Wages of War
Fundraising after 9-11.

By John J. Miller & Ramesh Ponnuru
September 27, 2001 12:00 p.m.

ess than two weeks after the House created a subcommittee on terrorism and homeland defense, the top Democratic member is using her new perch as a fundraising tool, say some Republicans.

Yesterday, California Democratic congresswoman Jane Harman participated in a conference call with members of the New Democrat Network, an organization that describes itself as "a political venture capital fund" that "invests" in Democratic candidates. An email advertising the event found its way to scores of GOP inboxes on Wednesday, as exasperated Republicans kept forwarding it to one another. "I can't believe they're doing this already," said one.

Harman press secretary Ellia Thompson insists the conference call was not a fundraiser. "Not one word about fundraising was mentioned," she said. "It was an informative conference call for technology consultants. They just wanted an update on what's happening. That's not to say they aren't donors, but fundraising was not the purpose of the call."

The email advertising the call, which was open only to financial supporters of the New Democratic Network, reminds recipients that "[c]ontributions to the New Democrat Network are not tax deductible."

"Both parties sponsor conference calls like this," said one Republican operative. "They're called donor-maintenance activities. There may not have been a specific pitch for money, but that will come in time and the skids will have been greased by events like this one. The difference is that no Republican on this two-week-old committee has tried to benefit from being on it in quite this way."

Red Baiting
Two days ago, we wrote about how Harvard undergraduates aren't exactly brimming with patriotic fervor when it comes to the war on terrorism. Now it looks like some of them are positively unhelpful. Here's a recent story from the The Crimson, Harvard's student newspaper, on how one gay-rights group is encouraging its members to lie to the Red Cross so that they may circumvent blood-donor screenings.