an alpha-male, Hillary, obviously, is not the least bit inclined to relinquish HER alpha status in that pack of Naomis.

With the clock ticking on the Clinton foreign policy legacy, one wonders how much pressure was put on the Pentagon to fire up that national-missile-defense test the other night before they might have been ready. This Administration has successfully built a defense establishment which can't hit an incoming missile and a space agency which has missed entire planets.

The Clinton-Gore Pentagon might want to throttle back a little bit and try for something a little easier to hit than an incoming missile: Here's a barn. Here's the broad side of a barn. Ready� Aim �

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Copyright © 2000 Richard A. Galen

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