The desultory days of August in Your Nation's Capital:
The Mullmeister had lunches with not one, but two Big Time Reporters for two different major dailies. One of them asked me why I don't - just once in a while - aim my rapier wit at the GOP as well as the Democrats.
Because, here's why:
Front page of the Washington Post yesterday (above the fold, but only just) Dan Balz and Dana Milbank combined on a piece which discussed an RNC memo on the domestic successes of the Bush Administration:
"The memo's emphasis on Bush's record on such domestic issues as education, corporate accountability and prescription drugs underscored the new reality that Bush and his aides confront: It's no longer enough just to be a wartime president."
Imagine Democrats and the popular press running through the streets of a largely deserted official Washington, squealing like the stars of a greased pig contest at the not-at-all deserted state fair in Des Moines, if the RNC had issued a memo suggesting that supporters highlight the President's effective leadership in the war on terror, the astounding success in Afghanistan, and the need to remain united in the face of fading interest among our allies.
Chairman Terry McAuliffe's decibel level at the Democratic National Committee meeting would have made Bobby Darin's "Mack the Knife" sound like Perry Como's "Hot Diggity."
The Bush Administration touts its success on "education, corporate responsibility, and prescription drugs" and is held up to scorn.
Remind me, again, why I sometimes get cranky?
On the plus side, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton Rodham made minor news when she said she wanted to be invited to Crawford, Texas to meet with President Bush about spending proposals dealing with new equipment for New York City police and fire departments.
She could have had her Secret Service detail drive her the 18 blocks from her Senate office to the White House at any point prior to the August recess (everyone in the car would have remembered how to get there), but she was quoted by Tim Burger in his NY Daily News piece as saying, she would "gladly put on a pair of work gloves" and join the President in clearing brush on the ranch.
Am I mistaken or does this have a familiar ring? Oh! Wait! Now I remember. It sounds like MISTER Hillary Rodham Clinton Rodham - the former President - when he said recently that he would "grab a gun, jump in a ditch, and fight and die" if the Iraqis invaded Israel.
That whole thing surprised me - as it did even some Democratic strategists - that HRCR would want to remind people of previous Presidential summer vacations.
Quick, Sherman! Set the Wayback Machine to August 17, 1998.
President Bill Clinton testifies to a federal grand jury (and gives us, in the process, the phrase "it depends on what your definition of 'is' is").
That night President Bill Clinton delivers a short speech which was described by Time Magazine's Margaret Carlson - hardly a spokesperson for Newt Gingrich - as: "He essentially did not say he was sorry for what he had done; he was just sorry he got caught."
The next day, August 18, 1998 the Rodham-Clintons head off to that playground of work-a-day Americans, Martha's Vineyard, for what was described as a "time of family healing."
Two days after that, August 20, 1998 the healing process was going so well, that Clinton left (as the cognoscenti call it) "The Vineyard" aboard Air Force One, returned to Washington, and bombed Afghanistan and Sudan destroying, after much analysis, an aspirin factory.
Also on August 20, 1998 - and this has NOTHING WHATEVER to do with anything else - while Bill Rodham Clinton was 500 miles away from The Vineyard (and any handy lamps, ashtrays, or heavy books) a young woman named Monica Lewinsky testified before that very same federal grand jury.
Dear Hillary: That was very sweet of you to remind us.
Memo to Big Time Reporter: See? I said something good about a Democrat.
On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the Dan Balz article and the Hillary Clinton article; a brief discussion of Mack the Knife and Hot Diggity and a discussion of cable news slogans; as well as the usual stuff.
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