Reid, Frist get a ‘Daily’ dose

Benjamin Grove and Suzanne Struglinski

Monday, Nov. 7, 2005 | 8:17 a.m.

If all the CNN and Fox News coverage of the Senate's closed session on Tuesday was not enough, Comedy Central's "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" poked fun at the press conference bickering between Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Stewart sat between one large television screen showing Frist and other Republicans complaining about the "stunt" and another screen showing an angry Reid explaining his reasoning behind the move. As Frist and Reid both used the phrase "slapped in the face" it cut to a clip of the Three Stooges slapping each other in the face.

"And that is how a bill becomes a law," Stewart said.

Designers picked

The Veterans Affairs Department awarded a $20 million contract to architectural firm RTKL/JMA Architectural Studios Joint Venture to design the new veterans hospital in Southern Nevada. Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson told Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., the news Thursday, according to a news release from Ensign's office.

Iraq vote

Reporters swarmed the Capitol on Tuesday after Reid's call for a highly rare "secret" session to discuss a year-old GOP-led investigation of how intelligence was used -- or misused -- by the White House in the run-up to the Iraq war.

Democrats have suggested that the White House exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq. One questioner asked Reid if he regretted his vote authorizing the invasion. In short, Reid said no. "We only had the information we had," Reid said.

Congress didn't know there were no weapons of mass destruction and no connection between al-Qaida and Iraq, he said.

"We now know that they had no plan for winning the peace," Reid said. "But we didn't know that at the time."

Spun

Amid the fireworks over Reid's move on Tuesday, Eric Ueland, Frist's chief of staff, spoke to reporters who massed in a thick circle around him in the hallway outside the Senate chamber.

As he laid out the Republican arguments, he turned slowly in place so all could hear. New York Times reporter Carl Hulse told the spokesman, "You're spinning!"

'Ugly' jacket

Reid, who has generally stayed off the Sunday morning talk shows this year, made two appearances last week.

Waiting in CNN's green room, he removed his jacket, the newspaper Roll Call reported. Seconds before air time, he noticed he had put on someone else's jacket, one noticeably too big -- an "ugly charcoal-gray suit," Reid told the Capitol Hill newspaper. "It really did throw off my thought processes."

Gallagher No. 7

Democrat Tom Gallagher, who launched an unsuccessful bid to unseat Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., last year, made a top 10 list featured in the The Hill newspaper this week. The list: losing candidates who spent the most money in the 2004 election. Gallagher was No. 7, spending $2.1 million to Porter's $2.6 million.