By Al Kamen
Wednesday, March 15, 2006; A17

Some GOP eyebrows raised last week when Emily J. Reynolds , the secretary of the Senate, showed up at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in Memphis and seemed to be working to ensure a good showing for her boss, Senate Majority Leader Bill "Dr. Video" Frist (Tenn.), in a presidential straw poll.

The grumbling was that Reynolds, Frist's former deputy campaign manager and finance chairman in his 1994 Senate run and campaign chief in 2000, is now an officer of the entire Senate, a bipartisan job -- though obviously the majority leader and the majority party dictate. This was not even a Senate event, and she was favoring one senator over other likely candidates.

But is there any ethical or legal concern about Reynolds's being there? "Not to my knowledge," she said yesterday. "I took a couple of days off last week," to "be home" in Tennessee -- she and Frist are both from Nashville -- and to "see old friends."

"I volunteered," she said, "on my own time" and was "not using Senate resources."

Reynolds said she was not "directing Frist's operation" -- which included busing in all those supporters from Nashville and, with the help of contributors, paying the $150 registration fee so they could vote and ensure Frist would win the straw poll. "I helped out on odds and ends," she said, "for the event and for him."

Of course, some other members of the Senate -- presidential hopefuls John McCain (Ariz.), George Allen (Va.) and Sam Brownback (Kan.) -- probably could have used more of her help.

Longtime Loop favorite and broadcaster Pat Robertson is coming through for us again, spicing up his "700 Club" television show Monday by saying things such as "the goal of Islam . . . is world domination," and Islam "is not a religion of peace."

Robertson, after watching a "very insightful report" on radical Islam and the reactions in Europe to the cartoon depictions of the prophet Muhammad , said: "The fact that this elicited this incredible outpouring of rage just shows the kind of people we're dealing with. These people are crazed fanatics, and I want to say it now: I believe it's motivated by demonic power, it is satanic and it's time we recognize what we're dealing with."

". . . [T]he goal of Islam, ladies and gentlemen, whether you like it or not, is world domination," he continued. "That's their goal. And why don't we wake up to the fact who we're dealing with? And by the way, Islam is not a religion of peace."

The Robertson commentary has been removed from the TV show's Web site. Lauren Smith , who monitors the 700 Club each day for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, had the transcript.

Angell Watts , spokeswoman for Robertson's network, told the Associated Press the comments were expunged from the Web site because they might be misinterpreted.

When we e-mailed Watts to ask why they were censoring Robertson, she wrote back: "We did not censor Pat's comments. We sent out the attached statement with Dr. Robertson's comments in their full context." (But the commentary is still not on the Web site, only in the press statement.)

The remarks are vintage Robertson. Back in 2002, he said Islam "is not a peaceful religion" and that it wants to "control, dominate and then . . . destroy." Then there was his suggestion that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez should be assassinated and that former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon 's stroke occurred because he pulled Israel out of Gaza. Robertson promised after that to be more careful, but he's just irrepressible.

Watts told the AP it was "very clear" that he was talking "about radical Islam." Maybe not crystal clear.

Barry W. Lynn , Americans United executive director, said taking the comments off the Web site was too little, too late, because "millions of viewers had already heard them."

Hey, how about a little credit for trying?

Australians wondered why President Bush left the U.S. Embassy in Canberra vacant for more than a year. Worry no more. Bush has tapped Atlanta lawyer Robert D. McCallum Jr ., now an associate attorney general and before that head of the Justice Department's Civil Division, to fill the job. The move, on the eve of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice 's visit today to a staunch coalition of the willing member, likely will undercut criticism that Washington doesn't care about the folks Down Under.

At the White House, Blain Rethmeier , a former Justice Department aide who has been Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter 's top flack on the committee staff while Specter handled two Supreme Court nominations, is joining the Bush communications shop next week to handle messaging on the economy and homeland security.