O, Great!

Bet the farm on W in 2004? However, the assassination of JFK in '63 killed Vaughn Meador's career as a Kennedy impressionist. If W is reelected in 2004 (groan), (Fair & Balanced) Rants & Raves will have a cause! If this be (fair & balanced) cynicism, so be it.

[x London Times]
History Suggests Bush Will Win in 2004
by Tim Hames

In the past 100 years only four elected Presidents have missed a second term.

Washington is a city built on a swamp, land kindly donated by the State of Maryland, which had no idea what else to do with it. In August the heat and humidity are often insufferable. This may explain why every four years, 15 months in advance of a presidential election, the political class of the American capital lose their collective senses. The prospects of the sitting Presidents are spectacularly misread, the opportunities available for outsider candidates are massively overstated and the implausible possibility of new contenders entering and seizing control of the contest are spoken of as if a certainty. Whatever the cause, call it "the August syndrome".

The 2003 version of this strange disease, astutely reported by Roland Watson in this space on Saturday, runs as follows. George W. Bush is today deemed to be "in trouble" due to economic uncertainty and the Iraq quagmire. One or two scenarios therefore become viable. The first is that Howard Dean, the anti-war "insurgent" former Governor of Vermont, will end up in the White House. Dr Dean took his campaign bus on a national tour last week and the crowds were so large that his first words on observing them were "Holy cow". This must make him the first Batman fan to seek to assume George Washington's mantle. The second thesis is that more established figures - Al Gore, Senator Hillary Clinton or General Wesley Clark - will sniff the air, sense victory and allow themselves to be dragged to the hustings like Cincinnatus from the plough. Wounded President, outsider on a roll, white knight waiting in the wings. Lights, camera, action.

Alas for those of us sad enough to be interested in this race 429 days before polling day, the script lacks originality. In the words of an American baseball coach, Yogi Berra, it is "deja vu all over again". In August 1999, the word was that Mr Gore did not stand the slightest chance of becoming President and that Bill Bradley would beat him to the Democratic nomination. Six months later Senator John McCain was poised to deny Mr Bush his party's colours. That Bradley McCain battle somehow never happened.

In August 1995, Bill Clinton was "in trouble". Marginalised by the new Republican Congress, he was quaking in his boots as General Colin Powell was poised to run against him. And when this event inexplicably failed to materialise, it was Steve Forbes, the billionaire "outsider" with his flat-tax plan, not dull old Robert Dole, who would surely be his challenger.

Four years before that, in August 1991, George Bush Sr was not in trouble but was certain to win by a landslide. When that prognosis had to be reassessed, it was assumed that Governor Mario Cuomo of New York would stand. After he declined, Ross Perot, not Mr Clinton, who was already damaged goods, became the smart bet of the moment.

If you really wanted to, and I do not recommend it, you could take this process back for several more Augusts. Vice-President George Bush was a hopeless loser in 1987 (Newsweek ran a front cover of him then under the headline "Fighting the Wimp Factor"), while Democrats were expecting Lee Iacocca, the chairman of Chrysler, to enter the electoral arena. Ronald Reagan was in hot water in 1983 with Senator John Glenn set to vanquish him, and when he failed to take off it was Senator Gary Hart, an outsider, who would produce the competition. Jimmy Carter in 1979 was destined to lose not to Mr Reagan (a "right-wing nut") but Senator Edward Kennedy.

Senator Hubert Humphrey was to beat Gerald Ford in 1975; Senator Edmund Muskie to dismiss Richard Nixon in 1971. The Washington pundits of 1803 probably concluded that Thomas Jefferson was in a hopeless position.

All of which should, to put it mildly, counsel a little caution this summer. It might even inspire some respect for what are the three basic rules of presidential politics. The first is that it is very hard to deny an elected President re-election. In the past 100 years only four such men - William Taft, Herbert Hoover, Mr Carter and Mr Bush Sr - have not acquired a second term.

Each of them suffered from a sharp economic downturn in election year and serious divisions within their political party. The present President, by contrast, can expect the US economy to expand by at least 3 to 4 per cent in 2004 and will face no internal opposition next year. This alone would lead the historian to put their mortgage on him.

Copyright © 2003 The London Times

J. Evetts Haley, Redux

Just when I thought that J. Evetts Haley's A Texan Looks At Lyndon couldn't be topped for wackiness, along comes Barr McClellan: Blood, Money and Power: How L.B.J. Killed JFK. Even Evetts Haley didn't accuse Lyndon of murder. That was about the sole violation of the Ten Commandments that Haley didn't lay at Lyndon's feet in his wacko polemic in 1964. On top of that, the elder McClellan is the father of the White House Press Secretary and the FDA Commissioner and the first husband of the oft-renamed Carol Keeton Strayhorn (at this time). Actually, I think that W killed JFK. If this be (fair & balanced) paranoia, so be it.

