Extreme Mortman senior historian Richard Andrews send this memory:

At age 28 I was an Alternate Delegate to the Republican National Convention in Detroit, MI.  I had been on the official Reagan slate, and this was my first National Convention, so I was pretty much already on a natural high. Wandering around the lobby of the Convention headquarters hotel (the Renaissance Center, subsequently derelict for over a decade), I was approached by a well-suited man who inquired in a familiar voice as to where the College Republicans were meeting.  I suppose I goggled at him, before admitting that I did not know.

Very interesting year, 1980.

His death today sparks infinite “best-of” memories.  Here’s mine: The time he nearly punches Noam Chomsky in the face.

Washington Post:

Just as the primary campaign has gotten nasty, Hillary Clinton may need to check over her other shoulder for a coming onslaught from Republicans.

Citizens United, a conservative group headed by David Bossie, who became famous for his part in investigations of Whitewater and other matters during the Clinton administration, is preparing for the release of a feature-length documentary called “Hillary: The Movie.”

A Web site for the film promises interviews “with many of the people who personally locked horns with the Clintons,” including Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich and Kathleen Willey.

The group wants to start airing television ads for the film right away, and this morning it will announce a lawsuit it is filing against the Federal Election Commission seeking to pave the way for Citizens United to begin running the TV ads without having to run a disclaimer or disclose the name of the people whose donations help finance it.

Citizens United has hired James Bopp, the Indiana lawyer who successfully argued a recent challenge to the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.

Mmmmm … Bopp!

When a loyal Extreme Mortman reader and contributor gets sighted in the most valuable real estate in Washington — the Washington Post op-ed page — we stand up, take notice, and salute with a hearty round of mazel tov’s.
Evidence today’s Bob Novak column on “False Conservative” Mike Huckabee:

Quin Hillyer, a former Arkansas journalist writing in the conservative American Spectator, called Huckabee “a guy with a thin skin, a nasty vindictive streak.” Huckabee’s retort was to attack Hillyer’s journalistic procedures, fitting a mean-spirited image when he responds to conservative criticism.

We’d like to get mentioned in a Novak column alongside a Quin broadside.  So let’s take the first shot at Quin and see if it gets us famous, too.  Ok, here it goes: Quin Hillyer is really nice.  He’s also a great dancer.

We noted yesterday that CNN’s Democratic debate line-up was fair to three candidates, less fair to the others.  What’s in store for tonight’s Republican debate?  Check out item just now posted by The Examiner’s Yeas & Nays column:

At Sunday’s Democratic presidential debate in New Hampshire, former Sen. Mike Gravel and Rep. Dennis Kucinich were placed at the extreme left and right of the stage, respectively, leading many to wonder if the race’s fringe candidates are literally being forced to stand on the fringe of the stage.
 
Well, there may be something to that theory after all. Yeas & Nays has gotten a sneak peek at the stage positions for tonight’s Republican debate in New Hampshire: Way over on stage left? Rep. Ron Paul (polling at 1 percent). Way over on stage right? Rep. Tom Tancredo (also polling at 1 percent).

Get the whole list here.  And shhhhh, don’t tell the Ron Paul fanatics.  They’ll probably get angry.

How dumb are the folks who work for the World Bank? Check out what someone said about Paul Wolfowitz in today’s Washington Post.

According to several attendees, they were won over by his humility. “I went back and reported to my staff that I didn’t see any horns,” recalled one senior official. “He was personable, charming, intelligent, and said all the right things. None of which he lived up to.”

Of course that senior official didn’t see any horns. That’s why them clever Jews wear those beanies on their head, to hide the horns. Don’t World Bank senior officials know anything?

That cluelessness made me so upset over breakfast this morning, I choked while sipping my Christian blood.

New Media Strategies measured which Republican presidential candidate got the biggest YouTube bump from the May 15 debate in South Carolina.

We also counted the number of viewers Fred Thompson got for his video responding to Michael Moore, which was being viewed online concurrently with the GOP debate:

Here are the stats as of 2 p.m. on Wednesday, May 16:

• Fred Thompson video: 598,600 viewers (posted on Vimeo, YouTube, and Google Video)
• Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani on Iraq war and 9/11:  16,904 views from online postings
  Mitt Romney: 4,394 views from online postings
• Ron Paul: 3,273 views from online postings (including 1,450 on supporting Iraq troop withdrawal)
• John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and Mitt Romney on Terrorism and Torture: 2,621 views from online postings
• Rudy Giuliani: 532 views from online postings
• John McCain: 523 views from online postings
• Mike Huckabee:  442 views from online postings (365 for the Edwards hair joke)
• Tom Tancredo: 382 views from online postings
• Duncan Hunter: 271 views from online postings

Washington Post:

The Montgomery County Council unanimously approved a ban on partially hydrogenated oils in restaurants, supermarket bakeries and delis yesterday, becoming the first county in the nation to restrict artery-clogging trans fats.

As Rudy Giuliani might put it, I guess the bill is okay.  But if the government wants us to cut fat from our diet, perhaps we should also cut fat from the government?

What’s the latest ludicrous tax?

Would you believe the Washington, DC government will soon be taxing motorcoaches, the lifeblood for so many of the tourists who come to the Capital City and spend money here?

Turns out that’s going to happen starting Juiy 1.  We learn from busesoverdrive.com:

For each “trip permit” fee (what most folks call a tax) operators must surrender $50 per coach for each six-day period, or up to $2200 per year for each bus.   … The 2006 Motorcoach Impact Study documents that “a single tour bus on a two-night tour injects as much as $16,000 into a local economy.” That’s D.C. restaurants, hotels, vendors and other retail businesses, all of which collect sales taxes on such revenues on behalf of our nation’s capital.  So the tourism tax slapped on bus operators could result in less visitor-generated local spending, meaning a decline in tax revenues overall.

The pro-motorcoach community says, “We will fight this with every resource possible to crack D.C.’s addiction to taxes. It’s not a pipe dream.”  Indeed.  Damn taxes set us up again.

Sam Brownback is getting sacked online for telling the Wisconsin Republican Party that Peyton Manning is the “greatest quarterback, maybe, in NFL history.”  Wisconsin, of course, being Brett Favre hallowed ground.

Wisconsin is quickly developing a reputation for clipping presidential candidates.  Who amongst us cannot forget John Kerry talking about “Lambert Field”?

But the fact is, football and politics seem to share a troubled history.  (My old boss Jack Kemp excluded, of course.)

Football lore has Richard Nixon once designing a play for the George Allen-coached Redskins.  The flank against San Francisco lost 13 yards.  Far worse than Brownback’s rhetorical fumble.