*GONZALES ON THE SPOT: White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, considered President Bush’s top choice to fill any Supreme Court vacancy, is already viewed with skepticism by many conservatives because they feel he joined in several activist pro-abortion decisions while a Texas Supreme Court justice. Now, conservatives on Capitol Hill say, he could make his Senate confirmation for the High Court even more contentious if the administration does not come out foursquare against affirmative action in an amicus curiae brief the Bush Department of Justice has to file by the middle of this month. The Supreme Court is scheduled to take up in March two University of Michigan cases involving race-based admissions and the administration has yet to announce its stand on the cases. Gonzales could try to avoid taking sides by allowing Solicitor General Ted Olson to make the decision, but such an evasion would almost certainly be viewed as showing less backbone than conservatives are looking for in Supreme Court nominees.
*POST GORE: The winner of the first survey of Democrats after Al Gore’s recent exit from the race for the presidential nomination in ’04 is someone who has ruled out a race. According to a just-completed Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll of Democrats nationwide, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) topped a list of prospective candidates with 21% of the vote, followed by ’00 vice presidential nominee Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.) with 18%. Not too far behind is Sen. John Kerry (Mass.) with 16%, and then Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle (6%), and Rep. Dick Gephardt (Mo.), 5%. Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, and the Rev. Al Sharpton all win a minuscule share of the votes. "Not Sure" got 20% among registered Democrats.
Liberal trial lawyer Edwards, who has been in office only four years, last week announced his candidacy, and Kerry and Gephardt are soon expected to form "exploratory committees." Edwards is a multimillionaire and is expected to personally finance at least the early stages of his campaign. Both Kerry and Gephardt had only token opposition for re-election last year and thus have considerable cash left over to transfer to presidential campaign accounts. Each is likely to start with about $2.5 million. New England sources tell Human Events that Kerry is also expected to get an early political boost over Lieberman by tapping former Connecticut Democratic State Chairman Edward Marcus for a high position in the Kerry campaign. When trying to regain his state senate seat in 1972, onetime state Senate Majority Leader Marcus was narrowly beaten by incumbent Lieberman, whose campaign volunteers included Yale Law student Bill Clinton.
*HOMAGE TO OSAMA: When Sen. Trent Lott (R.-Miss.) made an off-hand remark in praise of 100-year-old Sen. Strom Thurmond (R.-S.C.), it cost him his job as Senate majority leader and dominated headlines for weeks. Sen. Patty Murray (D.-Wash.), however, has mostly gotten a free pass on her far more considered remark in praise of Osama bin Laden, uttered to an audience of students shortly before Christmas at Columbia River High School in Vancouver, Wash.
"We’ve got to ask, why is this man so popular around the world?" said Murray, who was quoted in the Vancouver Columbian. Murray, a second-term senator who faces re-election in 2004, explained that bin Laden has been "out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day-care facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful." Neglecting the billions of dollars given to Islamic countries by U.S. taxpayers over the years and the U.S. military’s defense of Muslims in Bosnia and other countries, Murray stated bluntly: "We haven’t done that. . . . How would they look at us today if we had been there helping them with some of that rather than just being the people who are going to bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan?"
*ANTI-CHRISTIAN FORCES FAIL: Just before New Year’s, President Bush appointed Dr. David Hager to the Food and Drug Administration’s Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs. Said Wendy Wright, senior policy director for Concerned Women for America, "The President’s appointees represent diverse views and a variety of medical backgrounds. The FDA advisory panels are supposed to be places of open inquiry. One must carefully consider why Dr. Hager’s critics wish to silence him." Planned Parenthood and other groups opposed Hager because he has questioned the safety of the abortion pill, RU-486.
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd and other leftists criticized Hager for daring to express his Christian faith. Wrote Marvin Olasky on December 31, "As David Stevens, executive director of the Christian Medical Association, put it, ‘If being a-religious is the criteria for public service, then most of our Founding Fathers would have been disqualified.’" Hager, who treats young people with sexually transmitted diseases, has also suggested that sexual relations are safe only "within marriage." Said Olasky, "The cultural left in America is trying to silence those who do not get over seeing the real-life consequences of the sexual revolution."
*FEAR THE FREIGHTERS? "U.S. intelligence officials have identified approximately 15 cargo freighters around the world that they believe are controlled by al Qaeda or could be used by the terrorist network to ferry operatives, bombs, money or commodities over the high seas, government officials said," reported the Washington Post on New Year’s Eve. "American spy agencies track some of the suspicious ships by satellites or surveillance planes and with the help of allied navies or informants in overseas ports. But they have occasionally lost track of the vessels, which are continually given new fictitious names, repainted or re-registered using invented corporate owners, all while plying the oceans."
The newspaper said that American officials fear that the ships could be used to attack U.S. ports or ships. Al Qaeda has already used ships to transport materials used in terrorism. "Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda’s leader, and his aides have owned ships for years, some of which transported such commodities as cement and sesame seeds," said the Post. "But one vessel delivered the explosives that al Qaeda operatives used to bomb two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, U.S. officials said. Since September 2001, the U.S.-maintained list of al Qaeda mystery ships has varied from a low of a dozen to a high of 50."
