Mullings by Rich Galen | Issue for October 27, 1999

October 27, 1999 Volume 11, Number 68

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Why, You Little Scamp

In Tuesday's Washington Post, Lloyd Grove reported in his "Reliable Source" column that former Speaker Newt Gingrich had ordered a $450 bottle of wine (a 1983 Chateau Latour) at dinner recently.

As luck would have it, I was scheduled to have lunch with Newt yesterday. I went to the Safeway in the morning and bought a bottle of a California Blush which cost $3.75 for 750 milliliters. It did not have a twist off cap. It had the kind of lid you open with a bottle opener.

I asked the server at Kinkead's Restaurant in downtown Washington to wait until all four of us at the table were seated, then bring the bottle to the table, place it, and step away. "Would you want that opened?" he asked. "Um, no. It will be fine."

I told Newt it was just my effort to lower his average price-per-bottle.

Newsweek's cover promises to tell us "What the Bible Says About the End of the World." My copy states the end of the world will be near when "A Donald and a Patrick shall appear from the East vying, one with the other, to rule the world."

A Reuters report, having nothing whatever to do with the above point, says that "Neanderthals, once portrayed as grunting, primitive cave-men, lived as recently as 28,000 years ago - and probably interbred with modern humans." Who won?

On the budget front, the White House is complaining about Congressional micromanagement because the GOP Congress is insisting on a significant amount of "earmarked" spending in the appropriations bills. But, when that same GOP leadership proposed a one percent across-the-board cut in spending, Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt said it was a "mindless way to govern."

AP's chief Congressional Correspondent, David Espo, led his analysis of the budget tangle thus: "In Congress' seemingly interminable budget wars, each side defines short-term success differently, and all triumphs are fleeting until the next election."

With Gingrich gone from the Congress, and with Clinton on the wane in the White House the whole bunch is acting like the members of a professional sports team which, at the end of the season having no hope of making the playoffs, merely go through the motions while trying not to get hurt.

Come gather 'round people where ever you roam: Intel and Microsoft were among the companies added to the group of 30 which make up the Dow Jones industrial average this week. Since 1997 here are the companies which have been dropped: Texaco, Bethlehem Steel, Woolworth, Westinghouse, Chevron, Goodyear, Sears, and Union Carbide.

Al Gore and Bill Bradley will participate in their first of at least seven debates tonight in New Hampshire. A new poll shows Bradley opening up a 47-39 lead over Gore in the Granite State, but nationally Gore appears to have regained some momentum. Watch St. John's Wort sales drop as the nation's need for soporifics falls to near zero.

Oh, really? A report by the NY Times' James Risen indicates that the bombing of the pharmaceutical plant in Sudan last year - on the very day that Monica testified before the grand jury - was not as clear cut a decision as we had been led to believe. Now, what about that oh-so-necessary bombing of Baghdad on the day the House was voting for impeachment?

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