Passing the hat for Libby
The legal defense fund for I. Lewis ''Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's ousted chief of staff, unofficially kicked off on the October morning of his perjury indictment. That's when Richard Carlson -- former US ambassador, one-time president of the Corporation of Public Broadcasting, and bow-tied father of bow-tied television pundit Tucker Carlson -- sent a courier with a check to Libby's Virginia home.
''He spent years in government service," the elder Carlson says of his friend Libby, who resigned from Cheney's office after being charged with obstructing a special prosecutor's investigation into the leak of a CIA agent's name. Libby, he added, ''hasn't made a lot of dough."
Since his indictment, Libby supporters have collected $2 million for his legal bills. That may sound substantial, but special prosecutor cases are notoriously expensive to defend: According to published reports, friends of President Clinton had to come up with $8 million to pay his lawyers, while supporters of Oliver North -- the retired Marine officer at the center of the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan administratrion -- raised $13 million for his legal bills.
Last week, Libby's supporters began passing the hat online through a new website: www.scooterlibby.com. Donors can whip out a credit card and kick in up to $10,000 to support a man whom detractors call a perjurer and allies label an unsung hero.
Lobbyist and former Justice Department spokeswoman Barbara Comstock, who together with Cheney adviser Mary Matalin is promoting Libby's cause, won't say how much money they intend to raise, and they aren't required to disclose donors. But, ''we know his case is going to cost millions," Comstock said.
Florida real estate mogul and ambassador to Italy Mel Sembler (who, combined with his wife Betty, contributed $50,000 to the Republican National Committee in December alone) is chairing the defense fund. Former presidential candidates Steve Forbes and Jack Kemp also are on board, as are former senators Alan Simpson of Wyoming and Fred Thompson of Tennessee. And because Libby is considered a leading light within the spread-democracy-abroad crowd, the fund has attracted such prominent neoconservaties as former CIA director R. James Woolsey, former UN ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick and former energy secretary Spencer Abraham.
Academics Francis Fukuyama of Johns Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies and Princeton historian and Islam scholar Bernard Lewis also lent their names to the fund.
There's even a bipartisan touch: Dennis B. Ross, Clinton's Middle East envoy, has joined in.
When not working on his defense, Libby attends to his new post at the Hudson Institute, where he is billed as a senior adviser ''focusing on issues relating to the War on Terror and the future of Asia."
A model donation
Fund-raising for IMPEACH PAC, a group that wants to impeach both Bush and Cheney for ''their Iraq lies" is not quite as brisk. FEC filings show it raised $58,951 in 2005, and close to $12,000 in January. But the researchers at Political MoneyLine have discovered a small bit of star power behind the effort: supermodel Christy Brinkley donated $250.
Get out (unmarried) women's vote
There has long been a huge gap in voting rates between married and unmarried women, and experts offer up a host of reasons why about 20 million unmarried women stay away from the polls each election season: They're too busy scrambling for the next (slim) paycheck. They aren't as connected to community structures, such as churches, that encourage civic engagement. They change addresses more often than other voters.
But a new study, sponsored by the group Women Voices Women Vote, adds a more basic cause to the mix: female insecurity. Women in general know less about politics and public affairs than men, says pollster Anna Greenberg. But the study released last week shows that unmarried women, especially, feel they aren't informed enough to vote.
''Men don't have as many doubts about themselves and their knowledge," notes Greenberg. Women take the act of voting so seriously, she adds, that they feel ''it's almost an irresponsible act" to go to the polls without knowing the issues. (Greenberg, by the way, notes that men who vote strictly along party lines -- whether Democrat or Republican -- typically don't know much about the issues either, but that doesn't stop them.) Unmarried men vote less often than unmarried women, but that's mostly because of apathy, not insecurity, she notes.
Political insecurity among women runs deep: Pollsters have long noted that they're more likely than men to answer ''I don't know" to their questions. Men, they say, prefer not to admit ignorance.
Married women vote more often, Greenberg said, because they have the confidence that comes from information -- which they are more likely to get from husbands and the community ties that typically come with having a family.
If Democrats find a way to lure unmarried women to the polls, it would be bad news for President Bush and the GOP: single women are ''deeply hostile to the war in Iraq," the survey found. 