Inside Politics

Angry and shrill

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, a likely Democratic presidential candidate in 2008, “seems to have a lot of anger,” and voters usually do not send angry candidates to the White House, the Republican Party chairman said yesterday.

“When you think of the level of anger, I’m not sure it’s what Americans want,” said Ken Mehlman, head of the Republican National Committee.

Mr. Mehlman cited the senator’s remarks on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in which she called the Bush administration “one of the worst” in history and compared the Republican-controlled House to a “plantation” where opposing voices are silenced.

“I don’t think the American people, if you look historically, elect angry candidates. And whether it’s the comments about the plantation or the worst administration in history, Hillary Clinton seems to have a lot of anger,” Mr. Mehlman said on ABC’s “This Week.”

When contacted for a response, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson told the Associated Press: “If the president and the White House spent half as much time worrying about the runaway deficit and the broken Medicare system as they do about Hillary Clinton, the country would be in much better shape.”

In an interview with CBS last month, President Bush said Mrs. Clinton would be a formidable candidate.

Rescuing the GOP

“President Bush was in trouble. Nothing was going right, and the war in Iraq was rapidly losing support. Democrats smelled victory but kept bungling the chance. Their nominee was so unappealing that Bush and the GOP scored a giant victory,” New York Daily News columnist Michael Goodwin writes.

“That’s a short history of the 2004 elections, when Bush won a second term and the GOP gained seats and kept control of both houses of Congress,” Mr. Goodwin said. “Fast forward and 2006 is shaping up like deja vu all over again.

“Bush hasn’t seen 50 percent approval in the polls for months, Iraq is stuck in bloody neutral and congressional Republicans are under fire for ties to a corrupt lobbyist. With midterm elections in the fall, Dems should be able to take one or both houses and exert much more influence over the last two years of Bush’s term.

“But Democrats are still getting in their own way, and could blow their chances again. The most prominent party leaders, including Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy, have become so extreme that their attacks make Bush look good by comparison.

“Clinton seems to have gone off the deep end. She followed up on her stupid remark at a Martin Luther King Day event that the House is ’run like a plantation’ by charging the White House with a ’deliberate policy of neglect’ in rebuilding New Orleans. She suggested in a San Francisco appearance that Bush saw the hurricane as ’a mixed blessing’ and that he was afraid ’all those Democrats might come home.’ NAACP Chairman Julian Bond topped that by saying Republicans would be happy to fly the Nazi flag.

“Such nutso talk feeds the rage of party fanatics, but it’s a surefire turnoff to the independents who decide close elections. The situation recalls Israeli Abba Eban’s memorable line about Palestinians — ’they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.’”

Plame’s secret

“Newly released court papers could put holes in the defense of Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, in the Valerie Plame leak case,” Michael Isikoff reports in the latest issue of Newsweek. “Lawyers for Libby and White House allies have repeatedly questioned whether Plame, the wife of White House critic Joe Wilson, really had covert status when she was outed to the media in July 2003. But special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald found that Plame had indeed done ’covert work overseas’ on counterproliferation matters in the past five years, and the CIA ’was making specific efforts to conceal’ her identity, according to newly released portions of a judge’s opinion. (A CIA spokesman at the time is quoted as saying Plame was ’unlikely’ to take further trips overseas, though.)

“Fitzgerald concluded he could not charge Libby for violating a 1982 law banning the outing of a covert CIA agent; apparently he lacked proof Libby was aware of her covert status when he talked about her three times with New York Times reporter Judith Miller. Fitzgerald did consider charging Libby with violating the so-called Espionage Act, which prohibits the disclosure of ’national defense information,’ the papers show. He ended up indicting Libby for lying about when and from whom he learned about Plame.

“The new papers show Libby testified he was told about Plame by Cheney ’in an off sort of curiosity sort of fashion’ in mid-June — before he talked about her with Miller and Time magazine’s Matt Cooper. Libby’s trial has been put off until January 2007, keeping Cheney off the witness stand until after the elections.”

Down but not out

Rep. Bernard Sanders, Vermont independent, collapsed yesterday while attending the funeral of a Vermont National Guardsman killed last month in Iraq, the Associated Press reports, but he was able to walk to an ambulance without assistance.

Mr. Sanders left the funeral for Sgt. Joshua Johnson while it was still going in the Richford High School gymnasium, then fell to the floor in the lobby. He lay on the floor for a few minutes before being helped into a restroom.

“I feel all right,” Mr. Sanders, 64, said as he left the building. “My wife had a flu. I’m fine.”

Medical crews attended to him for more than a half-hour before he walked to an ambulance.

His chief of staff, Jeff Weaver, said later that Mr. Sanders was taken to a hospital in St. Albans, where the diagnosis was a combination of flu and dehydration.

Gang of 10

“Our friends at the Democratic Party have been drawing up a list of who’s running for president in 2008, and they tell us that it’s already reached 10: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, Sen. Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin, ex-North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, and Wesley Clark, a former NATO commander,” Paul Bedard writes in the Washington Whispers column of U.S. News & World Report.

“Nearly all, we’re told, are hiring key staff and raising money. And nine of the 10 share a big hurdle: ’They’re all waiting,’ says our source, ’for Hillary to decide.’”

• Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes.com.