The American Spectator

VACATION UPDATE br> Bill Clinton may have been on vacation, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t interested in one particular primary election on Tuesday. And it wasn’t even a Democratic election. Clinton, who thus far had shown little interest in the primary battle between Rep. John Linder and Clinton archnemesis Rep. Bob Barr , asked to be updated on the vote on Tuesday evening. /p>

No word on whether or not Clinton took glee in the sound beating that Barr received at the hands of his congressional colleague. But the Prowler is pretty sure a self-satisfied smile washed across Clinton’s mug.

p> THE AMERICAN GROWLER br> If you’ve been missing Sen. John McCain in your morning paper, expect to see him exploding on newsprint next week. That’s because the Federal Election Commission will be taking up hearings leading up to its laying down rules on issue-oriented advertising in elections. The hearings are all part of the FEC’s following through on the passage of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation. The commission is mulling over rules that will affect everything from what role union members can play in assisting the Democratic Party to the mechanism by which a special-interest group, say, the National Rifle Association, can buy radio or TV time to press an issue important to them around election time. /p>

McCain has already expressed unhappiness at the way the FEC has been going about what he perceives to be his business. “This is his legacy in many ways,” says a Republican Senate staffer for a Western state Republican. “He’s let everyone know that he’s monitoring the FEC’s activities, and the activities of his colleagues when it comes to supporting campaign finance reform. He’s become a watchdog.” A Doberman?