Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:
Health Issue
The Los Angeles Times is after John McCain, reporting that while he boasts he is in robust health and can hike the Grand Canyon, he also receives a 100 percent tax free disability pension from the Navy.
McCain has said he receives a pension of about $58,000. He suffered extensive injuries when his plane was shot down and he was tortured as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. He cannot raise his hands above his shoulders and walks with a slight limp.
California tax lawyer Robert Schliemann tells The Times, "It is a legitimate question to ask about the commander in chief: Is he fit to serve?"
Schriebman also questions why McCain would be getting the disability payments if he can hike across the Grand Canyon.
McCain senior adviser Mark Salter reiterated Wednesday that the senator is in good health: "He is disabled from his war wounds which is why receives the pension."
Cover Controversy
Business & Media Institute reports that Time magazine managing editor Richard Stengel continues to defend the controversial cover showing a doctored version of the classic World War II raising of the flag at Iwo Jima — used to promote an advocacy piece on global warming.
As we told you last week, many veterans are incensed. Stengel says the cover was a way to "grab people by the lapels and say, 'Hey, pay attention.'"
Stengel also dismisses the idea that his magazine should not take sides: "This notion that journalism is objective -- or must be objective -- is something that has always bothered me, because the notion about objectivity is in some ways a fantasy. I don't know that there is as such a thing as objectivity… I don't think people are looking for us to ask questions, I think they're looking for us to answer questions."
As for the journalistic standards he observes at Time, Stengel said, "We sort of make it up as we go along and I think that is what will continue to happen."
See You Later
Georgetown University students in a class taught by former Pentagon Under Secretary Douglas Feith are upset that he is not being invited back by the school. The dean of Georgetown's Foreign Service School tells The Washington Post that while Feith's course evaluations were really good while he was a visiting professor, he's still out — with no reason given.
Feith is one of the architects of the Bush administration's Iraq policy. His hiring caused an uproar among the faculty. And, he told some students he was not kept on because the faculty did not want him there.
One of those students tells FOX News that almost all of his classmates signed a letter to the dean protesting Feith's departure. So far there has been no response.
Higher Education
Two Scranton, Pennsylvania, high school seniors are paying a steep price for their interest in politics.
The boys skipped gym class Monday to rush to a diner where Barack Obama made an impromptu stop. They met Obama and he even signed excuse slips for them to show their teachers. But the boys got one-day suspensions for leaving school grounds and one of them was forced to resign as senior class president.
The assistant superintendent says rules are rules, and the boys probably would have been given permission to go if they had asked first. The ousted senior class president says it was still worth it to meet Obama.
— FOX News Channel's Martin Hill contributed to this report.
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