Inside the Beltway

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Harvest season

In advance of the 109th Congress, which commences at noon today, House Republican Study Committee Chairman Sue Myrick of North Carolina is reminding fellow congressmen who sit in the majority of something Will Rogers once said: "You've got to go out on a limb sometimes because that's where the fruit is."

Roller coaster

Michael Briggs, press secretary to former vice presidential candidate and now-retired Sen. John Edwards, couldn't have phrased his farewell note any better: "As we prepare to close Senator Edwards' offices, we didn't want to leave without saying thanks to the North Carolina press corps and to reporters from other places who took an interest in the senator during the past six years. It's been quite a ride."

Nowhere is safe

Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, recently returned from his second fact-finding mission to Iraq, this latest with a small group of fellow members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, including committee chairman Sen. John W. Warner, Virginia Republican; ranking member Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat; and Sen. Evan Bayh, Indiana Democrat.

It was during a private meeting at the offices of interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi that Mr. Allawi told the senators to move their chairs away from the window -- for fear an insurgent sniper might take aim at the American scalps.