*LIEBERMAN'S LOYALTY: Former Vice President Al Gore didn't even bother to place an advance courtesy call last week to his 2000 running mate, Sen. Joe Lieberman (D.-Conn.), to tell him he was going to endorse former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean for President. Lieberman had delayed his own presidential campaign last year until Gore announced he was not running.
"I was caught completely off guard," Lieberman said on NBC's "Today" December 9. "No notice. I heard about it from the media." Asked if he had received the same loyalty from Gore that Gore had received from him, Lieberman said, "Well, I'm not going to talk about Al Gore's sense of loyalty this morning."
*BACKWARD FROM CLINTON? "Al Gore is endorsing somebody who has taken positions in this campaign that are diametrically opposite to what Al himself has said he believed in over the years. Strong on defense, for tax cuts, and against walls of protectionism that take away jobs," Lieberman said.
"Al is supporting a candidate who is so fundamentally opposed to the basic transformation that Bill Clinton brought to the Democratic Party in 1992," said Lieberman. "Clinton made our party once again fiscally responsible, pro-growth, strong on values, for middle-class tax cuts. And Howard Dean is against all of those. So Al Gore will have to explain why he is supporting somebody who I think would take our party and country backward."
*RIDGE WON'T ENFORCE LAW: Speaking at Miami-Dade Community College last week, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge signaled that he has no intention of enforcing the immigration laws that are the main purpose of his department.
"Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge told a Miami audience Tuesday that the country should legalize millions of undocumented immigrants living in the country," the Florida Sun-Sentinel reported. "'The bottom line is, as a country we have to come to grips with the presence of 8 to 12 million illegals, afford them some kind of legal status some way, but also as a country decide what our immigration policy is and then enforce it," Ridge said.
*'NOT WORKABLE': Ridge ridiculed proposals in Congress to spur his department to actually enforce immigration law. "He said one of these, which would require all illegal immigrants to leave the country before applying for residency, is 'not workable,'" reported the Sun-Sentinel. "I'm not saying make them citizens, because they violated the law to get here," said Ridge. "So you don't reward that type of conduct by turning over a citizenship certificate. You determine how you can legalize their presence, then, as a country, you make a decision that from this day forward, this is the process of entry, and if you violate that process of entry we have the resources to cope with it."
*ACU DEFENDS TOOMEY: The American Conservative Union (ACU) will be running radio ads during the Rush Limbaugh show in Harrisburg, Pa., to defend conservative Rep. Pat Toomey's (R.-Pa.) principled stand against the Medicare prescription drug entitlement bill. Toomey is challenging liberal Sen. Arlen Specter (R.-Pa.) in the Republican Senate primary to be held in April.
Meanwhile, the "moderate" Republican Main Street Partnership has been attacking Toomey for "slamming the door on President Bush." The ACU ads, which will begin airing December 15, say that Toomey "courageously stood with Pennsylvania's taxpayers. He voted 'NO' on the $2-trillion un-funded Medicare drug bill-a bill that will force thousands of Pennsylvania seniors to lose their current prescription coverage. That's called leadership. It's what Pennsylvania has come to expect from Pat Toomey???Thank you, Pat Toomey, for standing firm."
*CARTER NEXT FOR DEAN? That's what friends of the former President were predicting would happen in the days after Howard Dean won the endorsement of Al Gore. Jimmy Carter, sources say, identifies with Dean as a former governor from a small state who is an outsider. Carter's expected blessing of the Vermonter would provide further evidence that the Democratic establishment really has no problem with Dean's wildly left-wing views.
*SECRETARY OF STATE GORE: Another fun question in the Nation's Capital last week: What does Gore get for endorsing Dean? One possibility: If Dean somehow is elected, Gore could become secretary of State.
Gore presumably doesn't want the VEEP job-been there, done that. But secretary of State is the second-most prestigious job in the U.S. government-and from the perspective of the liberal and press establishments, Gore, for all his goofiness, would bring foreign policy gravitas to the truly daffy Dean.
