Remember the Million Man March? Well, the familiar voice of actor and former Sen. Fred Thompson, Tennessee Republican, will officially launch the first-ever Million Woman Townhall in support of Sarah Palin.
Team Sarah, a coalition of women dedicated to "advancing and defending" Mrs. Palin's vice-presidential candidacy, have organized the telephone townhall meeting, beginning Saturday at 11 a.m. They aim to attract 1 million female voters in key battleground states from Florida to Colorado "who can turn the tide of the presidential election," says Jane Abraham, general chairman of the Susan B. Anthony List and Team Sarah co-founder.
QUOTING PETERS
Peter Wehner, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, who served in the Bush White House as director of the Office of Strategic Initiatives, forwards his just-published Commentary magazine essay, "Liberals and the Surge."
"The article recounts what critics of the surge, including Senator [Barack] Obama, said … and includes my effort to explain why war critics continued to downplay, ignore, and/or misrepresent the progress — and in some instances, the stunning progress — that was unfolding in Iraq," Mr. Wehner points out.
"I take up the question posed by Charles Peters, the founder of the liberal Washington Monthly, in December: 'I have been troubled by the reluctance of my fellow liberals to acknowledge the progress made in Iraq in the last six months, a reluctance I am embarrassed to admit that I have shared. … Why do liberals not want to face this fact, let alone ponder its implications?' "
IN THAT CASE
"Make a $10 donation to support this campaign before Thursday at midnight and receive a limited-edition Obama-Biden car magnet."
Or so entices Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign.
'DREAM TEAM'
The winner of the 2008 presidential race, as it's been laid out, will confront a host of potential cataclysms, from a virulent financial crisis to a vicious terrorist enemy, nuclear proliferation to climate change.
So Foreign Policy magazine has asked 10 of the world's leading intellectuals to name the unlikely "dream team" that could best guide the nation's 44th president through the turbulent years ahead. Among the picks:
Robert M. Gates to remain as secretary of defense. (He gets high marks from Robert Baer, the former CIA case officer assigned to the Middle East, both for the Iraqi "surge" succeeding under his watch and realizing a war with Iran would be "disastrous.")
Warren Buffett as secretary of the Treasury. (One of the world's most successful investors, he may be America's best guide out of the financial crisis, says Gideon Rachman, columnist for the Financial Times.)
Richard Holbrooke as director of national intelligence. (Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, says the "courageous and highly bipartisan" former assistant secretary of state could bring his robust management style to the intel world.)
HILLARY ADDICTS
Given the endless fodder harvested in the nation's capital on a daily basis, it's no wonder Washington's most famous non-elected political comedian, Mark Russell, continues playing to sold-out audiences from coast to coast -- including California, where not a single seat is available for his three performances just prior to Election Day.
The popular piano-playing satirist will be back in town on election eve, with two Monday performances scheduled at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, the "scene of my former crimes," he says of his return to the hotel.
"Having performed at the Shoreham for 20 years, I took a brief 26-year hiatus and now I am back [every Monday]. If I keep doing the act for another 20 years I will be 95 — at which time I may slow down a bit, depending on which Clinton or Bush is in the White House."
Speaking of the Clintons, we had to laugh at Mr. Russell's one-liner after Democratic vice-presidential candidate Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. recently suggested Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton would make a better vice president:
"Bad timing, Joe. Just as Hillary's supporters' meds were wearing off."