Dirt Is Found on the Clinton Campaign Trail in Iowa

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Garbage In Garbage Out

Campaign workers for Hillary Clinton left such a mess when they cleared out of their headquarters in Clinton, Iowa — that the building manager says he will never rent office space to a political candidate again. The Quad-City Times reports the campaign rented six rooms from last summer until after the Iowa caucuses early this month.

Building manager Duane Jones says when the staff left — he found garbage, spoiled food, holes drilled in the walls for phone lines without permission, and stains on the carpets. He also says a smoke alarm was missing — and noticed that windows were often open on cold days — leading him to believe staffers were smoking in the non-smoking building.

Jones says he kept the campaign's $500 deposit — and finally received a check last week to cover the additional cleanup expenses. The local Clinton campaign chairman says he was not in the office much — but never noticed any damage — and that he only learned about the allegations was last week.

Out of Line

TIME Magazine columnist Joe Klein is taking Hillary and Bill Clinton to task over what he calls their creaky, transparent, out-of-date and distasteful actions toward Barack Obama — and he says they learned that behavior from the Bush family.

Klein writes on TIME Magazine's Web site that the entire Democratic Party is sick of what he called "games-playing" and "sewage" by the Clintons. He calls Obama's win in South Carolina a "wholesale rejection of Bill Clinton."

Klein adds that Obama believes — "the entire country is tired of the pestilence of tactical tricks that the Clintons learned from their co-dynasts, the Bushes."

Muscling Up

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is trying to form a new military alliance against the U.S.

Chavez is calling on Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua to help him guard against what he calls an American plan of aggression against him. He says the U.S. is trying to provoke a war between Venezuela and Colombia.

Chavez is also urging his Latin American allies to withdrawn billions of dollars in reserves from U.S. banks — and deposit the money in a new development bank launched by his regional alliance.

Rated XXX?

Peace activists in Berkeley, California want to make it much more difficult for military recruiters to set up shop in their town — by creating a new restriction modeled after laws pertaining to adult-oriented businesses.

Media reports say a proposed ballot initiative would prohibit recruiting offices within 600 feet of residential districts, public parks, schools, and churches.

Supporters say they want to protect young people from what they call the detrimental, dangerous influence of military recruiters. Berkeley activists were incensed last year when the Marines opened a recruiting office — and they say they still hope to eventually get rid of it.

— FOX News Channel's Martin Hill contributed to this report.