The Note: Place Your Bets

— -- WASHINGTON, Sep. 26

NEWS SUMMARY
Mondays we wonder:

When can President Bush next headline a post-Katrina political fundraiser?

How mad is Dr. Lawrence K. Altman at the OVP?

Will there be any (meaningful) 'cane off-sets?

(Still) Is Al Gonzales in play and are white men in play for the O'Connor seat?

Do Senate Democrats have a (real) plan to win a nomination-hand wringing-filibuster-constitution/nuclear option sequencing? (Because it appears we could be headed right there. . . .)

How would the bloggers who think The Note is "a stinking repository of Bush-licking Pre$$titution" (LINK) convince those who think it is devoutly anti-Bush that they are right?

So many things about Dr./Sen./Leader Frist (see below).

How many Members of Congress are reviewing the terms of their blind trusts today?

How will the Katrina investigation face off on Capitol Hill end?

As we await answers to any or all of those questions, the week's schedule has a calm-before-the-storm feel to it. (Note the transitional cliché. . .)

President Bush is scheduled to make a 10:55 am ET statement on the nation's energy supply in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita at the US Department of Energy in Washington, DC.

The Senate meets at 1:00 pm ET to consider the nomination of Judge John Roberts to be Chief Justice of the United States.

At 12:10 pm ET, Sen. John Kerry will take the stage at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel to address the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. Kerry is expected to talk about "competitiveness for the global economy" and will key off what he sees as the Bush Administration's lack of planning with both post-war Iraq and Katrina to suggest that the President is also without a plan to make the United States more competitive in the global economy.

Former Vice President Gore will speak at a closed press DNC fundraiser at a private home in Washington, DC tonight. Fresh from his weekend meeting with Cindy Sheehan, DNC Chairman Howard Dean will also attend tonight's fundraiser. (It's unclear if New York City Councilman Bill Perkins will attend. LINK)

"Change to Win" -- the AFL-CIO off-shoot -- holds its founding convention in St. Louis, MO today and tomorrow.

A civil disobedience with the theme, "Remember the Dead, Resist the War," is planned for outside of the White House by Clergy and Laity Concerned about Iraq, Military Families Speak Out, and Iraq Pledge of Resistance's National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance. The procession begins at 11:00 am ET at Foundry United Methodist Church. The protestors will encircle the White House before ending in Lafayette Park at 12:00 pm ET. The group is seeking a meeting with the President.

Congressman Mike Pence discusses the need for fiscal responsibility in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in a 3:30 pm ET speech to the Young America Foundation in Longworth 1334.

After delivering a 3:30 pm ET speech in support of Prop 76 (state spending limits and public school funding) in Irvine, CA, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) plans to drop-by the taping of the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" to autograph a motorcycle being auctioned off to support the American Red Cross' Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

Government spending will also be the theme of Garden State gubernatorial hopeful Doug Forrester's 1:00 pm ET State House press conference in Trenton, NJ.

For some schedule items you won't want to miss, make sure to check out our look at the week ahead below.

The O'Connor seat:
The Los Angeles Times' Savage and Schmitt have a nice round-up of the usual suspects, with an emphasis on the (correct) Notion that the President will choose a conservative, and no emphasis on the (also correct) Notion that the President will have the votes to confirm anyone he picks (except maybe Gonzales) and/or to use the constitution/nuclear option (even if the media and Sen. Reid don't like it). LINK

In a piece that calls Social Security reform "dead," the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol rattles off the names of five jurists who would be "outstanding" replacements for O'Connor: Michael McConnell, Alice Batchelder, Michael Luttig, Lee Rosenthal, and Maura Corrigan. LINK

Bob Novak's weekend column said this: "Speculation in legal circles is that federal Appeals Court Judge Priscilla Owen of Austin, Texas, will be named to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. But sources close to President Bush warn he has not made up his mind whether to pick a woman for the vacancy." LINK

Having endorsed Roberts last week, the Washington Post now suggests "at first glance" some possibilities for the O'Connor seat: power house Washington lawyer Maureen Mahoney, former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson and Appeals Court Judge Jose Cabranes. Democrats in town have been mentioning these names for weeks. LINK

The Washington Post's Balz and Fletcher reported on Sunday that Hispanic groups are telling the White House that votes are at stake in the next Court pick while conservatives are urging the President to choose an O'Connor replacement based on philosophy only. LINK

Buried in the story is this: according to two sources, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has been "gauging possible support within the Hispanic community," though his nomination is still seen as a nonstarter by some conservatives. Other women and minorities, by contrast, are regarded as committed conservatives, according to the Washington Post duo. They include Janice Rogers Brown, Consuelo Maria Callahan, Priscilla R. Owen, Robert P. Young Jr., and Larry D. Thompson.

