If you are Tom Daschle or Dick Gephardt, the last few days have turned out to be the five days from Hell. Just when it looked like the Bush Administration was going to crumble under the weight of bad news the stock market turned against the Congressional Democrats:
On Wednesday the Dow Jones Industrial Average went up nearly 500 points.
On Thursday, it didn't give much back.
On Friday went up a little more.
By Sunday neither the NY Times nor the Washington Post had a single word about the stock market on their front pages.
On Wednesday the Adelphia Five were photographed being hauled off to the slammer.
On Thursday the U.S. Department of Justice announced it was preparing to file formal charges against two and perhaps three top former executives of WorldCom (which, by the way, more than tripled in stock price going from about six cents after its bankruptcy was formally announced at the beginning of the week all the way to 19 cents at the end of the week.)
Also on Thursday, the House and Senate agreed on bi-partisan corporate accountability legislation, all but erasing that issue from the Democrats' election-year advertising story boards.
On Friday, Al "Everything-Was-Hunky-Dory-When-I-Was-The-Alpha-Hunk" Gore's visit to Capitol Hill to blast the Bush Administration, was relegated to a box on the bottom of page A18 in the Washington Post in an item by Juliet Eilperin appropriately labeled "Politics" and was paired with a story about former Congressman Jim Traficant's pension.
Gore and Traficant. Not two names you want in the same item, if you're Gore. OR Traficant.
Friday night the House approved the Trade Promotion Authority or "Fast Track" legislation which President Bush has been requesting. Even NPR's Mara Liaison proclaimed it "A victory for George Bush."
The reporting on this legislation has, of course, been incorrect. Everything you've read has said that re-authorization had been sought by the Clinton Administration when it expired in 1994 but was rejected by the Republican-controlled Congress.
The authority (according to testimony before the Senate Finance Committee in 2001) expired in APRIL, 1994. The elections (that year as, in every even-numbered year) were in NOVEMBER. The Republicans didn't take control of the House until JANUARY 1995.
Even if it had not expired until December, 1994, the Democrats could have re-authorized it any time before they went home for the elections. But they didn't.
The reality is, Clinton didn't want to anger the union constituencies of the Democratic Members in the run up to the November elections, and so allowed the authority to lapse thinking it would be taken care of when the new Congress - still under the control of the Democrats - convened in January of the next year.
Oh, well. Still.
Early Sunday morning (US time), Lance Armstrong won his fourth straight Tour de France title by more than seven minutes over the second-place rider. A Mullings reader suggested this was a real "Tour de FOUR-ce," a sentiment with which we do not disagree.
The French - good sports to the end - have suggested strongly that Armstrong has used performance enhancing drugs, which has led to an ongoing - and fruitless - investigation on the part of French authorities, largely because Armstrong has the annoying habit of taking and passing drug tests.
A cancer survivor, a husband, a dad, a champion, and a Texan. Armstrong is the complete package.
Also on Sunday morning the nine miners who had been trapped underground since Wednesday were all rescued, alive and in good shape. It was reported that they had decided that they would all live together or all die together.
While it is being called a "Miner Miracle" it was not. A large number of people above ground and those nine guys below - all brave and talented people - labored around the clock, under difficult weather and geological conditions to effect that excellent outcome.
The human spirit is so hardy, so enduring that, given even the faintest tapping of hope, it will find a way to flourish.
That was the best news of all.
On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A quote from the testimony indicating when Trade Promotion Authority expired; some terrific pictures of Lance Armstrong and some folks in Somerset, Pa; links to the, and the usual things.
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