Capital Briefs

Additional Capital Briefs are now available throughout the day on HumanEventsOnline.com. )

* DID CLOONEY READ COULTER? Defending his clueless movie about Sen. Joe McCarthy in an interview with Salon.com, George Clooney reveals that some of the actors in his film questioned its suggestion that Annie Lee Moss was unfairly targeted by McCarthy. Why? They had read Ann Coulter's Treason. Said Clooney: "There were actors on the set who said, 'But Annie Lee Moss was a spy. Did you read Ann Coulter's book?'"

* GOOD TURNOUT, SLOW COUNT: The referendum on Iraq's proposed constitution produced a good turnout October 15, followed by a slow vote count, which will be followed by an audit of the results. According to Iraqi officials, about 61% of registered voters cast ballots. The turnout was higher-66%-in Salahuddin, Diyala and Nineveh provinces, which were considered the swing provinces because of their large, but not dominant, Sunni populations.

To defeat the constitution, which was widely favored by Shiites and Kurds, Iraqi Sunnis would need to have mustered a two-thirds "no" vote in at least three provinces. Early reports indicated the constitution won 90% to 99% in the Shiite provinces, while probably losing more than the necessary two-thirds to be defeated in heavily Sunni Anbar province and in Salahuddin. But Sunni leaders claimed the voting was fixed in Diyala and Nineveh provinces, according to the Associated Press, when preliminary results showed that these areas, believed to have slight Sunni majorities, voted 70% for the constitution. In response to Sunni claims and to the extraordinarily high percentage of "yes" votes in Shiite provinces, the Iraqi Election Commission announced it would examine the results, while saying there was no indication of fraud. If the returns hold up, the new Iraqi constitution will have won a resounding victory in 16 of the nation's 18 provinces.

* BORDER HAWK? Signing the Homeland Security appropriations bill last week, President Bush often sounded like Rep. Tom Tancredo (R.-Colo.), chairman of the House Immigration Reform Caucus.

"[Homeland] Secretary [Michael] Cherthoff told the Senate earlier this morning our goal is clear: to return every single illegal entrant with no exception," Bush said. Then he outlined the immigration-enforcement measures put into the bill at the insistence of border-security hawks in Congress: new Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and new detention beds to hold illegal immigrants awaiting deportation. Finally, he pitched his plan for converting illegal aliens into "guest workers" by "matching willing employers with willing workers from foreign countries on a temporary legal basis." Bottom line: Bush's next major domestic policy initiative is likely to be a push for an illegal-alien amnesty.

* MEET THE GRISWOLDS: Did Harriet Miers tell Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (R.-Pa.) she supports Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 case that, in overturning a state law prohibiting contraceptives for married couples, created a constitutional right to privacy? (See Ann Coulter's column on Page 6.)

Emerging from a meeting with Miers last Monday, Specter said: "She said she believes there's a right to privacy. She said she believes Griswold was rightly decided." Later that day, the White House denied it. "My understanding is Sen. Specter is going to correct his statement," a White House official told CNN. Well, not exactly. A follow-up statement from Specter's office said: "In their meeting this afternoon, Sen. Specter thought Ms. Harriet Miers said she agreed with Griswold v. Connecticut and there was a right to privacy in the Constitution. After Sen. Specter commented on that to the news media, Ms. Miers called him to say that he misunderstood her, and that she had not taken a position on Griswold or the privacy issue. Sen. Specter accepts Ms. Miers' statement that he misunderstood what she said." At a press conference the next day, Specter said, "I have never walked out of a room and had a disagreement as to what was said," adding that "the sooner we get into a hearing room where there's a stenographer and a public record, the better off the process is."

* NO TALK OF ROE: In his own meeting with Miers, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D.-N.Y), the most obnoxious liberal on the Judiciary Committee, brought up the column John Fund published in the Wall Street Journal last week revealing that Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht and U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade had predicted during a conference call with religious conservatives that Miers would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. (See Bob Novak's column on Page 7.)

According to Schumer, Miers told him that no one knew her views, or could speak for her, on Roe v. Wade. "I did ask counsel Miers whether she had discussed her views on floe v. Wade with either Judge Kinkeade or Judge Hecht," said Schumer. "She said that no, she had not. She said, 'No one knows my views on Roe v. Wade.' She said, 'No one could speak for me on Roe v. Wade.'"