John Roberts for Chief Justice:
Kathy Kiely writes in USA Today that Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar's announcement yesterday that he will vote for the Roberts nomination means more than one additional Democratic vote for the Chief Justice candidate. It's also a vote of confidence from one of just two Hispanics in the Senate for a man who has been criticized for his civil rights record. LINK

Frist and HCA:
Today begins Week Two of the focus on Dr./Leader/Sen. Bill Frist's sale of HCA, Inc. stock shortly before its price sharply fell.

In June, Frist ordered his portfolio managers to sell his family's shares in HCA Inc., the nation's largest hospital chain, which was founded by Frist's father and brother. A month later, the stock's price dropped nine percent in a single day because of a warning from the company about weakening earnings.

Stockholders are not permitted to trade stock based on inside information; whether Frist possessed any appears to be at the heart of probes by the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In Saturday's Washington Post, Birnbaum and Smith detected some careful parsing from the Majority Leader's office regarding what he knew and with whom he had spoken: "On Thursday, a First spokeswoman said the Senator had not discussed the stock sale in advance with any HCA executives. On Friday, in a statement from Frist's office, the issue was couched a little differently. It said the senator 'had no information about the company or its performance that was not available to the public when he directed the trustees to sell the HCA stock.'" LINK

Democrats are energized and sure to comb the record, aiming to call into question Frist's role in recent legislative battles over related issues.

In the Verbatim section of this week's Time Magazine, Dr./Leader/Sen. Frist is quoted as saying, "I put this into a blind trust. So as far as I know, I own no HCA stock." Below the quote is this terse assessment: "Bill Frist, Senate majority leader, in a 2003 interview, on what he did with his stake in his family's company to eliminate a seeming conflict of interest -- the same motivation his spokeswoman gave last week for his request in June to sell his remaining shares as insiders were dumping HCA stock before its price fell, prompting federal investigations into Frist's sale."

Some questions to ponder include:

Will Frist have to testify?

How many of those late-night and BlackBerry e-mails are carelessly written?

And when will he have to decide how to answer on-camera questions about it?

We urge you to read every word of Laura Litvan's and Otis Bilodeau's handiwork for Bloomberg News today. In purely political terms, they chart Sen. Frist's 2005 in a trajectory from leading an expanded majority to Schiavo to the HCA stock sale. The duo also reports CREW is slated to file a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee as early as today. LINK

David Rogers of the Wall Street Journal has these details:

"Given the trust's rules, Mr. Frist's spokesman Bob Stevenson said he was unable to say when a fuller accounting of all the HCA transactions could be made public. Friends and relatives are being instructed by Mr. Frist's attorneys in the Washington office of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP to keep a tight lid on any information."

Roll Call's Paul Kane has two graphs of background on "qualified blind trusts" that are worth reading in full:

"Ethics experts note that 'qualified blind trusts,' as they are called in the Senate Ethics Manual, are not completely blind because the Senator knows what holdings he or she is placing in the trust at the outset. At the end of each quarter, in most Senate blind trusts, the Senator receives a generic financial update that tells how much the total value of the trust has risen or fallen, but does not inform the Senator about stocks that have been sold or purchased."

"Because the Senator is aware of what initially went into the trust, ethics rules allow a Senator to instruct the trustee overseeing the account to sell off all the assets as a way of avoiding a potential conflict — a bit more leeway than is common in non-political trusts."

Frist gets his picture above-the-fold in the hard copy of USA Today, with the quaint words "Frist Stock Sale Probed," teasing a pro forma story on page 3 of the Money section. LINK

USA Today's ed board writes the Frist case confirms the need for new restrictions on congressional ownership of stock. LINK

The New York Times' David Kirkpatrick uses the Frist peg to look at the not uncommon usage of those potentially pesky blind trusts. LINK

Hurricanes: Bush strategy/response:
In Saturday's Washington Post piece looking at President Bush's struggle to regain his "pre-hurricane swagger," VandeHei and Baker reported that there are "private talks" of "tearing up" Bush's second-term agenda to focus on the poor and preventing future disasters. LINK

Good use of the word "private," fellas.

