Plans to start televising sessions of the U.S. Senate June 1 have run into an embarrassing problem. The once wary senators are finally willing to go live and in color, but not enough of the elaborate television equipment required is available from American manufacturers. The most suitable stuff is made by Japanese and British firms, hardly what you`d want covering a Senate debate on trade embargoes and protectionist legislation. The Capitol architect`s office says the problem should be solved by the time the little red camera lights are supposed to go on. Perhaps Congress will have eliminated the U.S. trade deficit by then.
— — —
Even old hands in the Democratic congressional leadership are resigned to what one called the Republicans` ”60-40” chance to hold onto the Senate in this year`s elections. One source said that, despite some really ripe Republican pickings, the Democrats have failed to recruit enough ambitious young members of Congress with a thirst for the big time. ”Now we`re down to egocentric millionaires,” he said.
— — —
Few publication parties for novels are attended by the book`s central characters, but a number of the principals in former White House aide Christopher Buckley`s new satirical roman a clef, ”The White House Mess,”
showed up for a celebratory soiree hosted by legendary Clare Booth Luce at the capital`s stately Hay-Adams Hotel this week. ”Mess” has to do with the next administration–a fictional Great Plains president with a philandering former actress wife–but frenetic former vice presidential press secretary Pete Teeley found a chain-smoking character named Mike Feeley so true to his own life that he felt obliged to comment, ”This is a blatant attempt by Buckley to smear my well-known image as a choir boy”–an image not universally cherished. Buckley`s dad, conservative columnist William F. Buckley Jr., did not attend the party–possibly because he isn`t a central character in the book, possibly because ”Mess” is getting better reviews than his thrillers have, but most probably because of the legendary Luce`s cheapskate Gramm-Rudman-Hollings style eats: wine, beer and popcorn.
— — —
There`s talk that Michael Deaver, who left the White House to take up consulting (Washingtonese for influence-peddling) may ultimately peddle his influence company to a British firm. This may explain why he abandoned the discount BMW he picked up in Europe at the time of the Bitburg SS cemetery controversy and rides in a chauffeur-driven Jaguar instead. If he is interested in selling out, the sooner the better, as one Caribbean nation`s ambassador is being quoted around town as saying, ”Mike Deaver tells me he talks to the President. I read in Time magazine that he doesn`t talk to the President. What does Mike Deaver do?”
— — —
South Korea`s two main opposition parties, tired of being permanently in the opposition and emboldened by the recent civil libertarian turn of events in the Philippines, are conferring with Washington`s National Democratic Institute on ways to improve their position in South Korea`s next election, to be held just before the 1988 Seoul Olympics. In the last election, they won 49.6 percent of the vote to the ruling party`s 34 percent, but ended up with only about 25 percent of the legislative seats. The institute`s honorary chairman is Walter Mondale, who certainly has experience running against a firmly entrenched incumbent.
— — —
Chicago`s late Mayor Richard J. Daley liked to talk about putting his arms around his sons, but with Washington`s Mayor Marion Barry, it`s his wife. He told Washington Post reporter Elizabeth Kastor, ”Our personal life and sex life is fine.” Barry reportedly has ordered staffers to include a list of 10 or 15 words, such as ”competence, compassionate, effective,” in every City Hall press release. It`s not known whether ”libido” is among them.
— — —
Ireland`s prime minister, Garret FitzGerald, will be there, but his Canadian counterpart, Brian Mulroney, will be tied up with party politics in Ottawa next week and so will not arrive for his official visit to Washington in time for the big St. Patrick`s Day bash for fellow Irishman Tip O`Neill, who retires as House speaker this year. Arriving after dark, Mulroney also will miss arriving via helicopter near to the Capitol Mall reflecting pool, a tradition for foreign VIPs. He`ll have to settle for a reflecting pool departure. And, as mere prime minister, he will get only a 19-gun salute. The 21-gun show is reserved for Canada`s official head of state, who happens still to be Queen Elizabeth. Suffice it to say, the queen will not be attending O`Neill`s St. Pat`s Day dinner.
