Inside Politics

Clinton’s testimony

The most memorable part of Bill Clinton’s testimony before the September 11 commission “may turn out to be what he said to his successor,” Time reports.

“The panel quizzed Clinton in detail about a meeting he had with President-elect Bush during the truncated transition period after the 2000 election. Clinton said he told Bush in that meeting that bin Laden would be his No. 1 national-security problem.”

Former terrorism czar Richard A. Clarke, who recounts this episode in his book “Against All Enemies,” writes that the incoming administration found this assessment “rather odd.”

“Commissioners are planning to seek Bush’s side of the story,” the magazine said.

Jackson’s idea

The Rev. Jesse Jackson’s offer to negotiate a prisoners-for-hostages swap in Iraq was greeted with little enthusiasm in the nation’s capital yesterday.

“I’m not going to get into speculation about what Rev. Jackson is proposing,” White House National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said on ABC’s “This Week.”

“The worst thing the United States of America can do is to give an idea to terrorists and to people who want to intimidate that somehow their intimidation techniques are going to be rewarded,” she said.

“The president of the United States doesn’t negotiate with terrorists,” she added.

Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat, who appeared later on the program, did not leap at Mr. Jackson’s idea either.

“I don’t think that the president or anyone at any high level ought to be involved in that kind of negotiation. Those things have to be done by their commanders on the ground,” Mr. Levin said.

Revealing interview

Sen. John Kerry has a lot of work to do to establish himself as a strong presidential candidate, judging by the reactions of 11 swing voters who met recently to reflect on the state of the election year, McClatchy Newspapers reports.

Uncertainty and a degree of distrust about Mr. Kerry’s qualifications as commander in chief contrasted with a continuing faith in the strength of President Bush as a leader when a group from the battleground state of Pennsylvania spent two hours assessing candidates and issues.

Criticism of Mr. Bush focused on concern that the war in Iraq was “spiraling out of control,” but few strong opinions were voiced about Mr. Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee or his campaign. What emerged was a sense of confusion over his “waffling” on issues such as Iraq, suggesting that recent Republican attack ads on the Democrat had made an impact, reporter Muriel Dobbin said.

The session was the third of eight focus studies being conducted by pollster Peter Hart during the election year for the nonpartisan Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. The discussion suggested that the president’s continuing emphasis on the importance of his role in rallying the nation against terrorism was paying off.

From the majority of the 11 men and women — including a teacher, a salesman, a psychologist and a financial planner, ranging in age from 26 to 71 — came a high rating for the president on his handling of the September 11 terrorist attacks and their aftermath. Nine of them gave him an “A” or “B” on homeland security, although only six gave him the same rating on social issues.

It seemed that almost nobody in the group was sold on Mr. Kerry — not because he is a Massachusetts liberal, but because they felt he had not established strong credentials as a candidate. When it came to Mr. Kerry, as far as that focus group was concerned, the jury was still out.

Kerry and guns

Vice President Dick Cheney accused Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry of trying to undermine Americans’ constitutional right to own firearms.

“Senator Kerry has consistently supported punishing lawful manufacturers for actions committed by criminals,” Mr. Cheney said Saturday in a Pittsburgh speech before an annual convention of the National Rifle Association.

“He has singled out firearms makers as unworthy of bankruptcy protection, even from debts caused by fraud,” he continued. “John Kerry’s approach to the Second Amendment has been to regulate, regulate and regulate some more.”

The vice president said Mr. Kerry has voted in the U.S. Senate to ban some ammunition used by hunters and to allow federal authorities to randomly inspect gun dealers without notice.

He stressed President Bush’s strong support for the right to bear arms, but insisted the president was tough against those who use firearms illegally.

According to Mr. Cheney, federal prosecutions of crimes committed with guns have increased 68 percent since President Bush took office in January 2001.

A statement from the Kerry campaign said the senator “is a lifelong hunter, supports the Second Amendment and will defend hunting rights,” Agence France-Presse reports.

A near-miss

“Love ’em or hate ’em, let’s agree that the Bush-Cheney campaign made one brilliant decision recently: The Bushies didn’t hire ’Apprentice’ head case Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth,” Paul Bedard writes in the Washington Whispers column of U.S. News & World Report.

“Recall that she’s the one who flaked off more than worked and spoiled Kwame Jackson’s chance to sit at the foot of Donald Trump. Campaign insiders say that Manigault-Stallworth, then in real estate, showed Bush-Cheney chairman Marc Racicot some apartments about 10 months ago, before ’The Apprentice’ began. Once she found out who he was, she followed up by sending a resume,” Mr. Bedard said.

“’Gov. Racicot met her and was very impressed with her, so he forwarded her bio to a few of us,’ says a campaign aide. Unfortunately for the pouty Washingtonian, she confessed to working for the Clinton White House. She wasn’t invited in for an interview. ’We will not be uttering the words, “You’re hired!”’ says spokesman Terry Holt.”

Words that haunt

Minnesota Public Safety Commissioner Rich Stanek has resigned over his admission that 12 years ago he used a racial epithet and told racist jokes.

Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who announced the move had come by mutual agreement with Mr. Stanek, said: “The people of Minnesota need to know that justice is colorblind. There can be no basis to question that commitment in our commissioner of public safety.”

Mr. Stanek’s admissions in a sworn deposition as part of a police-brutality suit against him in 1992 were reported by the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 1995 as he was making his first of five successful runs for the state House as a Republican from Maple Grove.

“I have never used a racial epithet in a hateful or angry way toward anyone, either during work or at home,” he said.

Mr. Pawlenty, a member of the House GOP caucus in 1995, said he wasn’t aware of the deposition until 10 days ago, United Press International reports.

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