Mon, May 12, 2008 - 3:26 PM

Sen. Jim Webb still hasn’t endorsed Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, but Webb’s GI bill was front and center on the stump with Obama today in West Virginia.

In Charleston, W. Va., Obama hammered Republican presidential nominee John McCain for opposing Webb’s bill:

“I have great respect for John McCain’s service to this country and I know he loves it dearly and honors those who serve. But he is one of the few Senators of either party who oppose this bill because he thinks it’s too generous. I couldn’t disagree more. At a time when the skyrocketing cost of tuition is pricing thousands of Americans out of a college education, we should be doing everything we can to give the men and women who have risked their lives for this country the chance to pursue the American Dream.”

Clinton has sponsored Webb’s bill as well. McCain supports a different bill introduced by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, which aims to expand educational benefits for armed service personnel who stay in the military.

--Neil H. Simon

Republicans are bringing in the big guns in Mississippi today.

Vice President Dick Cheney is going to be at a rally in Southaven to campaign for Republican Greg Davis.

Davis faces Democrat Travis Childers in a special election Tuesday for the congressional seat. The seat was vacated by Roger Wicker, who was appointed to Trent Lott’s post in the Senate.

The seat is important as Republicans struggle to keep House seats. In a radio interview last week, Cheney said the District One seat is a “very important one.”

“It's been in conservative hands for a long time and we'd hate to see the liberals gain control,” he said.

On their end, Democrats took the opportunity to take a swipe at Davis as well as Cheney’s connections to oil companies.

The state party sent a press release this morning, in which Childers criticizes Davis for bringing “Big Oil’s best friend, Dick Cheney, to North Mississippi.”

-- Amy Dominello

Mon, May 12, 2008 - 1:30 PM

In case you missed it over the weekend, a funny parody of Hillary Clinton on “Saturday Night Live.”

It’s a little long, but the send-up is pretty good.



-- Amy Dominello

WASHINGTON – GOP Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite of Brooksville went on the offensive this morning with an op-ed articled to promote her bill to give returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans greater access to college aide.

Brown-Waite’s legislation is a companion to the the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act, sponsored in the Senate by Virginia Democrat James Webb, a Marine and former Reagan administration Navy secretary.

Her column entitled “Helping the next Greatest Generation,” and was written with Arizona Democrat Harry Mitchell. Here’s how it appears in today’s editions of The Washington Times;
http://washingtontimes.com/article/20080512/EDITORIAL/110368091/1013

At issue is a bill that would pay the tuition costs of the most expensive state school for returning vets, as well as a housing and books stipend. Current education benefits are much less — about $1,100 a month.

But the Pentagon argues the improved benefits would make military retention difficult, as service members will seize on the opportunities to go to the public universities of their choice.

And presumptive GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, the sponsor of a competing Senate GI bill, agrees, as does GOP Rep. Adam Putnam of Bartow, sponsor of McCain’s competing bill in the House. They depict their competing bill as being structures to kick in additional rewards for longer service.

And the Webb-Brown-Waite bill last week hit another snag. A group of fiscally conservative Democrats, say the proposal that would cost too much and should be funded under Democrats pay-as-you-go rules.

-- Billy House