Would GOP Go to India for Votes?

Ka-Boom! The National Republican Congressional Committee immediately put out an attack news release headlined: "Herseth's first vote puts politics ahead of people." What's more it's a flip-flop of her pledge just the day before "to put partisan politics aside," the NRCC said.

She's only 33, but the Republicans say her memory's already shot. She "forgot who elected her, and she's only been in Congress for a few hours," NRCC communications chief Carl Forti said. She's "more concerned with appeasing . . . liberals."

Man, these guys are good. A perpetual-motion attack machine. Only five months to go to the next election.

Homeland Security Puts Notch in Belt

Congress cobbled the Department of Homeland Security from a number of agencies but never bothered to rework its oversight activities: some 88 congressional committees with jurisdiction over pieces of the new organization.

Yesterday marked a historic moment for DHS: It had its 100th hearing of this year. DHS Assistant Secretary for Science and Technology Penrose C. Albright carried the honor as the witness before the House Select Committee on Homeland Security.

Given that Congress really didn't get rolling until February, and subtracting recesses, that puts DHS officials on the Hill on a lot of Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

So let's have a big Happy 100th for the DHS.

It's All Right for Ike to Have a 'Crusade'

Let it not be said that Bush and his team don't learn from past mistakes -- not that they've ever made any. Bush took a lot of heat shortly after 9/11 when he talked about a "crusade" against terrorism. Folks in the Arab world took umbrage.

So Wednesday, Bush, at the Air Force Academy commencement in Colorado Springs, compared the war on terrorism to World War II and quoted President Dwight D. Eisenhower's words to the troops just before D-Day.

" 'Soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force,' " Bush quoted then-Gen. Eisenhower as saying. " 'The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.' "

Bush cut Ike's line: "You are about to embark upon the great crusade, toward which we have striven these many months."