PRO-TEST CANDIDATE
As the Department of Education launches a new assault on colleges that use standardized tests such as the SAT in the admissions process, conservatives may find that they have a powerful ally: Gov. George W. Bush. "Some say it is racist to test. I strongly say it is racist not to test because by not testing we don't know and by not knowing we are just moving children through the system," says Bush, referring to K-12 testing, in Friday's New York Times.

ANNALS OF MISSED OPPORTUNITY
Consider what the Senate fumbled away Thursday. Republicans Jon Kyl, Pete Domenici, and Frank Murkowski proposed amending the defense authorization bill to strengthen Energy Department security in the wake of the Cox Report. When President Clinton threatened to veto the bill, which would fund the war in Kosovo, Senate Democrats threatened a filibuster. Apparently the Clinton administration wants to block congressional Republicans from taking any credit for reforming the Energy Department's stunning security lapses. So Democrats prevented a vote on the measure in the afternoon, allowing the bill to pass only when Majority Leader Trent Lott agreed to drop the amendment.

Allowing Democrats to filibuster, or letting Clinton make good on his veto threat, might have done for Republicans what the disaster-relief squabble did for Clinton and the Democrats during the Memorial Day recess two years ago. Says a Senate GOP aide: "We would have gone on recess with Democrats blocking defense authorization because they objected to a national security measure--just 48 hours after the Cox report was released. What could be more beautiful than that?"

In unrelated news, Lott's daughter is getting married on Saturday.