[x NYTimes]
A Spokesman Son, a Tell-All Dad, a Mum Mom
By ELISABETH BUMILLER

WASHINGTON

In the firmament of American political families, the McClellans of Austin, Tex., are not in the constellation of Kennedys and Bushes. But like both of those dynasties at points in their histories, the McClellans now have political power in multiple generations, a family member in the White House and a relative they would like to sweep under the carpet.

Scott McClellan, 35, is the new White House press secretary.

His oldest brother, Dr. Mark B. McClellan, 40, is the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.

Their mother, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, 63, is the bombastic (her word) comptroller of Texas and the former three-term mayor of Austin with an eye on the governor's seat.

Their late grandfather, W. Page Keeton, was dean of the University of Texas Law School for a quarter-century.

And their father, Barr McClellan, 63, Ms. Strayhorn's first husband, is the author of a forthcoming book asserting that Lyndon B. Johnson engineered the murder of John F. Kennedy.

The book, "Blood, Money and Power: How L.B.J. Killed J.F.K.," has put the McClellans in an uncomfortable spot.

"I think at this time it's best that I keep the relationship with my dad a private matter," Scott McClellan said in an interview over the weekend.

"I'm not going to have any comment," Mark McClellan said in a telephone interview last week.

"I have not read the book, I will not read the book," Ms. Strayhorn said, also in a telephone interview last week. "I've had no comment about him for decades for my family's sake."

The book is to be released on Sept. 30 by Hannover House, a tiny publisher based in Fayetteville, Ark. Eric Parkinson of Hannover House said that Barr McClellan's book would have a large first printing — 100,000 copies — and that he expected it to be one of the big sellers of the year.

The book claims that Johnson plotted the killing of Kennedy through Edward A. Clark, now dead, who was for a half-century one of the most powerful political figures in Texas as well as Johnson's personal lawyer. Barr McClellan, in an interview last week, said that he had worked in Mr. Clark's firm but had parted company with him in 1978 over business gone sour.

"It seemed like a story to be told," he said by phone from his home in Gulfport, Miss., where he lives with his second wife. "I had a grudge, anyway, that I was going to clear up."

Mr. McClellan added that his book would offer photographs, letters and fingerprints to back up his claim. Johnson had a clear motive, he said, in that he faced being dropped from the ticket.

"There was only one thing between him and the presidency," he said.

Barr McClellan said that he was proud of all four of his sons — Dudley and Bradley, 38-year-old twins, are lawyers in Austin — and that he understood why Scott, his most prominent son, had taken a vow of silence on the subject of his father.

"I don't see any relationship between him and the book," Barr McClellan said. "It's just sort of a no-comment situation."

The parent who does elicit comment from the sons is Ms. Strayhorn, who in January married for the third time. Her new husband, Ed Strayhorn, was a high school sweetheart she turned down 37 years earlier. But he kept the rejected ring, which she now wears on her hand.

"Let me tell you, that is my greatest accomplishment, those four sons," Ms. Strayhorn said.

For most of the time that she was mayor of Austin, from 1977 to 1983, she was a single parent in a world where motherhood was tightly interwoven with her public life. Her sons, who ranged in age from 9 to 14 when she was first elected, manned campaign phone banks, read the newspapers aloud to her as she made breakfast and hung out in the mayor's office after school.

"And Brad and Dudley were more accurate on their pocket calculator than the city clerk on voter turnout," she said.

To her sons, Ms. Strayhorn was the role model, the one who shaped their interest in politics and the law. Their father, who was divorced from Ms. Strayhorn shortly after she became mayor, had a more distant relationship.

"It gave me a tremendous amount of respect for single moms, working and raising a family," Scott McClellan said.

He grew up to manage three of his mother's campaigns — her election and re-election as a Texas railroad commissioner and her election as comptroller.

"I finally got to tell her what to do, and once in a while she would listen to me," he said.

For her part, Ms. Strayhorn gives the credit to her sons, or at least to their DNA.

"Mark came into the world driven," she said. "He was reading encyclopedias in the first grade."

In fact, she said: "They're all determined and driven. I wouldn't call any of them easygoing."

And that, she said, includes Scott, the new mild-mannered face of the White House, who in November will be the last of her sons to marry.

So never mind politics, conspiracy books or ex-husbands.

"That's the most important thing," she said. "That kid's getting to the altar this year."

Copyright © 2003 The New York Times Company

Molly Ivins' Unassisted Triple Play

Molly Ivins can't say that, can she? She nails the Dickster on Iraq, W on the Environment, and the AG (lost to a dead man) on Civil Liberties. An unassisted triple play! You go girl! If this be (fair & balanced) gushing, so be it.

[x Fort Worth Star-Telegram]
It's enough to make you green in the face
by Molly Ivins

AUSTIN, Texas -- The administration is now in The Full Ostrich on Iraq: Dick Cheney put on a fabulous performance last Sunday on "Meet the Press," in which he insisted everything in Iraq is trickety-boo, right as rain and cheery bye. I haven't heard anyone lie with such gravitas since Henry Kissinger was in office.

