The American Spectator

p> HEADS I WIN, TAILS YOU LOSE br> The White House is in a nasty war with Senate Democratic committee chairmen. Frustrated that many Bush nominations are being blocked, White House lobbyist Nicholas Calio has been attempting to negotiate terms that would allow some of the longest standing judicial and political nominations to slip through the Judicial and Foreign Relations Committees. /p>

But those terms are steep. “Basically, if we want to get Republican nominations through, we have to put an equal number of Democratic nominations through. One for Bush, one for Biden, or one for Leahy,” says a Republican staffer on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “They want to exact some measure of revenge for what Republicans did to their nominees under Clinton.”

Most glaringly unresolved are presidential nominations to federal boards and commissions with multiple openings. In those cases, Leahy and other committee chairman are either pushing for re-nomination of Clinton-era selections, or are blocking Bush nominations unless a more favorable name is brought before the committee.

According to a Democratic Judiciary Committee staffer, last week Leahy approached the White House with a deal that would have allowed the nomination of federal judge Charles Pickering to slide through his committee for a full Senate vote. “He had a list of five Democratic judges he wanted elevated in the federal system. The White House freaked. A one for one maybe, but Pickering wasn’t worth that much to them.” Kind of flattering, though, if you think about it, to have one Republican worth five Democrats.

p> HOT MAIL FROM THE BEARDED ONE br> Former Vice President Al Gore sent e-mails to over 100 reporters and columnists late Thursday afternoon responding to the Bush administration’s announced plan to deal with global warming. The Bush plan fills the void left by the administration’s earlier decision to opt out of the Kyoto treaty. “Instead of accepting an accord endorsed by over 170 nations, President Bush has put forward a plan that falls far short of the needs of both America and the world. He has tried this type of approach before — in Texas — and it failed,” the e-mail read. “A strong policy on climate change would lessen that dangerous dependence and move us to a clean and safe energy future. By contrast, this policy, like the administration plans to drill in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, keep us tied to the dangerous global oil politics that pose a grave threat to our national well-being.” /p>