"Women candidates involved in primaries are getting shunned by labor," says Emily's List staffer Jonathan Parker in an e-mail message sent to political allies and obtained by NR. Parker singles out the experience of Marta Macias Brown in the recent California special election as emblematic of this "disturbing trend." Also mentioned: Elaine Bloom of Florida, Kate Coyne-McCoy of Rhode Island, Eleanor Jordan of Kentucky, and Martha Walker of West Virginia. Each one has a good record on labor, says Parker, but hasn't won union backing. Parker wouldn't speak to NR, but Emily's List communications director Stephanie Cohen said that his views were not necessarily shared by the organization, which fundraises for pro-abortion Democratic women in the primaries.

Perhaps Minority Leader Dick Gephardt will take note anyway. Last Thursday's Roll Call described an "emergency closed-door session" between Gephardt and female Democrats last November, shortly after Rep. Rosa DeLauro lost her race for caucus chair. "Gephardt was crying," wrote reporter Ethan Wallison. "Participants said [the tears] flowed from a sudden and upsetting realization for the Minority Leader: In spite of all he had said and all he thought he had done, many of the women in Gephardt's own Caucus still felt they were treated as second-class citizens." Those sentiments "still resound," said the article.

And they're apparently shared by Gephardt's second-class candidates.

Vice President Gore apparently had war on his mind when he stopped by the Washington Post on Friday for an on-the-record chat with reporters and editors. In Saturday's write-up, he displays a liberal's predictable disdain for the Vietnam War. "Fifty-three thousand Americans lost their lives for what?" he asks. (Actually, more than 58,000 Americans died in the conflict.)

But he doesn't stop there. Regarding the Korean War, he says: "I wouldn't label it a mistake, but I think that there were decisions during the course of that war that were questionable." What could he possibly mean? President Truman should have dropped The Bomb? General MacArthur should have been allowed to invade China? The landing at Inchon wasn't a great idea?

Unfortunately, the Post provides no context for Gore's weird statement. Perhaps he's jealous of all the attention Pat Buchanan has received by questioning American strategy during the Second World War. More likely, he's responding to recent reports of atrocities allegedly committed against Korean civilians by American soldiers in the early days of the war. If so, Gore is already showing a proclivity for one of President Clinton's more offensive habits: the national apology.

It's almost as if the anti-anti-communist Left is hoping something horrible happened at the bridge at No Gun Ri in August 1950, something akin to the My Lai massacre for which modern Americans must now atone. And indeed, some green troops with confusing orders may in fact have opened fire on a column of refugees--a column that almost certainly included disguised North Korean troops, incidentally. A full Pentagon review is now underway, and perhaps the truth, or as much as can be known about the truth, will come out. Perhaps the United States will even choose to compensate a handful of victims, not because it feels criminal guilt over the panicky actions of 18-year-old boys sent off to defend with their lives a foreign country they barely knew, but because Americans are a wealthy and generous people. Whatever happens, it's awfully premature for the Vice President to go bungling about in this business, especially to the point of questioning what more than 33,000 Americans died to protect.

In his Washington Post column on Sunday, Al Kamen suggested one reason why people were "somewhat surprised" by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's decision to endorse Bill Bradley for president instead of Gore. "Perhaps they didn't know of Gore's March 16, 1998, 'Dear Daniel' letter to Moynihan — who is known universally as Pat — congratulating him 'on the recent birth of your twins.' 'Tipper joins me in sending out warmest congratulations and best wishes to you,' the letter said. 'We understand the joy your are feeling at this special time.' It was supposed to have been a 71st birthday note for the New York Democrat, but someone seems to have hit the wrong button."

Updated By:
Ramesh Ponnuru - Senior Editor
John J. Miller - National Political Reporter
Kate Dwyer - Editorial Associate