The President's musings about putting the Pentagon in charge of disaster rescues came after lobbying from a host of generals and elected officials, reports the AP. LINK and LINK

The Washington Times' Bill Sammon reports on the same thing. LINK

Sunday's Los Angeles Times had a Ron Brownstein look at both sides' efforts to push pet ideological ideas in the rebuilding process. LINK

Bloomberg's Brendan Murray writes that President Bush's enterprise-zone plan seems to have previously failed to deliver and that its main effect appears to have been to reward developers who would have made certain investments anyway. LINK

Under a "How Many More Michael Browns Are Out There" header, Time Magazine's Karen Tumulty, Mark Thompson, and Mike Allen look at "cronyism" in the Bush Administration with a focus on Scott Gottlieb, David Safavian, and Julie Myers. LINK

FEMA let its reserves whither, hurting its response to Hurricane Katrina, the Washington Post's Griff Witte reports. LINK

Hurricanes: Big Casino budget politics:
David Wessel of the Wall Street Journal has an interview with OMB topper Josh Bolten in which Bolten reaffirms everything and makes no news: the President wants some off-sets (but Bolten doesn't name any new ones beyond those previously pitched); entitlement cuts are on the table, but tax increases and national security pretty much aren't; this is all going to cost a lot, and/but the Feds don't know how much, and/but it shouldn't interfere with deficit reduction.

Meanwhile, Bob Novak has Hoosier Rep. Mike Pence getting beat up by the Republican leadership in the House for proposing off-sets, which Bob sees as part of a larger battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party. LINK (A typical Novak must-read.)

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay defends his credentials as a fiscal conservative in a Washington Times op-ed. LINK

The New York Times' Lipton and Nixon take a look at the no-bid contracts awarded in the aftermath of Katrina and some of the political connections that go along with them. Note the "apprehensive" DHS inspector general, too. LINK

Louisiana's congressional delegation has requested 16 times the amount the Army Corps of Engineers has said it would need to protect New Orleans from a Category 5 hurricane, prompting some taxpayer groups to accuse them of taking advantage of Hurricane Katrina to push pork-barrel projects, the Washington Post's Grunwald and Glasser report. LINK

Read all the way to the end of that one.

Hurricanes: Congress reacts:
The New York Times editorial board tries to rally the public in favor of an independent Katrina Commission. LINK

Roll Call's Erin Billings reports that Democratic divisions came to a head at a closed-door leadership meeting last week in which, sources say, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and John Dingell (D-MI) expressed concern to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi that not participating in the Katrina probe could prove "dangerous" for Democrats "seeking answers about what went wrong."

Hurricanes: the economy:
The "soaring" profits that U.S. corporations have enjoyed for almost four years may be about to "fall to earth," reports Bloomberg's Art Pine, due to surging energy costs, twin hurricanes, a tightening labor market, slowing productivity, and rising interest rates. LINK

The Vice President's health:
The Vice President was released from GW's hospital yesterday, but a velocity-sensitive Associated Press writer Notes he "moved slower than his normally brisk pace." LINK

Dr. Altman of the New York Times also Notes the VPOTUS' pace and reports that many patients who have had similar surgery are advised to take it easy for about a week. LINK

A classic Dr. Lawrence K. Altman paragraph from Sunday's New York Times: "Two doctors on Mr. Cheney's medical team said they would be willing to discuss his case with this physician-reporter if given permission to do so. But the White House declined to grant such permission." LINK

2008: Republicans:
Senator McCain's "This Week" comments on Iraqi prisoner abuse get major play from Richard Serrano in the Los Angeles Times. LINK

Newt Gingrich (and Peter Ferrara) have a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece on dynamic scoring.

Per the Denver Post, Rep. Tom Tancredo has met with Sen. George Allen, "who's considered a presidential front-runner," in Tancredo's effort to get "a mainstream candidate to carry his anti-illegal immigration torch in 2008." LINK

The Boston Globe's Nina J. Easton covers the political action in Michigan over the weekend as potential 08'ers like Gov. Romney and Sen. Brownback attended and spoke at a political gathering. Top Republican politicians also focused on how to score some 2006 GOP victories in the Wolverine State. LINK

In addition, the Boston Globe's Brian Mooney says Gov. Romney was sentimental about his time in Michigan and reminisced back to when his father was Michigan's chief executive and his family stayed on the same grounds. Romney said, "I dreamed of being governor -- I just didn't think it would be in the most Democratic state in the county." LINK

