Inside Politics

Out of whole cloth?

The Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, yesterday accused Newsday columnist Jimmy Breslin of fabricating quotes to ridicule Mr. Sheldon’s opposition to homosexual “marriage.”

Mr. Sheldon says he has never met or spoken to Mr. Breslin. But Mr. Breslin, in his column yesterday, recounted a supposed conversation he had with the minister.

“I know Jimmy Breslin fills his column with interesting and often fictional characters,” Mr. Sheldon said in a telegram to the editor of Newsday, a Long Island, N.Y., newspaper. “But the line between amusing fiction and political commentary seems to have been blurred in today’s Breslin column. I have never met Jimmy Breslin, never had the conversation described in his column today and never said those sentences to anyone in my life.”

Mr. Sheldon added: “I did attend the partial birth signing ceremony at the White House. My picture was on the front page of another New York newspaper, the New York Times, with [New York] Cardinal [Edward M.] Egan and others. That was five months ago not ’the other day’ as Breslin states in his column. But such discrepancies in fact are minor when you are making quotes up out of whole cloth.”

Here’s what Mr. Breslin wrote yesterday regarding Mr. Sheldon:

“Egan was there shoulder-to-shoulder with Jerry Falwell and the great Bush favorite, the Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition. He is out of Anaheim, Calif., and now is in Washington because he has the big issue and he belongs downtown with it.

“’Homosexuals are dangerous,’ Sheldon assured me one day. He was a short man with eyes gleaming when he mentioned how bad homosexuals truly are. ’How?’

“’They proselytize. They come to the door, and if your son answers and nobody is there to stop it, they grab the son and run off with him. They steal him. They take him away and turn him into a homosexual.’

“’You should be confined,’ I told him.

“’I speak the truth for the Lord,’ he said.

“’You’re a fruitcake,’ I told him.

“’No, I speak the truth. They steal your son.’”

Newsday yesterday referred this columnist to Mr. Breslin, who did not return a phone message seeking comment.

News blackout

“Last week when a front-page Washington Post story reported that a speech on threats in the world that National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to deliver on September 11, 2001, focused ’largely on missile defense, not terrorism from Islamic radicals,’ the networks jumped on it, considering it to be big news,” the Media Research Center notes at www.mediaresearch.org.

“But on Tuesday, when a front-page Washington Times story highlighted how ’the final policy paper on national security that President Clinton submitted to Congress — 45,000 words long — makes no mention of al Qaeda and refers to Osama bin Laden by name just four times,’ the networks ignored it. CBS on Tuesday instead raised the stigma of Iraq becoming like Vietnam and CNN’s ’American Morning’ managed to find time for how ’Bill Clinton’s foundation will provide cheaper generic drugs to AIDS patients in all needy nations affiliated with the U.N.’”

Senate malpractice

Senate Republicans yesterday lost a third attempt to curb medical-malpractice lawsuits, the Associated Press reports, but said they would keep forcing votes on an issue that they blame for rising health care costs.

On a 49-48 vote, Republican leaders fell 11 votes short of the 60 needed to force the Senate to consider their bill to limit pain-and-suffering damages that juries can award in malpractice lawsuits against obstetricians and emergency-room doctors.

Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, says Republicans won’t give up on getting medical-malpractice legislation favored by physicians and insurance companies through the Senate this election year.

“We are going to keep bringing this issue back because the crisis is getting worse,” he said.

Republicans say their measure could help reduce unnecessary lawsuits and high malpractice premiums that make it harder for doctors to practice. They tried last year and again earlier this year to force votes on similar measures, but failed.

“The crisis faced by obstetricians, gynecologists, and emergency and trauma care professionals illustrates the urgent need for national medical-liability reforms,” the White House said in a statement.

Arnold’s idea

California lawmakers should work part time so they can be more productive and less likely to write “strange bills,” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says.

“I want to make the Legislature a part-time Legislature,” he told the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday while vacationing in Hawaii. “Spending so much time in Sacramento, without anything to do, then out of that comes strange bills.”

The Republican governor did not elaborate on what he meant by strange bills and did not say how he would turn the Legislature into a part-time institution, the Associated Press reports. California’s Legislature began a year-round work schedule in 1966. It is one of four full-time legislatures, along with Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania.

Democratic lawmakers criticized Mr. Schwarzenegger’s comments. “While I’m out here working … he’s pontificating from Hawaii?” said Senate President Pro Tem John Burton.

To illustrate his point, Mr. Schwarzenegger borrowed from his acting days, saying filmmakers did their best work on tight deadlines.

“Give them a short period of time. Then good work gets done,” he said.

Cooksey’s path

The path appears clear for former Rep. John Cooksey to run for his old House seat in Louisiana.

Mr. Cooksey, a Republican, gave up the seat in 2002 in a failed bid to win a U.S. Senate seat. Meanwhile, Democrat Rodney Alexander defeated Republican nominee Lee Fletcher to win the House seat.

Mr. Fletcher has withdrawn from this year’s contest and endorsed Mr. Cooksey, a physician, Roll Call reports.

“Dr. John Cooksey is definitely the best candidate and can win if he runs,” Mr. Fletcher told the Monroe News Star. “I will just keep my powder dry for now.”

Republicans tried but failed to persuade Mr. Alexander, a staunch conservative, to switch to the GOP, Roll Call said.

In harm’s way

Eight members of Congress have children in the military, seven of them Republicans, the Hill newspaper reports.

They are Rep. Joe Wilson, South Carolina Republican; Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican; Rep. Ed Schrock, Virginia Republican; Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, Colorado Republican; Rep. John Kline, Minnesota Republican; Rep. Todd Akin, Missouri Republican; Sen. Christopher S. Bond, Missouri Republican; and Sen. Tim Johnson, South Dakota Democrat.

“All these members have shown support for the military in their speeches and voting records, and all voted for the Iraq resolution in May 2002,” reporters Drew Johnson-Skinner and Jackie Kucinich wrote.

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