Capital briefs

PRC RATTLES SABERS: With Taiwanese elections just around the corner, Red China is again trying to intimidate free Taiwan into meekly accepting reunification with the Communist giant. Last week, China released an internal document that warned that if Taiwan didn't come around to China's position"the Chinese government will be forced to adopt all drastic measures possible, including the use of force, to ... fulfill the great cause of reunification."

In 1996, China tried to influence Taiwan's last presidential election by lobbing missiles into the Taiwan Strait, but two U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups stabilized the situation when they arrived on the scene. China has never renounced using force to bring Taiwan back under Mainland control, since it considers Taiwan a breakaway province and its status an internal matter. The United States is bound to defend the island by the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, and all of the Republican presidential candidates support the Housepassed Taiwan Security Enhancement Act, which would strengthen military relations with Taiwan. The saber-rattling by Beijing may now force the Senate to consider the bill sooner than planned.

* MCCAIN'S OUTBURSTS: In both his "concession" speech after his big loss in South Carolina and in his frenetic remarks the night-before the Michigan primary, Arizona Sen. John McCain put on a public display not seen earlier in the presidential campaign of the anger and sanctimoniousness that his colleagues say have made him so unpopular in the Senate. In South Carolina, McCain, who had so ostentatiously sworn off "negative campaigning," lambasted Texas Gov. George Bush as a candidate of "pretense" who mouths an .,empty slogan of reform"and "the negative message of fear" while practicing "the defeatist tactics of exclusion." Even the liberal, pro-McCain New York Daily News referred to his "sour, petty tone."

In Michigan, once more ignoring issues in what many observers feel has become almost a cult-of-the-personality campaign, McCain likened himself to Luke Skywalker and shouted, "They're shooting at me from everywhere-Gov. Engler, Gov. Bush, all the governors, all the senators. But we're gonna kill them. Right?"

* NO VP SLOT FOR ENGLER? Since Bush is still the favorite to be the Republican presidential nominee, the big victim of the Democratic crossovers for McCain in the February 22 Michigan primary may well turn out to be GOP Gov. John Engler, who had been frequently talked of as a vice-presidential possibility for Bush. His successes with welfare reform and tax cuts in a populous state were eyed as pluses for the GOP ticket, but his failure to make good on his boast that Michigan would be an "asbestos firewall" for Bush against McCain is giving Bushies second thoughts.

Engler admits that in retrospect he should have advised the Bush forces to advertise much more widely the fact that the McCain campaign was very actively seeking Democratic support. "We could have gone right at the fact that Sen. McCain was making such an explicit pitch, reaching over to the most partisan Democrats, and therefore the least likely ever to become Republicans," he told the New York Times. But Engler advised against running such commercials, believing incorrectly that the Republican organization "could get the turnout to compensate" for the liberal Democratic crossovers.

* YOU CAN GO HOME AGAIN: So blatant was McCain in his appeal for crossovers solely for the primary that, just before the election, his campaign sent out postcards telling Democrats that "even if you vote in Tuesday's Republican primary, you can still participate in future Democratic Party political activity." - In the end, some 200,000 Democrats cast primary ballots, about 80% of them for McCain.

Accusing McCain of "renting Democrats for the night," Gov. Engler said, "John McCain isn't party-building, he's party-borrowing." Told of Engler's charge, McCain snapped, "My response to Gov. Engler is: 'Be a man."'

* NEUTRAL NANCY: Rumors on the right that former First Lady Nancy Reagan might endorse McCain for President on the eve of the March 7 California primary were put to rest last week. Jim Burns of Christian News Service reports that sources close to the former First Lady insist that under no circumstances will she endorse McCain, George W. Bush or any Republican candidate for her husband's old job.

* EDUCATION TAX RELIEF: Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R.-Miss.) caught his Democratic colleagues off -guard last week when he unexpectedly brought to the Senate floor a bill (HR 1134), sponsored by Sen. Paul Coverdell (R.-Ga.), that would allow parents to set aside up to $2,000 per child per year in tax-sheltered savings accounts that could be used to pay for public or private school expenses. Democrats, who want education to be solely their issue, predictably attacked the measure as 'tax breaks for the wealthy who send their children to private schools," in the words of Sen. Teddy Kennedy (D.-Mass.), even though the measure also applies to public school expenses.