Inside the Beltway: Still not ready?

STILL NOT READY?

Several of the 2008 presidential campaign battleground states are “not prepared” to meet the challenges of administering the Nov. 4 election, especially in “minority” precincts, where turnout is expected to be unprecedented.

The national voter protection organization Advancement Project obtained precinct records on allocations of voting machines and poll workers in Virginia, Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio and Pennsylvania. In certain jurisdictions, it reports, “the allocation of polling place resources is likely to have a disproportionate impact on communities of color. In other words, there will be fewer voting machines or poll workers per voter in high minority precincts than in low minority precincts.”

Judith Browne-Dianis, co-director of the group, now warns: “If they do not prepare adequately for the potential turnout, what could be the greatest collective exercise in democratic participation in our nation’s history may be stained by government failure.”

CRY, MICHELLE, CRY

The campaign desk of the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) has issued a sharp critique of questions posed Wednesday night to Michelle Obama on CNN’s “Larry King Live,” saying Larry King did all he could to make Democratic candidate Barack Obama’s wife out to be a victim, rather than asking her about important issues and policy.

CJR published this persistent line of questioning from Mr. King:

“Do you take offense to ’that one’?”

“Did it in any way offend you?”

“How about you and he together, looking at television, and you see a commercial on the other side that really lambasts you?”

“Sarah Palin has been taking the role of attack dog in recent days. Here is an example (he plays the ’palling around with terrorists’ clip) and we’ll get a comment. That don’t get you mad?”

“When someone [says] - and she’s running for vice president - that your husband associates with terrorists it’s got to upset you, I think?”

“So you bear her no umbrage?”

“The Tennessean is quoting Cindy McCain saying your husband is running the dirtiest campaign in American history. Tell me have you no reaction to that … it doesn’t hurt you?”

MAKE ROOM, ABE

Editors of the Wasilla Iron Dog Gazette were more than amused when reporters from virtually every major news organization in the country “descended en masse on tiny Wasilla, Alaska, demanding to know, who is the real Sarah Palin?”

Now, these Alaska newspapermen who covered Mrs. Palin as a teenage basketball star, beauty queen, school board member, mayor, governor and now vice-presidential candidate, have gone and gotten themselves a big-time publisher, HarperCollins, in order to unveil a private collection of Palin family photos that the big-city reporters did not find.

Bear in mind that “Terminatrix: The Sarah Palin Chronicles,” is purely a work of satire. However, its digitally altered images provide a fascinating running commentary of Mrs. Palin’s life, ending sometime in the future with her chiseled cheekbones atop Mount Rushmore.

BUY BEER

“Take financial advice from a DUI lawyer?” Bob Battle, who practices law in Virginia, writes to ask Inside the Beltway.

Why not a little levity to end the week, Mr. Battle, especially given what Americans have endured of late on the economic front? What’s your advice, sir?

“If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you will have $49 today,” he begins.

“If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in AIG one year ago, you will have $33 today.

“If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers one year ago, you will have $0 today.

“But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the aluminum cans for a recycling refund, you would have received $214.”

Mr. Battle, who has gained national fame in DUI defense (and perhaps is trying to drum up a little business here), dubs his unique analysis the “401-Keg.”

John McCaslin can be reached at 202/636-3284 or jmccaslin@washingtontimes.com.