But for the complete black-is-white, up-is-down, peace-is-war mode, you have to check out this administration on the environment. I am fascinated by its rank chutzpah. The latest brass-balls moxie episode was President Bush's Monday visit to the Detroit Edison power plant in Monroe, Mich., which he actually touted as a "living example" of why his dandy Clear Skies (gag me) initiative is so good for us all. "You're good stewards of the quality of the air," Bush told the plant's pleased workers.

The Monroe plant is one of the worst polluters in the country: In 2001, it sent 102,700 tons of sulfur dioxide, the leading cause of acid rain, into the atmosphere, along with 45,900 tons of nitrogen oxide, 810 pounds of mercury and 17.6 million tons of carbon dioxide. A study done in 2000 by ABT Associates, which the Environmental Protection Agency has used to measure the health effects of pollution, says the plant annually causes 293 premature deaths, 5,740 asthma attacks and 50,298 lost work days.

Under Clear Skies (these people are going to kill irony), the plant will continue to shed this gentle beneficence on us all for the next 17 years. According to environmental groups, the administration's relaxation of clean air rules, known as the "new source review," will allow the plant to increase its emissions by more than 30,000 tons a year, a 56 percent increase.

Bush told the happy Monrovians, "Lights went out last month -- you know that. It recognizes that we've got an issue with our electricity grid and we need to modernize it. The quicker we put modern equipment into our power plants, the quicker people are going to get more reliable electricity." Asked what Clear Skies (give us a break) had to do with the aged electricity grid, according to The Washington Post, "A senior Bush aide later said that Bush was not asserting that the old clean air rules led to the blackouts. 'We are unable to draw any connection without further study.'" If that wasn't what Bush asserted, then what was he asserting? That guy must have listened to a different speech than the one I did.

Clear Skies (I give up: I refuse to call it that), which has yet to be enacted by Congress, is not to be confused with the "new source review" rules, which the administration has already changed. The Misnomer sets up a system under which dirty plants can buy "pollution credits" from clean plants and keep polluting. New source review is a glitch in the Clean Air Act passed in 1977. The Clean Air Act "grandfathered in" more than 16,000 aging plants and industrial facilities in the happy expectation that they would gradually be in compliance in a few years. The EPA estimates 30,000 Americans a year, 10 times as many were killed on Sept. 11, die each year because the Clean Air standards on coal-fired power plants have not been enforced.

Under new source review, these dirty plants could perform routine maintenance without having to install cleaner technologies, but any major changes leading to more pollution have to meet Clean Air standards. An excellent article in the current all-environment issue of Mother Jones points out, "For nearly three decades, these facilities have gotten around the new source review rules by continually expanding and calling it 'routine maintenance.'"

In 1999, EPA's director tried a novel approach: enforcing the law. The EPA filed lawsuits against eight power companies that together produce one-fifth of the nation's sulfur dioxide. By the end of 2000, two of the largest polluters had agreed to cut emissions by two-thirds, and others were lining up to negotiate settlements. Then Bush brought in Christine Whitman at EPA, who told Congress that if she were an attorney for one of the sued companies, "I would not settle anything." Presto, the two settlements disappeared, and so did the other offers.

A nice little example of the under-the-radar technique was recently uncovered by Greenpeace via a 2002 email from Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a group heavily funded by ExxonMobil. "Thanks for calling and asking for our help," begins this chipper memo to the White House Council for Environmental Quality. Ebell goes on to describe his group's plan to discredit an EPA study on climate change by filing a lawsuit to suppress it. "We need to drive wedge between the president and those in the administration who think they are serving the president's interests by publishing this rubbish."

Two state attorneys general have asked Attorney General John Ashcroft to investigate because the memo "reveals great intimacy between CEI and (the administration) in their strategizing about ways to minimize the problem of global warming. It also suggests the CEQ may have been directly involved in efforts to undermine the United States' official report, as well as the authority of the EPA administrator."

Of course, John (Lost to a Dead Guy) Ashcroft is too busy to check it out because he's now out on a "charm offensive" to convince us all that the PATRIOT act is good for us. I always think of John Ashcroft and charm in the same sentence. Sex, too.

By the by, I'm sure The Washington Post was making no editorial comment when it closed its story on the Monroe visit with this additional fact: "After his speech in Michigan, Bush flew to Philadelphia to a fund-raiser that brought in $1.4 million for his re-election effort."

COPYRIGHT © 2003 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Ben Sargent Says Baloney And So Do I

Jim Conrad drew Ike as a cartoon commercial character of the '50s (Mr. Clean: bald and smiling goofily). Herblock drew The Trickster with a sinister 5 o'clock shadow. Garry Trudeau drew Bush 41 as a floating, white feather; Clinton as a floating waffle; and Bush 43 as a floating cowboy hat (pre-Iraq) and a floating Roman centurion helmet (post-Iraq). Ben Sargent is more in the Conrad/Herblock school. Sargent's Bush 43 looks almost like a chimpanzee. At least Dutch only played second-fiddle to Bonzo. W is Bonzo! If this be (fair & balanced) cartoon analysis, so be it.