Scrapbook
Scrapbook Bobby, Martin, and John The funeral of Coretta Scott King last week in Lithonia, Ga., brought together two of The Scrapbook's favorite statesmen, Sen. Edward Kennedy and former President...
...Keith Lacasse, a Clements ally and candidate for selectman, concurs that the fight isn't over just because of a little parliamentary dirty pool...
...McCain's been working on a bipartisan lobbying reform bill...
...A president who questions Israel's right to exist, a president who denies the Holocaust, cannot expect Germany to show any tolerance at all on this issue...
...Robert Kennedy called the judge the next day, and miraculously Martin was released...
...And all the while she manages to hold together a fragile coalition government...
...As Clements says, paraphrasing a guy with a very similar last name, "Reports of our demise have been greatly exaggerated...
...According to the latest polls, the chancellor's popularity is high and growing higher...
...Iran has willfully—I am afraid I have to say this—and knowingly overstepped the mark...
...The situation was ominous, and many feared for his life...
...King's mourners the idea that the Kennedy brothers had been champions of civil rights...
...While it's always been unlikely that a majority of selectmen would carry out the anti-Souter campaign against the wishes of the townspeople, it only takes three selectmen to start proceedings against Souter's property...
...Protesters in Tehran held up posters featuring her caricature and the words "Stupid Zionist...
...In a finger-wagging allusion to the Bush administration's policy of eavesdropping on suspected al Qaeda terrorists, Carter told the congregation that "it was difficult for [the Kings] personally—with the civil liberties of both husband and wife violated as they became the target of secret government wiretapping, other surveillance, and, as you know, harassment from the FBI.'' Carter, too, was rewarded with prolonged applause...
...The president was soon to be taught an interesting history lesson...
...Actually, he was Senator, not President, Kennedy at the time...
...The confusion came after a ballot initiative was put forward by the anti-Souter forces...
...But that night Obama's office, evidently at Reid's request, emailed, and released to the press, a letter to McCain, then en route to Germany, mourning Washington's "culture of corruption," and lamenting that a bipartisan reform wouldn't be "effective...
...Clements says if his forces win two seats and can't persuade another selectman to join them, "We're prepared to stick around for another year until the next election...
...The day after we went to press, an AP headline announced "N.H...
...So, at McCain's invitation, Obama attended a meeting on the bill and let McCain know the next day that he appreciated working together...
...But this is premature...
...In other words, David Souter might not want to start any long-term redecorating projects just yet...
...but when Edward Kennedy said that "Robert Kennedy called the judge," the congregation erupted in a loud, prolonged, even raucous ovation—so prolonged, in fact, that Kennedy was obliged to repeat the phrase and, presumably, instill in the minds of Mrs...
...Town Rejects Plan to Evict Souter...
...Ouch...
...I'm embarrassed to admit that after all these years in politics I failed to interpret your previous assurances as typical rhetorical gloss routinely used in politics to make self-interested partisan posturing appear more noble...
...Is there anything Angela Merkel can't do...
...are trying to persuade the town of Weare, New Hampshire, to seize the house of Justice David Souter, on whose land they hope to erect the Lost Liberty Hotel...
...The Scrap-book does not expect an ovation for clarifying the record, but readers are welcome to savor the irony...
...I remember my brother, President Kennedy, calling [Mrs...
...I am particularly called to say this in my role as chancellor of Germany...
...Obama, Reid's designee on reform, told McCain he wasn't a partisan hit man and wanted to help out...
...But here's the history lesson: Who, as attorney general of the United States, authorized the "secret government wiretapping, other surveillance, and, as you know, harassment from the FBI" of Martin Luther King...
...This, of course, prompted Iranian officials to compare Merkel to Hitler...
...Iran's nuclear program prompts the justified suspicion, the justified concern, the justified fear that its goal is not the peaceful utilization of nuclear energy, but that military considerations are also in play...
...McCain arrived back in his office on February 6 and responded with his own letter, also released to the press: I would like to apologize to you for assuming that your private assurances to me regarding your desire to cooperate in our efforts to negotiate bipartisan lobbying reform legislation were sincere...
...First up was Kennedy, who regaled mourners with the story about how Martin Luther King had been "jailed in October 1960 and given an incomprehensible sentence of four months of hard labor in a rural penitentiary for a minor traffic violation...
...Now she's taking a strong stand against Iran's threat to go nuclear...
...Well, that was then, and now the two old warriors are united by a common adversary, George W. Bush, who sat on the very same podium at Mrs...
...Edward Kennedy and former President Jimmy Carter, on the same podium for the first time since—oh, maybe it was the 1980 Democratic Convention, when Kennedy effectively declined to endorse Carter for reelection...
...Bombing Obama Democratic senators Harry Reid and Barack Obama tried to pull a fast one on John McCain and got hit with the literary equivalent of a B-52 strike...
...The answer is Robert Kennedy, the very same Robert Kennedy who "called the judge" in October 1960...
...Remember what Benjamin Franklin said about democracy: 'Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch...
...Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote...
...But I understand how important the opportunity to lead your party's effort to exploit this issue must seem to a freshman Senator, and I hold no hard feelings over your earlier disingenuousness...
...Then came Jimmy Carter...
...I must add that we are, of course, compelled to respond to the totally unacceptable provocations of the Iranian president...
...Aghast at the Supreme Court's Kelo decision, which allows government to seize people's property and give it to private companies for "economic development," Clements and Co...
...But the measure is nonbind-ing, meaning the selectmen are still pretty much free to do what they want...
...King] to say he would do whatever was necessary to help...
...only the Democratic leadership's bill, which has no Republican cosponsors, "represents a significant step in addressing many of the worst aspects of corruption...
...King's funeral...
...Merkel Rising First she met with President Bush and spoke of the importance of German-American friendship...
...Thank you for disabusing me of such notions with your letter...
...Thus, the real action will take place in Weare's March election, in which two of the five selectman's seats are up for grabs, and two of the five candidates running for those seats are pro-Liberty Hotel candidates...
...We have learned the lessons of our past...
...Speaking at the Munich Conference on Security Policy earlier this month, the new German chancellor did not mince words: We want to prevent the production of Iranian nuclear weapons, and we must...
...Condemning Souter In last week's cover story, Matt Labash detailed the revenge fantasy of Logan Darrow Clements and the Committee for the Protection of Natural Rights (CPNR...
...The Scrapbook has long since given up expecting a modicum of dignity from the winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, even at a funeral, and he didn't disappoint us...
...Outnumbered at the town selectmen's meeting, they saw their initiative language changed to prevent selectmen from taking Souter's property...
Vol. 11 • February 2006 • No. 22
