Inside Politics

MoveOn vs. Hoyer

House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, the Maryland Democrat who can boast a perfect 100 percent liberal rating from Americans for Democratic Action in 2004, has nonetheless drawn fire from the liberal activist group MoveOn.org over his support of the bankruptcy bill President Bush signed into law yesterday.

MoveOn’s political action committee is spending nearly $100,000 on local radio ads that hit Mr. Hoyer for not helping Democrats defeat the law that makes it harder for individuals to file for bankruptcy. The ad mentions that Mr. Hoyer has accepted about $300,000 in political donations from the credit card industry over the years.

“The point of the ad is to send a signal that it’s not appropriate for a Democratic leader to be cooperating with Tom DeLay’s agenda,” MoveOn PAC’s Washington director Tom Matzzie said, referring to the House majority leader. “We couldn’t stand the odor of the bill and the mass of Democratic support for something that is so obviously part of the Republican agenda.”

Mr. Hoyer was one of 73 Democrats who voted for the bill, despite being warned by MoveOn that doing so would have consequences.

Roasting Ben and Sal

Celebrity roasts are fun, it says here, but they’re one of the few things men can do that women can’t. The American News Women’s Club threw a roast of Ben Bradlee, the retired executive editor of The Washington Post, and Sally Quinn, his glam wife who was once the most-feared star of the Style section, the other night at the Fairmont Hotel. But for a few pointed remarks by Mary Matalin and James Carville, the roast degenerated into a contest to see who could say the most obsequious things about Ben and Sal as if they were still dishing it out on the pages of The Post.

Even the voluble Chris Matthews, who imagines he plays hardball, can’t throw anything up to the plate but floaters. “Oh, we love you, Ben,” he said. Some of the riffs were tasteless, but not many were funny.

It was too much for Ben and Sally. “Men can do these things, because they use insults as terms of affection,” she said, “but women can’t be mean unless they mean it.” When Ben, one of the genuine tough guys of the news biz, got up to make the final remarks of the evening he was his famous old self. “Good evening to all you hacks,” he said. He addressed the television journalists with the contempt all old-time newspapermen feel for boobs of the tube. “If you guys were not on camera, no one would ever have heard of you.”

But it was for charity, and a fairly good time was had by all. Heavyweights of Embassy Row turned out, including the ambassadors of the Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago and even the former ambassador of Sri Lanka.

Soros’ complaint

Billionaire Democrat George Soros yesterday criticized The Washington Times for its news coverage of him, and said he would be a Republican if the GOP had not purged its “moderate” members.

“I deeply resent the way The Washington Times has attacked me in print,” Mr. Soros, the financier of liberal Democrat causes and candidates, told Times’ senior national correspondent, Ralph Z. Hallow, in an interview after addressing a meeting of conservative interest groups and Republican staffers.

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