This Sunday concludes the Washington Nationals’ brief stay at RFK Stadium.  They’ve got a new home starting next season, cozy little digs well-suited for lobbyists and DC-style schmoozing.  The Nationals’ departure effectively means RFK Stadium is out of business (I know they still play something called soccer there, but I haven’t followed the Washington Diplomats for years).

Everyone’s got their RFK Stadium memories.  I have many.  But nothing has struck me more than the fact that only in DC would they think of naming a stadium after an Attorney General.

Here’s hoping the new baseball stadium in DC is someday named Mukasey Field.

Lost in all the hoopla about MoveOn’s ad coming from President Bush’s press conference today was a great and historic moment.  We heard probably the single most definitive statement ever by an American president of a profound belief in supply side economics:

I’m a supply-sider. I believe supply-side economics, when properly instituted, enables us to achieve certain objectives. One, people find work and there’s hope in the economy. Two, that supply-side economics yields additional tax revenues.

That was Bush today, speaking not from prepared text but in response to a question.

Was Ronald Reagan ever this eloquently simple during an exchange with the media?

Not if this 1982 moment with the press corps was any indication:

Q. Mr. President, on that note, do you think Jack Kemp and other conservatives are trying to undermine your Presidency? And is it…

Reagan: No, I think that Jack sincerely believes—is a purist in the supply-side economics. And we’ll continue to talk and reason together.

Reason together?  Seems like the current Oval Office occupant might be a purist as well.

First, our last trivia answer: The current occupant of buildings that were built in the 1950’s as a Nike missile-tracking site.

No one submitted the correct answer: What is the Consumer Product Safety Commission testing laboratory?

Now, the next Extreme Trivia answer: A member of Congress who died when the Titanic went down.

Various moments on CNN yesterday:

Ted Rowlands (subbing for Larry King): “Do people hate O.J. Simpson, and will that hurt him, do you think, if this does go to trial?”
Leo Terrell (Simpson friend): “Do people hate O.J. Simpson? Yes, unfortunately.”

And

Jeffrey Toobin: “We have a CNN poll that says 80 percent of the people polled think he killed his ex-wife and Ron Goldman 13 years ago. So, you know, it may than a jury simply doesn’t care about the evidence in this case, they just hate O.J.”

And

“A.J. Hammer: A SHOWBIZ special report, is O.J. really the most hated man in America? Tonight, why so many people just love to hate O.J.”

CNN, the most trusted source of hate.

A few weeks ago I wrote a piece for the Politico about the rash of waste-of-time Congressional investigations:

What is Congress doing to get back in our favor? Focusing like a laser beam on Iraq, health care, the 2-year-old recovery from Hurricane Katrina? Would you believe, investigating crooked NBA referees? … Is there any standard by which we measure the need for congressional attention to damaging scandals? Apparently it’s a low threshold when sports are involved.

That threshold got even lower yesterday with a congressional hearing into — wait for it, wait for it …OK, here’s the punchline –  ancient NFL legends who aren’t feeling well.

Let’s go right to the best part of Yeas & Nays’ coverage of the hearing:

Ditka then seemed to take issue with the whole exercise, declaring: “You people have more important things to do than what we’re doing. Fix it, and everyone will go away, including me.”
But Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., pointed out that the “baseball folks said no one should be holding hearings on steroids, either,” although those hearings became the impetus for change.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., seemed to take Ditka’s side, saying, “Most Americans would look at this and say, ‘Wow, what is Congress doing getting into this?’ ” But he went on to say he’s prepared to introduce legislation if the NFL doesn’t act.

Kerry is correct — why is Congress getting involved?  It’s gotta be an incredibly small sliver of America’s population that can call itself retired NFL players on disability.   But the need for legislation?  Perhaps Kerry might want to solve his home team Patriots’ spying problems first.  Now there’s a cause for congressional hearings.

The Washington Post asserts this today about Soviet casualties during World War II.

Of course, it can be argued that Soviet soldiers were primarily fighting to free their homeland from Nazi occupation. After fighting their way to Berlin, the Soviet Union imposed its own dictatorship over eastern Europe. Even so, Soviet sacrifices clearly contributed greatly to the liberation of western Europe from Nazi domination. Soviet soldiers died for their own country and their own tyrannical regime, but they also spilled blood on behalf of their western allies.

