Craig Crawford's Trail Mix

Heads up TV anchors, here's how you handle Ann Coulter without a food fight. CNN's Rick Sanchez kept it civil with a bit of teasing and appeals to reason, while not backing down from his original point of view that the conservative commentator was wrong to recently tell an Arab student to ride a camel. (CNN, "Rick's List," 4/15)

In this video we look at what past nomination hearings tell us about the next one. Produced by CQ-Roll Call's Andrew Satter.

DC Decoder Archive

This video's title, "The Great Reneger," is not just any slam at President Obama. It strikes me as a thinly veiled racial slur. Am I overreaching? Produced by a self-proclaimed "Christian" family, it has attracted more than 2 million views on YouTube.

Whatever you say about the so-called tea partiers, they've proved to be adept at making news and provoking their foes.

• Tea Party Events on Tax Day
• Tea Parties Predict Smaller Crowd
• Liberal Groups Plan Counter Protest
• Tea-ing off for Tax Day
• Tea Party Crashers are Bad Idea
• R.I.P., Last Shred of Political Civility

NYT poll: "Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated" 

They're coming! Tax Day Tea Parties descend on Washington. Regardless of what anyone thinks about how this phenomenon started, who funds it or how they behave, movements like this don't come out of nowhere -- and not without consequence.

An interesting profile of tea parties in the German magazine Der Spiegel describes them as arising from a middle class that "feels robbed of its livelihood."

More pointedly, we are talking about middle-class whites. And even more particularly, white men.

Consider these stark numbers. A unique factor of this recession is how it hit white men harder than past economic turndowns. Four years ago their unemployment rate was a tolerable 3.9%. At the time of Obama's election it was still below average at 6.8%.

But during the first year of Obama's presidency white male unemployment reached a painful 10.3%.

Angry white men fueled the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994. Could they again stage a political revolt in November? One bright side for Democrats is a shrinking percentage of white men among all voters -- nearly half in 1994. Today it is just above one-third.

In other words, white men are gradually having to get used to not running the country anymore. Maybe that's what they're really mad about.

Too funny how Mitch McConnell links regulating banks to bailing out the industry. Where was the Senate Minority Leader when the financial bosses got up to $700 billion in taxpayer funds? He was for it. Now that a regulatory reform bill is on the floor to make sure that big bank chiefs can't go nuts again, the Kentucky Republican is arguing that it's another bailout. Not even Lewis Carroll could devise such an "Alice in Wonderland" scenario.

Craig and Helen Thomas Sign Books
Bethesda MD (April 18): Literary Festival
New York City (April 26): Ilili Restaurant
Washington DC (May 8, June 12): American History Museum
Events Calendar

If the unemployed could entertain lawmakers as bank chiefs do, their bailout would be done on time.

Of course, out-of-work Americans would have to treat members of Congress to the dollar menu at McDonalds, while the big wigs can afford steaks and cigars at Morton's.

Which might be why the Senate had such trouble finding $9.2 billion before unemployment benefits expired last week, while having no trouble last year budgeting up to $700 billion to bail out the financial industry.

With a loose nukes summit and the invasion of tea partiers, Washington traffic is going to be nuts this week. There's nothing like hundreds of big-wig limousines and a mass of angry pitchforkers to turn Washington into even more of a circus than usual.

To make matters worse, our regular circus -- Congress -- is back from vacation.

Personally, I'm more into the Tax Day Tea Party on Thursday. They're more visual and quotable than diplomatic double-speak. The rap on the nuclear summit is that it's all about rhetoric, producing little of substance to stop proliferation.

At least the tea party conservatives can claim results if they make a difference in November. If so, let's send them after the nuclear proliferators.

Lieberman Hawks It Up

Sen. Joe Lieberman tells Newsmax.com we should attack Iran's nuclear facilities if all else fails (and says Obama wrong to shun nuclear attack against non-nuclear states that use chemical weapons).

Even if this vacancy did offer President Obama a chance for ideological change he has never indicated much interest in dramatically shifting the Supreme Court's direction.

Consider the ever-growing short list of potential nominees to fill John Paul Stevens' seat. They are generally moderates who might not even be as liberal as Stevens. A leading contender, Solicitor General Elena Kagan, has rattled the left by voicing support for treatment of terror suspects that sounded a lot like the Bush policy.

On the campaign trail, Obama never seemed as worked up as his supporters about the court's ideology. Although in his last address to Congress he showed a little fire in blasting the recent decision favoring corporate campaign contributors.

Other SCOTUS Watch Items:

• NPR's Nina Totenberg notes that when Stevens retires it is "entirely possible that there will be no Protestant justices on the court for the first time ever."
• Was Orrin Hatch serious about touting Hillary Clinton for the job, or just making mischief?

And Now for Something Completely Different: I really enjoyed Dick Cavett's recent remembrance about interviewing John Wayne on the set of "The Shootist," my favorite of his films -- and his last.

Now that Washington finally focuses on jobs, guess what? There's no money left. After bailing out banks, boosting war spending, and expanding health care, both Democrats and Republicans are putting the brakes on job relief, despite its polling status as the issue of most concern to most Americans.

Our $12.8 trillion national debt is suddenly a big worry on Capitol Hill after months of spending in all directions.  Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad is refusing to use money left over from the fund that bailed out banks, automakers and insurers and using it for President Obama's jobs bill.

The North Dakota Democrat's opposition could scuttle the $80 billion-plus infusion of cash to build roads and schools, help local governments keep teachers on the payroll, and provide rebates for homeowners who make energy-saving investments.

Without a break in this logjam, Democrats would face voters in November's congressional races having done nothing about their constituents' biggest worry.