The Washington Post's David A. Fahrenthold reports that instead of talking about his home state with "lip-quivering pride," Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney uses it "like a vaudeville comic would use his mother-in-law: as a laugh line." LINK

The Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby supports Gov. Romney's controversial "wiretapping" remarks and writes, "Romney's position is the only responsible one." LINK

The Boston Globe -- with Saturday and Sunday stories -- treated Governor Romney's trip to Mackinac Island like a big, big deal. Sunday's story quoted Romney playing down Bill Weld's chance in New York. LINK and LINK

In an interview with Roll Call's Morton Kondracke, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee does his "I'm a doer, not a deliberator," thing. Kondracke gives Huckabee high marks for being personable, absorbing Katrina victims, reaching out to African-Americans and Hispanics, and taking risks to improve education and to raise taxes to pay for it. But he also writes that "there seems to be something in Arkansas' water that inspires a Clintonesque detachment from reality." In particular, Kondracke points to Huckabee's claim that he won 49 percent of the African-American vote in his 2002 re-election campaign -- a claim which one journalist calls "fantastical."

Lee Bandy of The State writes that although Gov. Mark Sanford says he is 'not interested,' in a presidential run and calls individuals who are donating to his campaign with that idea 'idiots,' the Governor's name continues to appear on potential 2008 candidate lists. LINK

ABC is inadvertently helping Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice's 2008 presidential ambitions, according to the New York Post, which believes Geena Davis' "Commander in Chief" is laying the groundwork for a 2008 Rice run. LINK

2008: Democrats:
Time's Joe Klein takes Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to task for not directly challenging Harry Belafonte at last week's CBC conference. LINK

Saturday's New York Post had an editorial saying "you go, girl" to Senator Clinton for her Ground Zero rebuilding stance, and there were news stories both days this weekend saying the same thing. LINK

Is Al Gore eyeing a 2008 presidential bid? Deborah Orin thinks so and on Sunday advised her readers to watch his speech (despite its closed press status) at tonight's DNC fundraiser very closely. LINK

In his soon to be released autobiography Gov. Richardson says that scientists Wen Ho Lee was "badly treated" by the U.S Government. LINK

Filmmaker Steve Rosenbaum's look inside the Kerry campaign will be released publicly later this week, and Lloyd Grove predicts this "devastating" film may kill any 2008 bid by the Massachusetts Senator. LINK

The Quad City Times reports that Gov. Vilsack (D-IA) dashed across the finish line at the Quad-Cities Marathon on Sunday. The unfortunate part was: there were so few around to witness his spectacular moment -- as many of the race participants had already packed up and headed home for the day. LINK

The politics of Iraq:
The Washington Post's David Ignatius writes that US generals in Iraq want the US to stay the course in Iraq but that that course is more limited, and more realistic, than US political debate would suggest. LINK

The Washington Times' Fagan and Dinan looked at the dearth of Democratic elected officials who showed up for Saturday's anti-Iraq war protest and Note that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is scheduled to meet with Cindy Sheehan this week. LINK

In her New York Times "White House Letter," Elisabeth Bumiller Notes the convergence of a FLOTUS hosted book festival and an anti-war rally. LINK

Immigration:
The New York Times editorial board seems to fall more in the Bush/McCain/Kennedy camp than in the Tancredo/Sensenbrenner camp on immigration reform. LINK

The San Antonio Express-News picked up on some blogosphere chatter and got a hold of a memo written by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) intended for Karl Rove with some thoughts on immigration reform, but faxed to the wrong number. LINK

Ethics:
Newsweek's Michael Isikoff suggests that the recent arrest of Safavian may suggest that "the Feds, who haven't yet turned public attention on (Rep. Bob) Ney (R-OH) or other members of Congress, may not be willing to wait much longer." LINK

2005:
The up-for-grabs black vote in this year's mayoral election gets front page treatment in the New York Times. LINK

". . . to win City Hall, Mr. Ferrer's strategists believe he must build a multiracial coalition, a feat requiring him to capture a significant percentage of the black vote. Interviews with dozens of black voters suggest that that may pose a formidable hurdle, as the nature of the black electorate changes, an early misstep by Mr. Ferrer threatens his support among blacks, and Mr. Bloomberg proves to be an attractive candidate to many of these voters," writes Manny Fernandez.

