■ As House recessed for August, Bill Clinton blamed Newt Gingrich for “delay, debate, and division.” . . . Angry remarks of Minority Whip David Bonior (D., Mich.) convinced GOP lawmakers they were doing something right: “The most hard-hearted, shortsighted, suck-up-to-the-rich-and-soak-the-middle-class Congress in American history.” Bonior’s wrath is explained in part by fifth Democratic defection to GOP ranks—Rep. Billy Tauzin (La.). Now considered front-runner for seat of retiring Sen. Bennett Johnston (D.), Tauzin blamed Bonior and other Democratic leaders for driving conservatives out of party. Mike Parker (D., Miss.) will be next defector. . . . Anger of Dems, like Bonior and Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (Mo.), at Clinton for putting forward own balanced-budget plan (instead of just bashing away at GOP’s) was badly misplaced, according to Richard Morris, Clinton’s new political guru. U.S. News & World Report says Morris is telling Prez the plan resulted in a “permanent” 10-point increase in approval rating— also, that Clinton’s new anti-crime ads have resulted in “7-point boost in each state where they have run.” . . . Former political advisors now replaced by Morris and others are not leaving town broke. A Boston Globe report—gleefully faxed far and wide by GOP Chairman Haley Barbour—reports 30-month billings by Clinton political geniuses of yesteryear: consultants James Carville and Paul Begala, $450,000; pollster Stanley Greenberg, $4.5 million; and media maven Mandy Grunwald, $5 million. . . . Liberals face future funding problems, though. Newsweek cites Mellman Group and A.B. Data Group report that says average age of donors to liberal groups is 65, with 40 per cent dead in 10 years.
■ Network notes: ABC anchorman Peter Jennings got pasted for one-sided Hiroshima special criticizing U.S. use of A-bomb. Even Washington Post reviewer Ken Ringle described show as “an ingenue’s stroll down the narrow tunnels of academic revisionism with only occasional intimations that larger truths may lie outside.” . . . CBS anchorman Dan Rather sees partisanship in Clinton’s ethical/legal troubles. A lion of Watergate who never saw Seventies congressional investigations as Democratic plot to get Richard Nixon, Rather refers to current congressional probes as “all-out Republican offensive on Whitewater.” . . . National Public Radio correspondent Nina Totenberg—who once screamed obscenities at Sen. Alan Simpson (R., Wyo.) for saying her stories were smearing judicial nominee Clarence Thomas—is turning on the charm again. Noting recent objections by Sen. Jesse Helms (R., N.C.) to high funding levels for AIDS research, Totenberg said: “I think he ought to be worried about what’s going on in the Good Lord’s mind. Because if there is retributive justice, he’ll get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will get it.” . . . Long critical of Fox TV’s heavy emphasis on sexual themes, cultural conservatives are hoping Rupert Murdoch calls his office soon. Murdoch-owned Fox TV now running Michael Moore’s TV Nation—which is also being praised by Murdoch-owned N.T. Post. The baseball-cap-wearing Moore is former Mother Jones journalist who poses as average-guy observer to hide his hard-core leftism—he’s currently blasting GOP candidates for “spirit of Nixon”—and anti-Middle America bigotry. (Moore’s nasty film about hometown of Flint, Mich., Roger and Me, is all-time favorite of Hollywood liberals.)
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