Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:
Housing Hoax
The Department of Housing and Urban Development is assuring the public that it still plans to demolish 5,000 units of public housing as part of it's revitalization plan for New Orleans, after a man claiming to be a senior housing official convinced a reconstruction conference that the agency had reversed its decision.
Forty-two-year-old Andy Bichlbaum managed to address the crowd from the same podium as Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco by impersonating a top aide to Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson, saying HUD had failed the city and would go to elaborate lengths to move displaced residents back into the vacant projects.
Bichlbaum claims the prank was meant to highlight HUD's failure to provide for New Orleans' poorest citizens. A HUD spokesman called the hoax cruel and "terribly sad."
Kerry's Theory
John Kerry may have declined to contest the results of the 2004 presidential election in Ohio when he conceded the state to President Bush, but he's now suggesting that the state was stolen by Republican election officials.
In a fundraising e-mail for Ted Strickland, who's running for governor against Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, Kerry writes that Blackwell "used the power of his state office to try to intimidate Ohioans and suppress the Democratic vote" and to "abuse our democracy and threaten basic voting rights."
Blackwell's spokesman says the facts contradict Kerry's claim, adding: "People will say anything for money."
Revised Opinion?
GOP Sen. John McCain, who upset some supporters by speaking at Rev. Jerry Falwell's Liberty University this year, now says he'd consider speaking at Bob Jones University in South Carolina — another conservative school he blasted in 2000 for its ban on interracial dating.
McCain tells The State newspaper in South Carolina that the school has made "considerable progress" since he ripped President Bush for speaking there during his presidential campaign six years ago.
At the time, McCain said if he were invited to speak he'd tell the university that its interracial dating policy "is stupid, it's idiotic, and it is incredibly cruel to many people."
Conspiracy 101
From the wonderful world of education: Democratic Gov. John Lynch is blasting a tenured professor at the University of New Hampshire for telling his students that the U.S. government planned and executed the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Lynch called psychology professor William Woodward's beliefs "completely crazy and offensive" and questioned why he's allowed to teach.
But the New Hampshire Union Leader reports the school's president is standing behind the professor, who is part of the conspiracy group Scholars for 9/11 Truth, as well as several anti-war organizations.
Woodward, meanwhile, says he hopes to teach a new class that would explore Sept. 11 in psychological terms.
—FOX News Channel's Aaron Bruns contributed to this report.
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