The New York Times reports that former President Bill Clinton had some adoring fans in Rome this week:

Along the streets, people starting yelling "Bill, Bill, Bill," and a few shouted "U.S.A.!" One shopkeeper raced out with a photograph of Mr. Clinton on a past visit.

There was certainly a lot of affection for Mr. Clinton, who consistently got better press here during his presidency than Mr. Bush does....On Thursday, by the time Mr. Clinton made it out of the back streets and into the open square, a mob of hundreds developed. Mr. Clinton's nervous Italian bodyguards put him in a Mercedes and sped him away.

Prominent Republican consultant Arthur Finklestein has married his male partner in a civil ceremony in Massachussetts.

Arthur J. Finkelstein, a prominent Republican consultant who has directed a series of hard-edged political campaigns to elect conservatives in the United States and Israel over the last 25 years, said Friday that he had married his male partner in a civil ceremony at his home in Massachusetts.

Mr. Finkelstein, 59, who has made a practice of defeating Democrats by trying to demonize them as liberal, said in a brief interview that he had married his partner of 40 years to ensure that the couple had the same benefits available to married heterosexual couples.

"I believe that visitation rights, health care benefits and other human relationship contracts that are taken for granted by all married people should be available to partners," he said.

He's right. But what about the hypocrisy? And what will James Dobson and Jerry Falwell say?

A TalkLeft reader writes in:

Reports are surfacing that there is a connection between Rep. Tom DeLay and Brian Darling, confessed author of the Schiavo Republican Talkking Points Memo. From Campaign for America's Future:

Darling worked for the Alexander Strategy Group, a Washington-based corporate lobbying firm heavily connected to Rep. DeLay. Darling’s clients included Universal Bearing, Inc., a company owned by the Hanwha Group, which has direct ties to the foreign agent that paid for Rep. DeLay's improper trip to Korea. The Korea-U.S. Exchange Council was created to promote Hanwha Group Chairman Seung Youn Kim, according to the New York Times.

Via Blogswarm, From the October 3, 2004 Miami Herald (available on Lexis.com). It's not a real conversation, it's an imagined one by a columnist, but it shows Mel Martinez' reputation for blaming staffers for his own deeds. Read it all, it's worth it.

Then there is this editorial that appeared right after Martinez won, showing that his blaming of staff is a running joke in Florida.

"When challenged, Martinez was too eager to assign blame to his staff or to groups he said he couldn't control. As a senator, he will need an office and a staff that speaks with the measured and centrist tone he says will be his own. He can't pretend to be above it all if the people he employs are not."

The right-wing blogosphere can now wipe that egg off their keyboards....for weeks they've been pedaling conjecture that the GOP talking points memo about Terri Schiavo that Raw Story published and countless liberal blogs, us included, linked to, was a hoax.

Now, the author of the memo has 'fessed up: He's legal counsel to Florida Senator Mel Martinez. The Washington Post reports:

The legal counsel to Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) admitted yesterday that he was the author of a memo citing the political advantage to Republicans of intervening in the case of Terri Schiavo, the senator said in an interview last night. Brian Darling, a former lobbyist for the Alexander Strategy Group on gun rights and other issues, offered his resignation and it was immediately accepted, Martinez said.

America Blog has more.

Watch the right try to spin themselves out of this one. Shorter Powerline: It depends on the definition of "Republican official" and "party leader." (Sen. Martinez doesn't count because he'd only been in office three months and could hardly be described as a party leader.) And don't blame us, blame ABC and the Post. Don't you just love the way the right accepts responsibility?

by TChris

Another Republican doesn't want to follow the rules ... and so he won't. Senate rules prohibit Senators from earning outside income, but Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma obstetrician, has been delivering babies anyway when he's home on breaks from his day job as a politician. The Senate Ethics Committee told Coburn in December to stop. Coburn agreed not to take new patients, but has continued to give exams and deliver babies.

"No, I am not going to close my medical practice," Coburn, R-Okla., said Tuesday.

Coburn has threatened to cause "all sorts of mischief" if the Senate actually makes him work at his elected job "five solid days a week."

by TChris

Tom DeLay's hope that he could distract voters with Terri Schiavo was fleeting. Only the most extreme shared his desire to see the federal courts interfere with an intensely personal struggle that had already played out in state courts.

Now it's back to reality for DeLay. Despite offering "a vigorous public defense in recent weeks to a flurry of ethics accusations," DeLay and his PAC, Americans for a Republican Majority, face new scrutiny.

The wife and daughter of Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, have been paid more than $500,000 since 2001 by Mr. DeLay's political action and campaign committees, according to a detailed review of disclosure statements filed with the Federal Election Commission and separate fund-raising records in Mr. DeLay's home state, Texas.

by TChris

Those who demonize individuals who cross the border in search of jobs to feed their families tend to place no blame on the employers who provide those jobs. In addition, they tend to disregard the benefits to the U.S. economy that result from that employment, including contributions to the social security system that the president claims is in a state of crisis.

As the debate over Social Security heats up, the estimated seven million or so illegal immigrant workers in the United States are now providing the system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year.

Those contributions comprised about 10 percent of last year's surplus. The workers aren't eligible to receive benefits, so they contribute without expecting or receiving a corresponding benefit. The loss of those financial contributions would be significant, and the Social Security Administration counts on those continuing contributions when it projects the solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund.

This afternoon on the Senate floor, Senator John Cornyn gave an astounding account of the recent spate of violence against judges, suggesting that the crimes could be attributed to the fact that judges are "unaccountable" to the public. (Video here. )

SENATOR JOHN CORNYN: "I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that's been on the news and I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in - engage in violence." [Senate Floor, 4/4/05]

The Houston Chronicle reports on a new poll showing a drop in support for Texas Congressman Tom Delay.

In the Chronicle poll, conducted late last week and published Sunday, nearly 40 percent of 501 likely voters in his district said their opinion of DeLay is less favorable than last year, compared with 11 percent who said their view of him has improved.

Delay aides try to spin it, but it seems clear that Delay's self-insertion into the Terri Schiavo case hurt him badly:

New York Magazine has an long feature article on Bernie Kerik, much of it in his own words. It covers some new ground, and the details of his conversations with the White House, including Bush, Andrew Card, Alberto Gonzales and others pack a punch. Especially Bush telling him to go out and "break some china" in the job.

The Giuliani details seem somewhat bland, as if Kerik is still trying to protect his buddy, but it's a very interesting read.

The Justice Department has admitted it was wrong in interpreting wiretapped calls pertaining to a pension fraud investigation and Rev. Al Sharpton. Remember the wiretaps on Philadelphia Mayor John Street right before the election? The feds were investigating whether city contracts were bartered for campaign contributions.

Part of the investigation focused on now deceased Democratic fundraiser Ronald A. White. White's calls with Sharpton were taped. Based on the tape, the feds got an order to videotape a meeing Sharpton attended. According to today's Posts,

"The bottom line is that we thought something may have been going on with the New York pension fund that we were not accurate about," Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Zauzmer said Saturday.