TEDDY'S GUNSLINGER
James Flug, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's longtime political gunslinger, last week finished his latest hitch on the senator's staff, reputed by friends to be discouraged by his failure to block President Bush's Supreme Court nominations.
Flug returned to Kennedy's staff in 2003 after 30 years in private practice, at age 64 taking a job normally held by somebody much younger. He led the unsuccessful effort to undermine the reputations of nominees John Roberts and Samuel Alito.
Kennedy helped cushion Flug's landing with a position at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He also will teach at the Harvard law school.
RATING CONSERVATIVES
The conservative Club for Growth, making its first congressional rating of Congress (to be announced later this week), gave its Republican booby prizes for 2005 to Olympia Snowe of Maine (18 percent) in the Senate and Jim Leach of Iowa (21 percent) in the House.
Other Republicans under 30 percent were Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey and Rep. Rob Simmons of Connecticut. The highest rated Democrats were Ben Nelson of Nebraska (35 percent) in the Senate and Melissa Bean of Illinois (44 percent) in the House.
Receiving 100 percent perfect scores were Sens. John Sununu of New Hampshire, Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Jon Kyl of Arizona, and Reps. Jeff Flake, Trent Franks and John Shadegg of Arizona, Mike Pence of Indiana, Jeb Hensarling of Texas, Ed Royce of California and Todd Akin of Missouri. |