Inside Politics

Hillary’s barb

Republicans took aim at Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday for comparing President Bush to Mad magazine’s freckle-faced, “What, me worry?” kid, Alfred E. Neuman.

A Republican National Committee official said the former first lady was “part of today’s angry and adrift Democrat Party,” while a spokesman for one of her potential 2006 Senate rivals said she was guilty of “insulting the president.”

“At a time when President Bush and most elected officials are focused on the security of our nation, Mrs. Clinton seems focused on taking partisan jabs and promoting her presidential campaign,” added Stephen Minarik, chairman of the New York Republican Party. “Her priorities are clearly out of whack.”

Mrs. Clinton’s attack on the president came Sunday during a speech in Colorado, the Associated Press reports.

“I sometimes feel that Alfred E. Neuman is in charge in Washington,” Mrs. Clinton said during the inaugural Aspen Ideas Festival, organized by the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

Mrs. Clinton drew a laugh from the crowd when she described Mr. Bush’s attitude toward tough issues with Neuman’s catch phrase: “What, me worry?”

“Hillary Clinton’s opportunistic attempt to market herself as a centrist is like a wolf dressing up in sheep’s clothing,” said Republican National Committee spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt. “Such thinly veiled rhetoric doesn’t change the fact she is part of today’s angry and adrift Democrat Party.”

Thomas Basile, a spokesman for potential Senate challenger Edward Cox, a son-in-law of the late President Richard Nixon, said that while Mrs. Clinton was “busy insulting the president across the country, she is failing to produce the homeland security and transportation funding” the state needs.

Thompson and McCain

One-to-one salesmanship will still be required in the upcoming Supreme Court nomination battle, and that’s where former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee enters the picture, Howard Fineman and Holly Bailey write in Newsweek.

Mr. Thompson, a Republican, will act as a “Sherpa” for the president’s nominee.

“Avuncular and deeply knowledgeable about the folkways of the Senate (he was the minority counsel of the Watergate committee in the 1970s, and a senator from 1994 to 2002), Thompson is widely liked on both sides of the aisle. But perhaps his closest relationship is with Sen. John McCain, for whom he campaigned in 2000,” the writers said.

“These days McCain is a key leader of the ’Gang of 14,’ who forged a centrist peace treaty this spring over Bush’s judicial nominations. If Bush picks the kind of conservative court nominees who will have little chance of winning Democratic support (which could be just about any of them), then help from the GOP side of the ’gang’ will be crucial.

“Thompson is scheduled to visit McCain’s vacation cabin in Arizona later this month. If the usual ritual is followed, the two of them will end up by the senator’s aircraft-carrier-size outdoor gas grill, as McCain cooks skinless chicken. At some point they’ll probably discuss the Supreme Court — and it’s hard to imagine they won’t — but you won’t hear the conversation on a conference call.”

Then and now

“Many Democrats have predicted that Social Security would be for Bush what health-care reform was for President Clinton: the issue that broke his majority. But the timing is very different,” Ramesh Ponnuru writes at National Review Online (www.nationalreview.com).

“Clinton’s health plan crashed and burned in the months just prior to the midterm elections. Bush’s Social Security plan is dying with more than a year to go before elections,” Mr. Ponnuru said.

“There’s another important difference between the two experiences. The failure of the Clintons’ health-care plan took comprehensive health-care reform off the table in Washington for more than a decade. Republicans do not seem nearly so skittish about Social Security reform. If they pick up a few more Senate seats, or Democratic unity declines — perhaps because Democrats see that opposition yielded fewer dividends for them than they had hoped — there is no reason they cannot take up the issue again.”

Democratic dollars

The Democratic National Committee has raised more than $28 million through the first half of the year, boosted by online donations, the party said yesterday.

Online donations have brought in five times as much money as the party raised online in 2003 — the last time the party was raising money in a nonelection year, the Associated Press reports.

Under new Chairman Howard Dean, the Democrats have raised more than $1 million a week from about 600,000 donations. The Democrats’ online effort included a monthly giving program called “Democracy Bonds” with about 15,000 donors signed up.

The DNC has about $9 million in the bank.

Siding with Santorum

A Pennsylvania education official sided with Republican Sen. Rick Santorum in a dispute over funding for his children’s education, saying a school district did not file its request for a refund promptly.

Mr. Santorum’s five school-age children attended a Pennsylvania Internet-based charter school. But Mr. Santorum withdrew them in November when district officials in Penn Hills questioned why they were paying tuition when the children lived primarily in Virginia.

The suburban Pittsburgh district, where Mr. Santorum owns property and has his legal residence, was providing tuition under a program intended to give local students the cyber-school option.

In an opinion released yesterday, a hearing officer recommended that the state education secretary dismiss the district’s request for a refund, because it did not file objections in a timely manner, Education Department spokesman Brian Christopher said.

Paula’s visit

Paula Jones plans to make her first visit to the Bill Clinton presidential library a profitable one — she plans to wear a T-shirt emblazoned with a sponsor’s name.

“I’m going to make a big show out of it,” said her publicist, David Hans Schmidt. “Paula is basically going to go to the Clinton library and go on a tour like the faithful taxpayer that she is.”

The visit to Little Rock, Ark., is expected to take place sometime later this month, and Mr. Schmidt said it would be followed by a press conference.

Miss Jones had accused Mr. Clinton of sexual harassment, saying he made an unwelcome sexual advance in 1991 in a Little Rock hotel room while he was Arkansas governor and she was a state employee. Mr. Clinton eventually agreed to an $850,000 settlement that included no apology or admission of guilt.

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