Keep an eye on the little mister, too. Bob Dole has been talking up his wife's presidential prospects. If he plays some "statesmanlike" role in cutting a deal to keep President Clinton in office, Republican primary voters would probably hold it against her.

Logrolling the Internet
Some treats included in the Internet Tax Freedom Act: $3 million to establish a "Mark O. Hatfield Fellows program" at Portland State University; $3 million for the "Paul Simon Public Policy Institute" at Southern Illinois University; $10 million for an endowment fund for the "Howard Baker School of Government" at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville; $6 million for the "John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy" at Ohio State University at Columbus. So this is what a majority's for: Republican warhorses get $4 million more of the loot. Just a little thank-you note from us taxpayers as the Third Wave washes out these solons.

Truly, Madly, Deeply
So Leon Wieseltier, the New Republic's literary editor, has a new book out, and it's getting good reviews. (A glowing one by Jacob Neusner appeared in the Sept. 28 National Review.) And it's natural that TNR would call attention to it, as they do in their latest issue: "The extent to which our literary editor is deeply learned and deeply literate does not, by now, surprise anybody." No sir! We all know how learned he is: deeply. And how literate: deeply again. How deeply learned and deeply literate? To a great extent, apparently. Continues our, perhaps, not so deeply literate blurb-writer, "Still, when one reads nearly 600 pages of beautiful and rigorous writing steeped in such thick and vivid knowledge, it is hard not to come away a little breathless." No kidding.