Wild card
“More than almost anyone in public life, Joe Lieberman knows from experience how to finesse a vice-presidential question,” Walter Shapiro writes at www.salon.com.
“At the end of an impromptu press conference after a visit to discuss global warming with sixth graders [in Trumbull, Conn.] on Monday, Al Gore’s 2000 veep pick was asked if he would be John McCain’s running mate this time around. ’No,’ Lieberman says flatly, as if the question were as ludicrous as his joining the antiwar movement. All Lieberman would add when prodded by a follow-up question is, ’I think in this, as in so much else, [McCain] has his head screwed on right. I think he’s looking for somebody who shares his priorities and would be capable of being president.’
“But in a presidential year filled with firsts (African-American nominee, serious woman candidate, former POW to be his party’s standard-bearer), Lieberman retains the intriguing potential to become the first Jewish, party-crossing, second-time-around vice-presidential nominee in American history. While McCain is keeping his vice-presidential deliberations intensely private, it is not hard to pick up Republican whispers that the wild-card Lieberman speculation is grounded in reality rather than water-cooler fantasy,” Mr. Shapiro said.
“No McCain campaign sidekick - not South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham nor former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina - does more than Lieberman to burnish the GOP candidate’s reputation as a different-drummer Republican. As top McCain strategist Charlie Black says about Lieberman (talking in general, not as a potential running mate), ’Joe, who is nationally known for having run for vice president and being elected [in 2006] as an independent, is the best possible character witness you can have for McCain’s independence and bipartisan approach.’”
’Lone exception’
“There have been millions of words written and spoken in the past few days about Tim Russert - words about how Tim knew his beat better than almost anyone in Washington, about how hard work was in his blue-collar DNA, and about what a decent guy he was. All true,” Bernard Goldberg writes in the Wall Street Journal.
“But days later another reality has finally sunk in: that while his colleagues loved and admired Tim, I’m not at all sure they really understood him, not the part that made him so important in American journalism, anyway,” Mr. Goldberg said.
“Knowing politics as well as he did was part of it, for sure. But a lot of people in Washington know politics. Asking probing questions was part of it, too. But again, Tim didn’t have a patent on tough questions. And it wasn’t just that (unlike too many others) he was fair to both sides. No, what made Tim Russert different, and better, I think was his willingness to listen to - and take seriously - criticism about his own profession. He was willing, for example, to keep an open mind about a hot-button issue like media bias - an issue that so many of his colleagues dismiss as the delusions of right-wing media haters. (Trust me on this one, I worked at CBS News for 28 years and know Dan Rather personally.)
“In 2001, my first book, ’Bias,’ came out. It was an insider’s look at bias in the media. Not one network news correspondent would have anything to do with me. I couldn’t get on any of their morning news shows to talk about the book (which was a national best seller), or their evening shows or their weekend shows or even their middle-of-the-night news shows. No one in network television wanted to discuss the issue, no matter how many Middle Americans thought it was important.
“Russert was the lone exception.
“He had me on his CNBC interview show, and we talked about bias for a full hour. He had me on his show two other times. About five years ago, we turned the tables and I interviewed him for a book I was writing on the arrogance that I believe pervades too much of American journalism.”
Gore’s footprint
Former Vice President Al Gore, despite urging everyone else in the world to shrink their carbon footprint, uses 10 percent more energy at his Tennessee home than before adding numerous “green” features, according to a Nashville think tank.
“A man’s commitment to his beliefs is best measured by what he does behind the closed doors of his own home,” said Drew Johnson, president of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research.
In the past year, Mr. Gore’s home used 213,210 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, enough to power 232 average American households for a month, the think tank said.
After February 2007, when the Tennessee Center for Policy Research exposed Mr. Gore’s massive home energy use, the former vice president acted to make his home more energy-efficient. Despite adding solar panels, installing a geothermal system, replacing existing light bulbs with more efficient models, and overhauling the home’s windows and ductwork, Mr. Gore now consumes more electricity than before the “green” overhaul.
Since taking steps to make his home more environmentally friendly last June, Mr. Gore devours an average of 17,768 kWh per month - 1,638 kWh more energy per month than before the renovations - at a cost of $16,533. By comparison, the average American household consumes 11,040 kWh in an entire year, according to the Energy Information Administration.
On vacation
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is taking a month off from Congress to recuperate after her marathon run for the presidency, the Hill newspaper reports.
The New York Democrat is not expected to return to the Senate until July 7 or July 8 after the Independence Day recess, two Democratic sources told reporter J. Taylor Rushing.
“People understand this is a transition for her,” said Sen. Bob Casey, Pennsylvania Democrat.
A statement issued Tuesday by Mrs. Clinton’s Senate spokesman, Philippe Reines, said the senator “took some well-deserved R&R with her family last week, and she’ll be back here before you know it.”
Mr. Reines would not say where Mrs. Clinton is vacationing, and most senators said they did not know her location either.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat, a supporter of Mrs. Clinton’s presidential bid, would say only that she and former President Bill Clinton “wanted to go somewhere private and far away where she could rest.”
Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes.com.
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