Leahy Not About to Throw a Flag on the Patriots

Big Brother is also Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). "So, Mr. President, the Orwellian Bush administration has now slopped over into the Senate, and now the Republican leader is now becoming Orwellian himself," Reid continued, asserting that McConnell was stalling action on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act while saying he supports the bill.

The previous day, after Big Brother McConnell had the audacity to request time to review a substitute amendment to the economic stimulus package before voting on it, Reid fumed at "how shallow the statement made by my friend is."

A few minutes later, Reid apologized to McConnell. Maybe "shallow" was too much. It was "improper," Reid admitted, and he asked that his insult be stricken from the congressional record. "It's something I didn't agree with, okay?" he said to McConnell, offering his version of an apology.

Reid spokesman Jim Manley declined to comment on Reid's colorful descriptions of McConnell. But McConnell joked about Reid's descriptions, saying: "Harry and I talked at the beginning of the year about elevating the tone of the debate on the Senate floor. And you can see he's following through because he's using literary references."

If McConnell is offended, he should talk to Bush. Reid has called the president a "liar" and a "loser" and has described Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as "an embarrassment" to the Supreme Court.

Alan Greenspan hasn't exactly received love pats from Reid. Last month, the Senate leader blamed the former fed chief for the dismal economy, saying Greenspan was too busy going to "so many cocktail parties" to notice the subprime mortgage crisis.

That was tame by the majority leader's standards. Reid has also called Greenspan "a political hack."

Lowey on the Mend

Even a "minor coronary incident," as her office describes it, couldn't prevent Rep. Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y.) from casting a vote for her gal Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) on Super Tuesday.

Lowey, 70, was released yesterday from a Manhattan hospital where she was treated after collapsing at a rally for Clinton in White Plains, N.Y., on Saturday. After introducing Kerry Kennedy, the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, at the rally, Lowey collapsed. She was taken to White Plains Hospital Center by ambulance, then transferred to New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where she stayed until yesterday.

An early and vocal booster of Clinton's, Lowey couldn't quite fathom the notion of not voting in the New York primary after pouring her heart and soul into her friend's presidential campaign.

Luckily, she made the deadline for absentee voting and cast a vote for president of the United States from a hospital bed.

"It takes more than a little hospital visit to prevent Congresswoman Lowey from casting her ballot for the first female president," Lowey spokesman Matt Dennis said.

Dennis declined to elaborate on Lowey's heart condition but said she should be returning to work the week after next.

The 15,000 Club

Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) joined the most exclusive club in the Senate yesterday, casting his 15,000th roll-call vote since winning election in 1962. Inouye, 83, became just the fourth senator in chamber history to cast that many votes, along with the late Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

When Kennedy passed that historic mark last August, he wasn't even aware of it, nor were Senate leaders. This time around, Reid and McConnell rolled out the red carpet for Inouye, delivering laudatory speeches that recalled his Congressional Medal of Honor-winning service in World War II and his groundbreaking service as the first Japanese American in Congress when he joined the House in 1959.

After the speeches, Inouye -- legendarily averse to attention -- offered a mere "thank you" and yielded the floor.