Putting Words in Kerry's Mouth?
The latest from the Political Grapevine:
In what has been billed as an, "exclusive interview," the hunting magazine Outdoor Life quotes John Kerry as saying, "I don't own [my favorite gun from Vietnam], but one of my reminders of my service is a Communist Chinese assault rifle."
Thing is, according to gun advocacy groups, owning such a gun is illegal. And a Kerry campaign spokesman insists Kerry only has two guns: a 12-gauge shotgun and a single-bolt-action military rifle, neither of which is a Communist Chinese assault rifle.
So why is Kerry quoted as saying he does? Well, it turns out Outdoor Life never actually interviewed Kerry, his staff wrote and submitted answers to a questionnaire from the magazine for him. And, they claim, it was the staff not the senator who got things wrong.
"Fraudulent" Electoral Practices?
Former President Jimmy Carter is urging Americans to keep a suspicious eye over Florida this November, insisting officials there are, "highly partisan [and] brazenly violating a basic need for an unbiased and universally trusted authority to [oversee elections]."
Carter, writing in the Washington Post, says, "The disturbing fact is that a repetition of the problems of 2000 now seems likely, even as many other nations are conducting ... transparent, honest and fair [elections]. ... Florida's governor, Jeb Bush, naturally a strong supporter of his brother, has taken no steps to correct [voting problems]." And that, Carter says, could amount to, "fraudulent electoral processes."
Copycat Controversy?
Harvard University Law Professor Laurence Tribe, thought to be the most likely Democrat nominated next to the Supreme Court, may now be caught up in a plagiarism controversy. The Weekly Standard's Joseph Bottum has found case after case of matching language in Tribe's 1985 book "God Save This Honorable Court" and a book written 11 years earlier by a University of Virginia professor, titled "Justices and Presidents."
Both books, for example, contain the following passage: "[President] Taft publicly pronounced [Justice] Pitney to be a 'weak member' of the Court to whom he could 'not assign cases.'" According to Harvard's newspaper, Tribe is now acknowledging that he, "failed to attribute some of the material" in his book.
Team Trouble
Some Democrats in California have tried to ban school teams from calling themselves the "Redskins" because, they say, American Indians could be, "horribly offended." The name, long used by the pro-football team in the nation's capital, has also been deemed, "derogatory," and "hate-filled," and at least one group says it's analogous to Nazi propaganda.
But, in a new National Annenberg Election Survey conducted across the continental United States, only 9 percent of American Indians say the name "Redskins" is offensive. In fact, 90 percent say it's acceptable.
– FOX News' Michael Levine contributed to this report