The American Spectator

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Those comments would have been better than the pabulum Edwards laid out. “No specifics, no real meat, nothing,” said a Brookings scholar in attendance. “One gets the sense he’s running out of gas and the election season hasn’t started yet.”

To be fair to Edwards, plans for the speech were in the works long before Al Gore made his announcement over the weekend. Nonetheless, with the Democratic presidential race now wide-open it says something that Edwards didn’t try to ratchet up the heat on this speech.

The lackluster performance is also surprising in that Edwards’ political allies report they expect him to announce within days that he is at the very least forming an exploratory committee for a presidential run.

p> POINTING AT DANA br> As the spectacle surrounding Trent Lott continues, Republicans elsewhere are offering further confirmation that their party is one that truly enjoys eating its own. Word out of California is that some Southern California Republican moneymen are looking to recruit a primary challenger to longtime conservative Rep. Dana Rohrabacher. The key reason is Rohrabacher’s continued antagonism toward Israel. /p>

“He’s awful on Israel, and it just doesn’t make a lot of sense. Maybe he’s got too much water in his ears from all that surfing,” says one of those California businessmen looking for a horse to run against the sitting congressman.

Rohrabacher has been outspoken in criticizing U.S. support for Israel, and is viewed as the one of the Muslim community’s strongest supporters.

The oddity of the Rohrabacher situation is that on many issues he’s in the conservative mainstream.

No names have been mentioned as possible challengers.