By Steve Clemons

BEFORE THE 2000 ELECTION, I MADE A SERIOUS MISTAKE. I told a number of people that I would be basically satisfied with either Al Gore or George W. Bush as president.

IN WASHINGTON POST LETTERS TODAY, PAUL S. FORBES of Fairfax, Virginia compellingly argues that Arnold Schwarzenegger painted a false picture of his youth in Austria.

. . .SO SAYETH DICK CHENEY. Remember when America was last punished? On September 13, 2001, in a public discussion between television evangelists Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, both agreed that “God gave us what we deserve.” The Washington Post‘s John F.

THE TRAGIC END TO THE SCHOOL HOSTAGE CRISIS in Beslan, a village in the North Ossetia region of Russia, was 9/11 in slow motion for many Russians.

FUGOP HAS POSTED AN INTERESTING 1987 ARTICLE ABOUT GHORBANIFAR’S early encounters with Reagan’s CIA Director, Bill Casey. The shadowy figure and friend of Michael Ledeen’s now involved in the FBI’s Pentagon/Israel spy investigation was dubbed “a fabricator” way back.

REMEMBER THE COURT-MARTIALED ARMY RESERVIST WHO REFUSED to take the military’s anthrax vaccine? It looks like the Pentagon may have more drug controversies on the way after a special report released tonight by UPI and CNN on the anti-malaria drug Lariam.

MICHAEL LEDEEN WROTE A PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF HIS ROLE in the Iran arms-for-hostages scandal in the Washington Post 17 years ago. I have posted the article here. In a back-to-the-future passage, Ledeen writes: The May (1985) discussions in Israel were with people ranging from high-level governmental officials to recent immigrants from Iran.

“THEY HAVE NO CASE,” SAID MICHAEL LEDEEN, a conservative scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a friend of Mr. Franklin.

HENRY FARRELL AND DANIEL DREZNER have posted their paper, “The Power and Politics of Blogs,” online. This was one of the two papers that I mentioned in my post yesterday about the excellent forum on politics and blogs at the American Political Science Association.

ALEXANDER HAMILTON ARGUED PASSIONATELY about the importance of public credit but always partnered with fiscal responsibility. Today, Daniel Gross, a former colleague of mine at the New America Foundation, writes in the New York Times: From the beginning of 2001 to the end of 2003, the economy added $1.