Senator Questioned About Business Dealings Before Moving to Washington

And now some the most revealing two minutes in television, the latest from the political grapevine:

Polls Add ...
One day after pollster John Zogby found President Bush's approval rating down 10 percent to 62 percent, with 38 percent disapproving, the Washington Post has released a new survey with dramatically different findings. Seventy-two percent of those questioned in the Post survey said they approved of Mr. Bush's performance with 25 percent disapproving, numbers virtually the same as a month ago. What's more the Post found virtually the same number — 71 percent — regard the president as honest and trustworthy, compared to 26 percent who thought otherwise.

Retaliation After Inflation?
Freshman Democratic Sen. Jon Corzine, who has been one of those pushing hardest for a tough crackdown on U.S. corporate accounting, is being asked about the activities of the Wall Street firm where he made a fortune before coming to Washington. The Washington Times says Corzine denies any knowledge of a practice his old firm, Goldman Sachs, allegedly used to pump up the value of stocks it issued in initial public offerings. Nicholas Maier, who was with another Wall Street firm, says Corzine's firm repeatedly allowed Maier to buy share of a new stock at the initial price only if he agreed to buy more later at a much inflated price. The practice is called "laddering" and is illegal, but Corzine says his firm "never forced anyone to buy anything."

Clever or Childish?
CNN, which previously titled its coverage of news about corporate misconduct, Accounting for Greed, has a new name for its coverage of the charges against the president and vice president: Scandals, Incorporated. Meanwhile, over on MSNBC, cable TV personality Chris Mathews, asked GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch whether "the Republican party — in terms of corporate misbehavior — is looking out for the middle of the road, economically, the cloth-coat republican or is the president still in bed with the big shots like Cheney and Rumsfeld and the corporate pigs?"