Dick Morris on John Huang: “I think he clearly is a Chinese government operative and, if the facts are as indicated, he probably is guilty of espionage or treason.” Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz blasts CNN’s non-coverage of Sen. Fred Thompson’s Asiagate hearings: “This is a network that covered every minute of the O. J. Simpson trial.” . . . In CBS News poll, 39 per cent say Bill Clinton has same amount of honesty/integrity as other pols; only 23 per cent say he has less; 28 per cent say he has more. . . . Heritage Foundation analysts Ken Weinstein and August Stofferahn report that a quarter of the guests at those White House coffees were federal grantees and contractors, and they account for half the soft money raised. . . . Julian Bond, NAACP board member, on Clinton: “On the one hand, he has a stronger commitment to racial justice than any President since Lyndon Johnson. But welfare reform was a scandal.” . . . Economic forecaster Kurt Karl of WEFA, Inc., tells Washington Post, “I’m predicting a balanced budget by next year, but only if there’s no budget deal. One more year of gridlock and we’re home.”
@ Wishful thinking: House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt tells United Steelworkers, “We can make labor unions have 30 to 40 to 60 per cent of this country’s workers again.” . . . Dan Quayle says his image problems won’t hurt much in 2000: “Win a few primaries and the question goes away.” He also blasts GOP leaders for compromising too much with Clinton: “Republicans are going to get their ears waxed in 1998 if they don’t stand for anything.” . . . House Republicans select Reps. Jennifer Dunn (Wash.) and Deborah Pryce (Ohio) for leadership positions. Both women support legal abortion; Pryce flipped on issue after winning 1992 primary. Other Ohioans in leadership and quasi-leadership positions: Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich, Conference Chairman John Boehner, Gingrich favorite Dave Hobson. Retired Sen. Alan Simpson (R., Wyo.) on Spencer Abraham (R., Mich.), his successor as chairman of Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on immigration: the reason “we will have about a million immigrants come in here each year, more than we have ever had in our history,” is “the simple fact that [Abraham] is of Lebanese-American extraction and he represents the largest group of Lebanese outside of Lebanon.”
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