isconsin governor Tommy Thompson is not off to a good start as chairman of the Republican party's platform committee. On Saturday, the Philadelphia Inquirer quoted him as saying that he would take his marching orders from Governor George W. Bush: "I'm certainly going to be listening to all sectors of the party. . . . But my ultimate client is George Bush, and what he feels is best is what we will do." Generally, people in Thompson's position wax eloquent about the beauty of a bottom-up party that lets people from all over the country come together and agree on a platform. And this is not entirely a fiction: There are real limits to how much a presidential nominee can fiddle with the platform, as Bob Dole learned in 1996.

Does Thompson think he's doing Bush a favor by swearing his fealty? He's making Bush accountable for every subordinate clause in the platform-and handing ammunition to the Democrats.

Paul Begala's Posturing
Now that everyone from the Washington Post to Al Hunt has denounced the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's bogus lawsuit against Tom DeLay, former Clinton aide Paul Begala has joined the chorus. In the New York Times today, Begala writes that the suit is "wrong, ethically, legally, and politically," and that it "represents everything I hated about the politics of personal destruction as it was waged (sic) against President Clinton." Having objected to the persecution of the president, Begala says, he has a "moral obligation" to do the same here. His tone is high-minded and bipartisan — enough, apparently, to take in our colleague Mike Potemra — but Begala can't resist one-upping the GOP in his conclusion: "I'm going to say what too few Republicans of conscience were willing to say. The G.O.P. wrongfully harassed the president and those around him. My party should drop the suit against Tom DeLay and return to talking about issues."

Let's pretend that the Clintonites really have been the victims of wrongful legal harassment comparable to the suit against DeLay. Even if this huge concession is made — even, that is, if we overlook the substance of the disputes and instead concentrate on the ugliness of the procedures - Begala still hasn't told the story straight. He makes it sound as though Republicans began the cycle of partisan abuses by investigating Clinton. His point is that Democrats shouldn't stoop to using low-down Republican tactics. To make it, Begala ignores the Democrats' behavior during Iran-contra, their infliction of numerous independent counsels on the Reagan and Bush administrations, the confirmation hearings of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas — and, more recently, the almost entirely baseless charges made against Newt Gingrich. But then, Begala was involved in the campaign against Gingrich.

Edwin Edwards (???, LA.)
ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, the Washington Post, and the original wire stories from AP and Reuters all saw fit to report on the conviction for racketeering and fraud of former Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards without mentioning that he is a Democrat. At least the New York Times story mentioned his party affiliation-in the sixth paragraph.