Washington Wrap

Dotty Lynch, Douglas Kiker and Steve Chaggaris of The CBS News Political Unit have the latest from the nation's capital.

The war was very much on the minds of the 1,800 delegates in Sacramento as they listened to the 2004 Democratic presidential candidates. Sens. John Edwards and Joe Lieberman (who addressed the meeting by videotape) were booed when they defended their support of military action in Iraq.

"Peace is a California value," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. According to the Los Angeles Times, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean "whipped up a cheering frenzy with antiwar remarks." Dean took a shot at Sens. John Kerry and Edwards for their votes to authorize military force in Iraq and for their failure to vote last week on the measure to ban late-term abortions.

Edwards and Kerry dealt with their controversial war votes in different ways. Edwards spun the boos as sign of character and leadership for a presidential candidate "to be willing to say directly to the faces of people who disagree with you what you believe. Kerry, who faced less hostility from the delegates (although he was heckled a bit), used his Vietnam bona fides to explain his views. "I know what it's like to fight in a war when you lose legitimacy and consent. And I believe the United States should never go to war without that legitimacy, without that consent."

The other Democrats - Sharpton, Braun and Kucinich - also gave strongly anti-war speeches. Kucinich "briefly silenced the hall — and had many shifting awkwardly in their seats — by starting his speech with an a cappella medley of patriotic songs" the LA Times reported.

Dean went on to Denver for the Colorado Democratic Jefferson-Jackson dinner, where he gave another strong anti-war speech. Former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart, who has left open the question about whether he will run again for president, joined him at the J-J. Hart described going to war as "kicking a hornets' nest" and said the U.S. is not prepared to "guard against the terrorism a war might spawn."

Sen. Lieberman faces a friendlier audience today. In Washington his Connecticut colleague, Sen. Christopher Dodd, will endorse his presidential candidacy. Dodd announced on March 3 that he himself would not be running in 2004.

Congress Readies for War: The bipartisan Congressional leadership (Republicans Frist and Hastert; Democrats Daschle and Pelosi) will go to the White House for a meeting at 5:45 p.m. Monday. At 6:15 p.m., there will be a White House meeting with the chairs and ranking members of the Armed Services, Intelligence and International Relations meeting.

And U.S. News and World Reports Washington Whispers reports that former House speaker Newt Gingrich is back in the loop "advising war planners at Central Command" and sending the White House memos on policy strategies and speechwriting.

Taking Gingrich's current work even further, former GOP presidential candidate – and current CEO of Forbes Magazine – Steve Forbes proposes that Gingrich be named to run the post-Saddam transition of Iraq.

In his column for the magazine, Forbes suggests Gingrich would be perfect for the job – a 21st century Douglas MacArthur, if you will.

"The U.S. has made clear that there will be no dictatorships in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq," Forbes writes. "To fulfill that pledge, some think we should have the equivalent of a proconsul, a governor general or something a cut above what the British euphemistically used to refer to as 'an official in residence' to oversee the transition phase to a permanent, more democratic government."

"How about Newt Gingrich as our high-commissioner-equivalent in Iraq?" suggests Forbes. "He is politically skillful. He knows history as well as anyone. … And experience has taught him how to be politically nimble, a necessity in dealing with the treacherous political and social currents over there."

Kiss Me, I'm Jewish: You have to give John Kerry credit – he finally had, in his words, "the matzoh balls" to show up at Sunday's St. Patrick's Day roast in South Boston and take his licks for his newly found Jewish heritage.

Sen. Kerry made a surprise appearance at the event after flying the red-eye back from California, where he'd been campaigning for president. The Boston Globe earlier this year hired a genealogist who determined that Kerry's grandfather was an Austrian Jew who emigrated to the United States in the early 20th Century. In the wake of that report, Kerry has been criticized for not correcting inaccurate reports over the years – many in the Globe itself – about his Irish ancestry and filing a statement in the Congressional Record about his Irishness. (Kerry staffers said that an aide inserted the comments in the record without running them by Kerry.)

Last week, Kerry said he'd be skipping the annual Southie roast, where, as predicted, he was lambasted by Massachusetts' Irish-American pols. Setting the tone for the event, State Sen. John Hart said, just before Kerry's appearance: "No matter who you are, everybody's Irish on St. Patrick's Day … Except John Kerry."

But Kerry won the crowd over by telling a series of self-depreciating jokes and even singing a parody of "If You're Irish Come Into the Parlor" entitled, "If You're Yiddish, Come into the Parlor."

Kerry also had a light-hearted take on the Bush administration's struggles in the U.N. Security Council.

"Scottish, Scots-Irish, English, Jewish, Austrian, Hungarian, Czech. I don't understand why President Bush is going to the United Nations," Kerry quipped. "Hell, I am the United Nations!"

House Speaker Thomas Finneran tells the Boston Herald that Kerry's decision to attend the roast was the right one. "I think he's completely redeemed … All of that was gone the minute he stepped through that door. The crowd adopted him."

Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, another non-Irish politician, didn't fare so well at the roast. Romney, facing a state budget deficit approaching $3 billion, started a political firestorm earlier this year when he proposed a re-organization of the state's university system that, among other things, would eliminate the system's president's office, a job that comes with a salary of $309,000. The wrinkle, however, is that the current UMass president is 69-year-old Billy Bulger, the beloved former state Senate president, son of South Boston and Massachusetts Democratic Party lion.

At the roast, Romney was given a green pin to wear that read: "I'm a friend of President Bulger" and Bulger himself sent a telegram that was read to the crowd that said: "I wish I could join you and the rest of the gang in having Mitt Romney for breakfast."

The fight over the UMass president's job has dominated the governor's first three months in office, and even Romney's fellow Republicans have questioned the wisdom of taking on Bulger and his many, many friends on Beacon Hill. "The astonishing thing here is that the Romney camp has decided to conduct its legislative program without any regard to politics whatsoever," a GOP lawmaker told The New York Times.

But, the Times reports, Romney could score points with members of his GOP core who are tired of "old-style, Irish-American politics."

Romney's spokeswoman tells The Times that the proposal to cut Bulger's job – which political observers say has little or no chance of actually happening – was not politically motivated. "The governor is doing what is right for the students of Massachusetts," said Shawn Feddeman.

Quote of the Day: "I'm not going to support these people who continue to bash our country, especially when we have folks whose lives are on the line." – One protester who brought his Dixie Chicks discs to a rally at Barksdale Air Force Base where a 33,000-pound tractor was used to crush Dixie Chicks CDs in response to lead singer Natalie Maines' anti-war comments last week that, "Just so you know, we're ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas." (AP)