5.02.00
Are You Experinced?

5.01.00
Not Quite Wright

4.28.00
Gay Marriage: Coming To Vermont

4.27.00
Hillary and Elian

4.26.00
Detroit News Fires Tom Bray

4.25.00
Bush's Social Security Gamble

4.24.00
Gore Story

4.20.00
Palmetto Pandering

4.19.00
Bye Bye Bayh

4.18.00
The DLC's Other Candidate

l Gore in 1992, defending Bill Clinton's qualifications to become commander-in-chief: "If you want to go back through the history of this century and before, there is a long list of governors who have been among the finest commanders in chief this nation has had."

Defending DeLay
Tom DeLay, the third-ranking Republican in the House, has taken a lot of flak for a statement he made last week on Meet the Press — flak that seems wildly disproportionate to the offense committed.

Tim Russert was questioning the Texas congressman the day after the raid on the González home in Miami. One reason for outrage at that raid, DeLay said, was that it proceeded without a court order to authorize it. Russert said there was a court order; DeLay repeated his claim. DeLay was right and Russert was wrong. But then Russert asked, "No search warrant?" DeLay responded, "No search warrant, nothing. In fact, they claim that they didn't need one. Yet they went to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and asked for one." In fact, the raiders had a (dubious) search warrant. DeLay was clearly under the mistaken impression that a court order and a search warrant were the same thing. (The administration had in fact asked for a court order and then denied it needed one.) All in all, it was a fairly tangled exchange.

The next day, White House press secretary Joe Lockhart went after DeLay with a sledgehammer. At a press briefing, he said, "Tom DeLay went on television yesterday and said that there was no warrant in this case. . . . It's factually not true and easily knowable - if you're not trying to play politics." Lockhart also said, apparently referring again to the DeLay search-warrant remark, "That's not true. And I think Congressman DeLay knows it's not true."

Time was, a White House press secretary accusing a prominent congressman of deliberately lying would raise some eyebrows in Washington. This time, the press corps adopted a softer version of the White House line.

Braying
Mark Silverman, the editor and publisher of the Detroit News who fired editorial-page editor Tom Bray last week, continues to insist that he didn't fire Bray. But on Sunday, in his final column as editorial-page editor, Bray reviews his tenure and mentions that he'll now become a regular columnist for the News. Then he writes: "I did not seek such a change."

Tricky Dick
Dick Gephardt was quoted in the Washington Post yesterday describing George W. Bush as an ideological opportunist: "A few months ago after he lost New Hampshire, he was turning hard right. Now he's turning hard left. The car's on two wheels." Now the most that can be said about Bush's trajectory is that he's shifted his emphasis; he hasn't actually changed his positions on abortion or taxes.

Compare this with Gephardt's record. He used to be pro-life, having sponsored a constitutional amendment to ban abortion. He also supported school-prayer and anti-busing amendments and favored tuition tax credits. President Reagan, he said, was "a disappointment" for not doing more "to reverse the misguided social trends of the '60s and '70s." Gephardt had a conservative profile on economic issues, too: He voted for the Reagan tax cut and against increases in the minimum wage.

Gephardt is in no position to criticize anyone else for craven flip-flops. As the old line goes: Gephardt knows his issues well, having been on both sides of a good many of them.

Put On Your Party Hats
Tomorrow is Tax Freedom Day. The Tax Foundation calculates, based on the proportion of national income that goes to government, that Americans work for the government (federal, state, and local) from January 1 through May 2. We keep what we earn from May 3 through December 31.

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