No Solidarity for Envoys to Poland

It's an uphill climb."

The Hot Dogs Will Be American

Opening Day on Sunday at the spiffy new Nationals stadium heralds a new era for baseball. Common folks might be worried about getting hold of tickets. But some lobbyists around town are worried about their ability to give away their excellent tickets.

In the good old days, the lobbyists gobbled up all the best seats at sporting events -- on the 50-yard line, at midcourt or behind home plate -- and then doled them out to aides and lawmakers on the Hill or key administration officials.

But with the ever-tightening ethics rules, there's buzz that some lobby firms are wary about giving away the pricey -- $75 to $325 -- Nats tickets. And lawmakers and staffers are being warned not to take the tickets unless they pay for them -- and to keep a receipt for reimbursement.

Even worse, what with NAFTA a big election issue, it probably doesn't help that those snappy Nats tickets are printed in Canada, specifically, at Mercury Graphics in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

This is most likely a leftover situation from when the Nats were the Montreal Expos, but folks ultra-sensitive about the NAFTA debate might be unhappy about giving out a foreign-made product.

Another problem, at least for Democrats and especially for those tight with organized labor, is that there's no union logo on the tickets, which indicates these are nonunion printers.

Well, let's hope the Nats lineup will be a major draw for the fans. Might help if they added more speed or slugging. (See, for example, the Cleveland Indians lineup when they opened their new stadium in '94: All-Stars Albert Belle, Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, Sandy Alomar Jr., Omar Vizquel, Kenny Lofton . . .)

Avoid Ignition

When last we checked in on Ellen Engleman Connors, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board notorious for her poor relations with colleagues, she was heading off to Indiana to work in real estate. But she came back to Washington a while ago to be senior deputy chief in the enforcement bureau at the Federal Communications Commission.

Now she's off to Houston to be head of external relations at Johnson Space Center, bringing her back into the transportation business. Sort of.

Talking Over the Rainbow

President Bush waxed a bit nostalgic Wednesday during a roundtable with foreign print reporters as he ramped up for his trip next week to Ukraine, Romania, Croatia and Russia.

"Are they still talking about the 'rainbow speech'?" Bush asked a reporter. "Were you there [in Bucharest, Romania, in 2002] for that?"