'Extraordinary Disclosure' About the Gulf War in 1991

And now the most compelling two minutes in television, the latest from the wartime grapevine:

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Disclosing Secrets?
Michigan Democratic Sen. Carl Levin made what appeared to be an extraordinary disclosure on FOX News Sunday yesterday: Namely that when he and most Democrats voted against the Gulf War authorizing resolution back in 1991, he was doing so based on private advice from Colin Powell, who was then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Levin made the disclosure when I asked him if his vote against the resolution was right.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CARL LEVIN (D), MICHIGAN: Now looking back on it, I think it was wrong.   But we were following Colin Powell's advice at the time and saying that sanctions could work a little longer. As a matter of fact...

HUME: Colin Powell supported that resolution, sir, if I'm not mistake.

LEVIN: He was advising us we should give sanctions a little more time to work.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

But Powell said though a spokesman today that he only urged that sanctions be allowed to work while that was administration policy and that from December 1990 on he was preparing for war and that he never gave any advice to the contrary to Carl Levin or anyone else. The vote on the Gulf War resolution came in January 1991.

2000 Traffic Jam Was No Accident
A top strategist for Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign says the Gore camp deliberately caused a traffic jam on a major artery in southern New Hampshire on primary day that year to keep Bill Bradley voters away from the polls. The disclosure came from Gore strategist Michael Whouley who said the Gore team had seen exit polls indicating that a large number of independents, many of whom live in the upscale southern New Hampshire suburbs, were turning out to vote for Bradley. So they organized a caravan to clog traffic along Interstate 93, to keep potential Bradley voters away from the voting places. The disclosure was made at a Harvard symposium and picked up by the <I>Boston Phoenix.

Change of Heart?
Sen. John Edwards, D-Mass., who had previously announced his support of the tourism boycott of South Carolina organized by the NAACP, appears to have reversed himself. Edwards' presidential campaign has announced that it will rent office space in South Carolina, that staff members will be free to stay in hotels and eat in restaurants in the state. But a spokesperson said that the senator himself will personally honor the boycott, by staying private residences while campaigning in the state. The boycott is a protest against the fact that the confederate flag still flies on the State Capitol grounds.