12/01/00 4:25 p.m.
Against Ridge
A bad pick for the Pentagon.

By NR’s John J. Miller & Ramesh Ponnuru

om Ridge, the governor of Pennsylvania, is apparently a contender to become Secretary of Defense in a Bush administration. CNN says he's the choice of Colin Powell, and his name has surfaced in several other reports as well.

The prospect of Ridge at the Department of Defense is bad news. As one of your correspondents reported earlier this year, Ridge, as a member of Congress in the 1980s and early 1990s, "voted to support the nuclear freeze, abolish the MX missile, deny funding to the Nicaraguan contra rebels, and adopt Pat Schroeder's plan to bar nuclear tests above one kiloton. On funding for the Strategic Defense Initiative, Ridge wasn't just a 'no' vote, but a leader in the enemy camp. In 1989, he teamed up with representative Charles E. Bennett, Democrat of Florida, in a Christian Science Monitor op-ed that criticized SDI as the sorry result of 'a lot of dreaming.' Ridge and Bennett then authored a successful amendment slashing the SDI budget from $4.9 billion to $3.1 billion. They struck again a year later, leading the charge to reduce SDI's funding to $2.3 billion. …Two years later, he was one of just eleven Republicans to support stripping another $1 billion from the program."

And for this service he's to be awarded the Pentagon?

What Ted Olson Should Have Said
"So, which of you wants to be the next Chief Justice?"

Connie Job
The reports of Rep. Connie Morella's support for Vice President Gore have been greatly exaggerated, her press secretary Jonathan Dean told NRO today. There have been reports in the press that Morella, a liberal Republican from Maryland, would vote for Gore if the presidential election is sent to the House of Representatives in January. Her congressional district gave Gore a solid majority last month.

"She never said she would vote for Gore," said Dean. "She does thinks it is premature to discuss the election going to the House."

The Maryland delegation is split 4-4 between Democrats and Republicans, so Morella, by defecting, could swing the state into Gore's column.

On the Site
John J. Miller on this morning's Supreme Court protestors.