Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:
Post-ing a Correction?
The White House has asked The Washington Post (search) to issue a correction for its story yesterday that said White House officials have raised the estimated 10-year cost of the Medicare prescription drug benefit (search) to $1.2 trillion.
Other newspapers, including The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, reported a much smaller estimate. The Post also reported that the new estimate contradicts an earlier 10-year forecast, but that earlier forecast covered a different ten-year period. The Post declined to publish a correction, and repeated essentially the same assertions in a follow-up story today.
Library Lull?
After the much-publicized opening of Bill Clinton's Presidential Library (search) in Little Rock, Arkansas, far fewer visitors than expected have come to the $165 million complex according to The Washington Times. The library originally said it welcomed 100,000 people in its first month and a half, but it turns out fewer than half of them were paying visitors. Many were journalists and VIP's. There is, though, one man who visits the library quite frequently: Bill Clinton himself.
According to a childhood friend, the former president often goes up to the library's "Executive Suite" — an all-glass, two-bedroom penthouse looking out over the Arkansas River — decorated with ethnic art, and topped off with a stereo and a big-screen TV. He frequently uses it to entertain old friends.
Iraqi Man In On It?
Nearly two weeks after a photo of an alleged American soldier being held hostage turned out to be that of a special ops action figure named "Cody," a man claiming to be a 20-year-old Iraqi says he's the one who set it all up. In a message posted online, the man — only identified by his screenname, Al-Iraqi-four — says he bought the toy for five dollars, and then had a bunch of children help him pull off the "scheme."
And he provides a photo to back this up. He insists he's part of no terror group or other organization. But, he says, "In the name of God, the most merciful and most compassionate ... I apologize to all the parties and everyone, for I meant nothing by [it]."
Pro-Elections, Anti-War?
A new FOX News Opinion Dynamics poll shows a majority of Americans reacted favorably to Iraqi elections, but it didn't change their negative view of the decision to go to war. According to the poll, 67 percent of Americans say last week's elections in Iraq were legitimate, and 56 percent believe Iraq is heading toward democracy. But nearly half of Americans say going into Iraq was the wrong thing to do — up 7 percentage points from over the summer.
— FOX News' Michael Levine contributed to this report
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