Politics

A North Korean military officer briefs visitors on the Demilitarized Zone. (Ng Han Guan - AP) The House is in recess next week and that means, even in an election year, members will be required to travel in search of elusive facts.

House Foreign Relations Committee Chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) is leading one group taking off Friday for a week in Taiwan and Korea, looking at three days in Seoul and three in Taipei.

You’ll get to Taipei in time for the inaugural banquet of newly reelected President Ma Ying-jeou. There’ll be meetings with Ma and other top officials, talking about China, trade and the controversial sale of F-16s, including the new model the administration has balked at providing.

Then it’s off to Korea to meet with President Lee Myung-bak and others, visit the DMZ — great photo-ops — and talk about dealing with the lunatic North Koreans. Others tentatively going include GOP Reps. Thaddeus McCotter (Mich.), Jean Schmidt (Ohio), Dan Burton (Ind.), Jim Gerlach (Pa.) and Brad Miller (D-N.C.).

This is not a particularly Loop-recommended trip. Ros-Lethinen runs a pretty tight ship. And while spouses are going along — as well as some staff — there will be endless meetings.

A much better bet is a 10-day jaunt, also leaving Friday, led by House Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), to China, Korea and India.

Joe Lieberman announcing his retirement from the Senate. (Associated Press) Keeping an eye on the old Joe-Mentum — the campaign phrase that outgoing Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) used when he ran for vice president as a Democrat in 2000.

He’s not traveling nearly as much as he did then, but he’s on the road a lot.

When last we checked, Lieberman was heading to Israel at the end of December on a one-member congressional delegation. He and his wife, Hadassah, stopped in the Holy Land, and then he and two aides went on in a military plane, to Tunisia and Libya.

We’ve been waiting since then to see what the one-senator congressional delegation (or codel) cost taxpayers. Now we’ve got the numbers.

A high-school aged Gene Sperling should have known he was destined for a career in politics. Even back then, he delighted in dealing with other people’s dirty laundry.

In a new video for an initiative to encourage summer jobs and work opportunities for young people, the Director of the National Economic Council fondly recalls his first job — as a ball boy and all-around janitor (paging Newt Gingrich!) for the University of Michigan’s basketball team. He reveled, it seems, in the grubbier aspects of the job, including handling the players’ unmentionables.

“We got to sweep the court at half-time and at the end of every game we got to go into the locker room and throw their dirty socks and uniforms into the laundry bin,” he recalls. “We thought all of these were way cool.”

Way.

Then he launches into some TMI. “It was years later that I started to understand why my father and his friends would kind of smile when we would brag about throwing away their [the players’] sweaty, dirty underwear,” Sperling says.

Sperling goes on to advise kids that it’s not smarts that get you ahead as a young worker or an intern. Hard work impresses, he says. It’s “did you hustle, did you do everything, did you have a great attitude,” he says.

Good advice for laundresses everywhere.

“Twilight” actors Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson give vampires a good name. (Andrew Cooper - AP) Here’s what the Loop is reading this morning:

Brand X — Remember the “Contract with America”circa 1994? Or the “Pledge to America” back in 2010? Our colleague Ben Pershing ponders whether House Democrats will use a catchy slogan to “brand” the 2012 elections.

Vampires, not so bad — And speaking of branding, we’re not sure how effective it is for the Obama campaign to label Bain Capital, the private equity firm that Mitt Romney led, as a “vampire.” Thanks to the “Twilight books” and their spinoffs, when we think vampires, we’re more likely to think Robert Pattison, not Bela Lugosi.

Busting the filibuster? — A history lesson on the filibuster, courtesy of Ezra Klein: It was created almost by accident, and “between 1840 and 1900, there were 16 filibusters. Between 2009 and 2010, there were more than 130.”

Grover’s turn — Tax maven Grover Norquist has two cameos in the latest “Atlas Shrugged” film installment, our colleagues at the Reliable Source report. Don’t blink!

(Jill Torrance - GETTY IMAGES) Hurry! The White House, amid the uproar over the General Service Administration’s excessive spending at a fun gathering in 2010 in Las Vegas, has issued new guidelines to curb costs.

But don’t let that stop you from a lovely trip to the Alamo! Yes, GSA’s annual training and expo conference is starting Tuesday in historic San Antonio.

Unfortunately, this looks to be a significantly scaled-down affair, per instructions of acting GSA chief Dan Tangherlini. There was even talk of canceling altogether, we were told, but the late charges would have been prohibitive, more than $3 million. (GSA has already canceled 35 gatherings that were scheduled for the end of the year.)

About 6,000 people from various federal, state and local agencies and vendors are expected, about 1,000 fewer than last year’s expo. Of that total, while 800 GSA folks had been scheduled to go, we were told, that was cut to 357 — compared to 940 staffers who went to San Diego.

Various receptions — including an ice cream social — a band and all swag, normally paid for by vendors anyway, also were canceled.

Instead, you’ll get sessions on “acquisition, green solutions and technology,” including one NoDoz special entitled: “Demystifying the contracting process.”

The schedule also warns of boxed lunches every day. And unlike the fine times in Vegas, there’s no magician, no mind-reader, not even a lousy face-painter.

While Vegas cost $823,000 for 300 staff, this one will cost $600,000 for 357 staff. Add another $400,000 in expenses — booths, website, printed materials — and total cost to host 6,000 people for three days, is about $1 million.

Even scaled back, remember, the training sessions end at 3:45 p.m, offering plenty of time to tour the town and party on your own.

Temps will be in the mid-to-upper 80s, so dress comfortably when you go on the lovely River Walk and especially on your trip to the Alamo.