OMG, DHS! ASICs and OTMs!

By Al Kamen
Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The illegal immigration issue seems to have quieted some on the presidential campaign trail. But Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) tried valiantly to highlight the problem at a House Homeland Security Committee markup of a bill designed to protect the country from chemical attack.

"This is a national security problem," Broun told the lawmakers. "I'm told by people who are involved in helping just monitor the border that roughly 40 percent of the people that are intercepted crossing our border are not Mexicans."

(Actually, the official stats for FY 2007 show slightly less than 7 percent are OTMs, or "Other than Mexicans." The ASICs, or "Aliens from Special Interest Countries" -- most anywhere in the Middle East and a chunk of South Asia -- totaled 297. That's three-hundredths of 1 percent. Still, it's not zero, so let's continue.)

"Some of these people that are coming across the border are from other Central and South American countries," Broun said. "But there is quite a large number of people that are coming across the border that are of Middle Eastern origin as well as Asian origin. A lot of these are single; they have no families. I don't think they're coming here to cut our grass or work in our chicken plants. So I think it is an extremely important issue that we must solve."

Barbour's Old Firm Goes Bipartisan

Veteran Republicans obviously don't anticipate taking the House or Senate any time soon -- even if the Democrats complete their effort to give the White House to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). So the 16-year-old lobbying firm that used to be called Barbour Griffith and Rogers -- that's Barbour as in Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Miss.) -- has hired its first Democrat, Michael Meehan, the former communications adviser for Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.).

Meehan, most recently chief of staff for Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), will be president of the firm's new public relations division, BGR Public Relations, and vice president of the overall firm BGR Holding LLC.

Meehan will literally sit in the office once occupied by Barbour, who co-founded the firm. "It's the sign of the second coming," the firm's chairman, Ed Rogers, told our colleague Jeff Birnbaum, referring to the second coming of the once-all-Republican firm.

There will be more hiring of Democrats at the firm, something it has been contemplating since Black Tuesday -- a.k.a. Election Day 2006, when Democrats won control of Congress -- and Meehan will be in charge of the hiring, Rogers said. Meehan "will build out both the public relations firm and the Democratic component of BGR."

Get those r¿sum¿s updated!

Schieffer Can't Stick to His Gun

CBS "Face the Nation" host Bob Schieffer was a natural to play a cowboy at the media's Gridiron Club dinner on Saturday night. The Texas-born Schieffer had his own cowboy hat and a "hand-tooled belt I made in high-school leather shop with my name on it," he said yesterday, proudly noting "I can still wear it," 53 years later.

Schieffer added a leather holster and plastic silver six-gun to the outfit and said he was getting ready for the finale when word came backstage not to do a big flourish at the end as if the show were over, because President Bush was going to come up on the stage and sing.

Then someone, apparently Secret Service, approached and said: "Bob, I'm sorry, I'm going to have to take the gun." Schieffer protested that the weapon was plastic, but to no avail. Seems you may be famous, your brother may be a close Bush pal and twice-appointed ambassador (to Australia and now Japan). But you're still assumed to be a threat.

And what, in retrospect, of the real guest of honor that evening, New York's presumptive former governor, Eliot Spitzer (D)?

"He was seated right below the speaker's podium," Schieffer recalled, "and came up to me and said, 'Bob, how are you?' and I said, 'How are you, Governor?' and we chatted for a minute."

Reporters have been buzzing about how Spitzer, though already apprised Friday by the FBI that he had been implicated as love "Client-9," in the court filing, seemed in great humor as he energetically worked the crowd.

Schieffer recalled running into him again after the show and thanking him for coming. "He said he had a great time."

As they say, denial is not just a river in Egypt.

The Intimidation Factor

No question but what the Clinton campaign's full-throttle media-bashing effort has worked magnificently. As far as we know, not one single non-New York newspaper -- even those far away from New York, where readers had never heard of Spitzer -- used the most obvious headline for his legal dilemma: "Clinton Superdelegate Linked to Sex Ring."

Illinois Voters Want Representation?

Republicans were chagrined over the weekend when Democrats captured the Illinois congressional seat held for 21 years by former GOP House speaker J. Dennis Hastert. (Hastert called it quits in November, 10 months after the Democrats took over the House.) Worse, the Democratic candidate won by a comfortable 52 to 48 margin, in a district President Bush won easily in 2004.

But there's some inkling that Illinois Republicans were a bit rattled even before Saturday's loss. We got this fundraising letter five days before the election from Rep. Mark Kirk, whose district includes upscale Winnetka.

"Despite my record of achievement, outside organizations are trying to defeat me," Kirk wrote. "With their support, my 2006 opponent is back with funding from big government unions, the trial lawyers and MoveOn.org. These groups want to represent you in Congress, not me."

Hughes Gets Battle-Ready

Former top White House aide Karen P. Hughes, a veteran of the Texas governor's office and the Bush inner sanctum and a high-level diplomat with substantial -- if somewhat inauspicious -- foreign affairs experience, looks to be burnishing her commander-in-chief-on-Day-One credentials. (Isn't everyone?)

Bush yesterday announced he was going to appoint her as a member of the board of visitors to the United States Military Academy at West Point, for a term that ends Dec. 30, 2010. (Hughes comes from a military family.)