Seeking Advice
As Democratic candidate Katrina Swett prepared to run for Congress last year, she struggled with the issue of war: Should she support it or not?
She finally made up her mind after a retired military officer argued passionately and in great detail that Congress ought to authorize action against Saddam Hussein. That conversation now packs real political punch.
Swett, you see, works for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Lieberman (search). But she got her advice from Gen. Wesley Clark, who now disavows his previous sentiments.
Sensitive Screeners
Screeners for the Transportation Security Administration (search) may have prevented all passengers from boarding planes with knives, guns or facsimiles of plastic explosives, but they have slammed the lid on one potential source of mischief. Ask Dave Rogerson. He got hustled out of the Norfolk airport this week after security equipment indicated he was packing high explosive TNT.
Rogerson was indeed carrying a device designed to detonate with unpleasant after effects, but it wasn't a bomb. It was a mechanical terrier designed to break wind.
Mr. Unpopular
The government of German Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder (search) is now the most unpopular government in postwar German history.
One factor: Voters are getting bored with Schroeder's anti-Americanism, which they no longer accept as an excuse for the country's high unemployment, low economic growth, exploding welfare system, bankrupt pension programs, crumbling highways and slipping international prestige.
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