How to react to the Post fact-checking Stalin-era Soviets?  Here’s one way.  Quote Pete Seeger from his brand new song “The Big Joe Blues” (reported by Ron Radosh in the New York Sun):

“I’m singing about old Joe, cruel Joe.  He ruled with an iron hand / He put an end to the dreams / Of so many in every land / He had a chance to make / A brand new start for the human race / Instead he set it back / Right in the same nasty place / I got the Big Joe Blues / (Keep your mouth shut or you will die fast) / I got the Big Joe Blues / (Do this job, no questions asked) / I got the Big Joe Blues.”

From Washington Post coverage of Iraq war protesters on Capitol Hill:

Before leading the group into the building, one of the protest organizers, Medea Benjamin, a founder of the antiwar group Code Pink, approached the officer in charge, Capt. William Hanny of the U.S. Capitol Police.

“Okay, if we do anything you don’t want in there, would you give us a warning first?” she said. “We don’t want to get arrested today. We’ve got people catching planes tonight.”

And they don’t want to pay those dastardly reticketing fees!

By the way, how many carbons could be offset if they all just caravaned in Priuses?

As a former HUD staffer, I was amused to read in the Washington Post that $100,000 is being spent to speed paint portraits of the last five HUD Secretaries.

The best part:

HUD spokesman Jerry Brown says Secretary Jackson’s portrait will be hung on the wall of the new auditorium at HUD, which is still under construction, after he leaves office, “which he has no plans to do.”

According to Brown, the last HUD secretary to have an official portrait painted and hung at the agency was Samuel “Silent Sam” Pierce, whose eight-year tenure triggered a behemoth independent counsel investigation into widespread corruption at HUD — focusing on charges that the agency under Pierce’s stewardship played political favoritism in awarding contracts.

I don’t remember seeing the official portrait of Pierce.  Any chance it looks like this lasting memory?

Assuming that Michael Mukasey will be the next U.S. Attorney General, Extreme Mortman went to our resident team of diverse experts with this question: Will Mukasey be America’s highest ranking Orthodox Jewish cabinet official ever?

The happy news: Yes.  Presuming that none of these gentlemen were or are Orthodox, regardless of cabinet rank:

• Michael Chertoff (Bush’s homeland security secretary)
• Nicholas Katzenbach (Johnson’s Attorney General)
• Edward Levi (Ford’s Attorney General)
• Henry Kissinger (Nixon’s secretary of state)
• Henry Morgenthau (Roosevelt’s treasury secretary)
• Bob Rubin (Clinton’s treasury secretary)
• Mike Blumenthal (Carter’s treasury secretary)
• Arthur Goldberg (Kennedy’s labor secretary)
• Dan Glickman (Clinton’s agriculture secretary)

There are a few others.  But Mukasey stands alone.  Unless you include Judah Benjamin.  He got the Triple Crown: Attorney General, War Secretary, and Secretary of State.  For the Confederacy.

Forget Hillary Clinton’s health care plan.

Want to hear the silliest health care idea from the presidential campaign trail so far?

John Edwards:

“And to show Congress just how serious I am, on the first day of my administration, I will submit legislation that ends health care coverage for the president, all members of Congress, and all senior political appointees in both branches of government on July 20th, 2009 - unless we have passed universal health care reform.”

Wait a minute.  Cutting off health care for executive branch employees sends a serious message to Congress?  That’s not serious, that’s goofy.  By the way, if you presume that John Edwards will be the next president, you further presume that he’ll want his own staff to work without health care.  We’ll let him work out those staff-management issues on his own.  There’s a bigger issue at play: Attracting top talent to serve in the government, something we assume Edwards would want.  Political appointees already work in fear of being subpoenaed before Congress for political show trials.  Now he also wants to take away their health care?  Heck, let’s go for broke and show how punitive we can be: No political appointees can eat lunch until worldwide hunger is solved.  Take that!

Meantime, is Congress really the best venue for exhibiting how serious you are on health care?  Consider this:

Gale Sayers will join Mike Ditka in Washington on Tuesday to testify in front of the Senate Commerce committee regarding the much-maligned pension/disability benefits for aging NFL pioneers.

Ah, yes.  That broad cross section of America that falls in that category, aging NFL pioneers. There they go again, tackling the big problems of our day.  Indeed: health care for all!  Solved!  Unless, of course, Gale Sayers or Mike Ditka end up working in an Edwards Administration.