Inside the Beltway

SIGN OF THE TIMES

The partisan billboard wars continue. The city of San Carlos, Calif. is still blocking eager locals who want to install an 15-foot-by-48-foot sign emblazoned with “Sarah Palin for President 2012” over a local roadway, blocking their efforts with emergency bans on outdoor signage.

Now another billboard battle rages in Wheat Ridge, Colo., where the Wolf Automotive car dealership has added a terse voice to the national political discourse.

“President or jihad?” demands the big new orange, red and yellow sign near Interstate 70. It also include the phrases “Birth Certificate” and “Prove It,” along with “Wake up, America! Remember Ft. Hood!” There are two caricatures of President Obama, one wearing a turban.

In the last 48 hours, dealership owner Phil Wolf has drawn condemnation, praise, threats and protests, from the Anti-Defamation League and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, among others. He is not apologetic and does not plan to take the billboard down anytime soon.

“Just show a piece of paper, like the rest of us have to,” Mr. Wolf says, referring to Mr. Obama’s birth certificate, a source of controversy among so-called “birthers,” who contend that the president has yet to produce a legitimate document proving he was born in the U.S.

Mr. Wolf denies he is a racist, according to a report from the CBS News affiliate in Denver.

“My write-in candidate was Alan Keyes, and I married an Hispanic woman, so don’t come to me with racism,” Mr. Wolf says.

NOT ONE OF THEM

“In his capacity as Disaster & Preventive Psychiatry Fellow at the Uniformed Services University School of Medicine, Nidal Hasan registered (RSVP’d) to attend as an audience member a number of Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) events in the period June 2008 to February 2009. All of these events were open to the public,” George Washington University’s Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) tells Inside the Beltway.

On Friday, a Beltway item titled “In their midst” reported that Fort Hood shooting suspect Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan had been listed as a participant in events sponsored by the nonpartisan think tank, as recently as January.

“Our Presidential Transition Task Force Events are open to the public and invitations were shared with numerous government departments and agencies, including senior officials at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS). These senior leaders at USUHS in turn shared the invitation with their subordinates, including Hasan. At no time has Nidal Hasan been affiliated with HSPI or the George Washington University. He has never served as an HSPI Task Force Member, briefer, or featured speaker at an HSPI event.”

The organization adds: “HSPI’s Presidential Transition Task Force is not and was not affiliated with any Administration; and was created prior to the election.”

BUMP IN THE NIGHT

Yikes. Sounds like the Senate vote on health care reform is more appropriate for Halloween than Thanksgiving. The moment is still haunting some people.

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