Republican strategists, worried, says the New York Post, that Mayor Bloomberg is hurting himself with his Republican "base," are urging the mayor to cut the jabs at President Bush. LINK

Nearly every elected New York Democrat -- from Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to Sens. Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer -- is secretly rooting for a Bloomberg win, reports the New York Post's Page Six. LINK

Sunday's New York Times looked at Daschle and Dean for Ferrer and some of the exit-poll-less data of the primary and what it might mean. LINK and LINK

2006:
With their divisions over spending, the deficit, immigration, and even, Iraq, Stu Rothenberg thinks 2006 looks "ominous" for Republicans unless they can find one or two issues that both distinguishes the GOP from Democrats and unite Republicans.

New York's GOP is becoming increasingly fearful of a Democratic "tsunami" next year in the Empire State, the New York Post's Frederic Dicker reports. LINK

2008:
Bob Novak floated Ed Gillespie's name as a possible successor to Sen. John Warner if the latter man retires. LINK

The Clintons of Chappaqua:
The New York Sun's Josh Gerstein reports that former President Clinton's charitable foundation went nearly $38.5 million into debt last year to cover the costs of building and endowing the former President's new library in Arkansas. In an interview with the Sun, the foundation's president, James L. Rutherford III, said that he had always anticipated that opening the $165 million Clinton Presidential Center would push the foundation into the red. LINK

The Schwarzenegger Era:
Mark Z. Barabak gets big-thinky in a Los Angeles Times piece that suggests that Governor Schwarzenegger is trying to win this November's ballot measure battles by staying somewhat in the background and letting the substance of the debates carry the day for his side. LINK

In a piece explaining why Schwarzenegger excluded the Los Angeles Times from a round of interviews granted last week, the Washington Post's Howie Kurtz reports that Mike Murphy told a Times reporter in an e-mail: "I'm sorry to say it but your paper is so deep in the anti-Arnold tank now I think we are wasting our time dealing with you Can you blame us? Incessant anti-Arnold slant, an op-ed page that is closed to us, and stories where we don't even get called for comment?" LINK

Per the San Francisco Chronicle's Wildermuth and Marinucci, California public employee unions have raised more than $60 million to defeat Schwarzenegger's package of initiatives while backers of the governor have raised "only about half that," although they're confident contributions will pick up now that Schwarzenegger is running television ads and spending much of his time on the campaign trail. LINK

House of Labor:
Kris Maher of the Wall Street Journal nicely curtain-raises the Change to Win meeting in St. Louis, with the fact that the group might change its name again, although "Andy and the Pirates" is not thought to be under consideration.

Karen Hughes:
"It was a low-key and almost bland first day for Ms. Hughes, who will travel to Saudi Arabia and Turkey later in the week. The audiences were friendly, occasionally asking pointed questions. But the smattering of local journalists at her events suggested that she might not have as big an impact as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did in June when she championed democracy in a speech in Egypt," writes the New York Times' Weisman on Karen Hughes first Middle East trip in her new capacity. LINK

The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler has Hughes reaching out "warily" in Cairo. LINK

Politics:
A fabulous quote from Rep. Ron Iverson (R-N.D) about Karl Rove and his speech in North Dakota this weekend: "You expect a pit bull wanting to go through a jar of whip cream," Iverson said. "And that's not it. To him the results are more important than personality." LINK

The Los Angeles Times' Nancy Vogel has a verrrrrrry long and bookish look at redistricting ballot measures in the Golden State and elsewhere. LINK

Many political eyes will be trained on a trial some folks are referring to as "Scopes II" as it gets underway in Harrisburg, PA. LINK

The nation's crime rate remained unchanged last year, holding at the lowest levels since 1973, the Washington Post reports. LINK

Per the AP's Matthew Daly: the Federal Election Commission tossed aside complaints that Ralph Nader was in cahoots with Republican and conservative groups to slip his name onto 2004 ballots in Michigan, New Hampshire, and Oregon. LINK

The week ahead:
On Tuesday, Sen. Susan Collins attends a Monitor Breakfast with reporters in Washington, DC.

On Wednesday, the New Yorker's Ken Auletta speaks with Ana Marie Cox, Arianna Huffington, and Jason McCabe Calacanis on "The World Is One Big Blog" in New York.

On Thursday, the Senate is expected to vote on Roberts' nomination to be Chief Justice of the United States.

On Friday and Saturday, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) makes his first trip to New Hampshire as a prospective presidential candidate.

On Saturday, the DNC Commission on Presidential Nomination Timing and Scheduling meets in Washington, DC, and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee attends the South Carolina Republican Party's "Victory 2006" fundraiser in Columbia, SC.