Outrageous Outtakes

** The most overlooked story of the week: The International Atomic Energy Agency said materials and equipment used for Iraqi nuclear energy - the "WMD- related program activities" central to the Bush administration's rational for war - have gone missing and may turn up in Europe or elsewhere in the region. How did this happen? The US government banned UN weapons inspectors from returning to Iraq after the war and failed to prevent massive looting at Iraq's main nuclear complex, home to tons of natural uranium. Now the US occupiers may have actually succeeded in turning a nonexistent nuclear threat into a real one.
** "Be afraid, be very afraid," is the unofficial motto of the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign. Now we know why. According to a new Cornell University study, Bush's approval rating rises every time the federal government issues a new terrorist warning, by an average margin of 2.75 points. "Terrorist warnings also boost support for the president on issues that are largely irrelevant to terrorism, such as handling of the economy," the study found. Clearer signs as to why Tom Ridge curiously heightened the terror alert two days after the Democratic convention.
** Nefarious Character Watch, DeLay edition: Rep. Joel Hefley, the House ethics chairman investigating Tom DeLay, is the only Republican on the committee who hasn't accepted money from the majority leader's political action committee. Bad move for him. This week he told The Hill that House Republicans have threatened him in response to the panel's three recent rebukes of DeLay, even though the committees admonishments were the lowest form of reprimand they could have given "The Hammer."
** Nefarious Character Watch, Republican dementia edition: Kentucky Republican Senator Jim Bunning has been acting awfully strange lately. This week Bunning refused to debate his opponent - Democratic state senator Daniel Mongiardo - in Lexington as scheduled, lied about needing to stay in Washington and participated from an RNC studio, where he read his opening and closing statements off a TelePrompTer. This follows weeks of bizarre behavior, including requesting a special public escort to protect him from Al-Qaeda. "There may be strangers among us," Bunning said. He need only look in the mirror.
** And finally, the cowardly FDA has buckled even to the walnut industry, New York's Newsday reported as part of an outstanding series on corporate coddling in Washington. After months of intense lobbying, the FDA inserted labeling on all walnut packaging claiming "walnut consumption reduces the risk of heart disease," despite extensive research proving otherwise. FDA chief counsel Daniel Troy - a former clerk for Robert Bork - has met with lobbyists 129 times over the past three years. His Clinton-appointed predecessor had one such meeting from 1998 -2001. That's more than a dime's worth of difference.
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