In a broader interview with my colleagues Phil Mattingly and Benton Ives, Frank offered this assessment of how DeLay and other GOP leaders tiptoed around giving Paul -- who wants to abolish the Fed -- the gavel of the subcommittee with jurisdiction over it:

"In 2003, Ron Paul was in line to be chairman of the Domestic Monetary Policy Subcommittee of this committee. Specifically and solely to frustrate Ron from being the chairman, they merged the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy with the Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy. Ron Paul then complained to Tom DeLay, and Tom DeLay told [then-Chairman Mike] Oxley [R-Ohio] 'Don't change it' ... [T]wo years later, even though they merged the two subcommittees in the progression, Ron was then again ready to be chairman, this time of the combined one. [Then-Rep. Deborah] Pryce [R-Ohio] was dragooned to come back and assert a subcommittee chairmanship ... Ron at that point said to me, 'I guess I have to wait for you to be chairman for me to have any authority around here.' The Republican Party was a staunch defender of the Fed against Ron Paul."

But Kennedy, who represents a Rhode Island district in Congress, declined to comment on reports that he and his brother, investment banker Ted Kennedy Jr., had recommended that Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick appoint Kirk to the seat on an interim basis until a special election is held Jan. 19.

"Paul was my dad's most loyal guy," Kennedy said in a brief interview outside the House chamber on Wednesday afternoon. "My dad thought the world of Paul. I think the world of Paul."

Kirk is a former aide to Sen. Kennedy and a former Democratic National Committee chairman. He acted as the senator's attorney and is chairman of the board of directors of the John F. Kennedy Library.

Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said yesterday that he will reach out to the Virginia Republican, who has said the two parties agree on 80 percent of a health care overhaul.

"I'm going to reach out to a number of Republicans in the next day," Hoyer told reporters. "I want to find out what that 80 percent is, because if we have 80 percent we ought to work on the other 20 percent."

But a few hours later the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which orchestrates the party's national House campaign strategy, circulated an item from the liberal Website thinkprogress slamming Cantor.

General debate in the session opens Wednesday in New York.

One lawmaker from each party in the House is selected in odd-numbered years and one from each party in the Senate gets the nod in even-numbered years. Delahunt, who was recommended by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, served in the same capacity in 2007. Texas Republican Ted Poe was Delahunt's counterpart that year.

Delahunt chairs the House Foreign Relations Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight, which has jurisdiction over American involvement with the U.N.

Pickering, like Vitter, is a conservative Christian Republican accused of having an extramarital affair linked to the "C Street" townhouse in Southeast Washington that is at the center of a spate of GOP sex scandals.

Pickering's otherwise dormant CHIP PAC made its first donation of the year to Haley's PAC on Aug. 15 -- four days after the governor gave to Vitter's 2010 re-election campaign -- according to a Sept. 20 filing with the Federal Election Commission. The two checks comprise all of the month's activities for Haley's PAC, which has just $13,281.37 in the bank and has made only one other contribution this year.

Is it just a coincidence?

"I doubt I will re-enter the political arena as an office-seeker, but I will use my experience and my voice to help others, to rally for economic sanity, to bring about real reforms on a local, state and even national level," Foley told Javier Manjarres according to the transcript of an interview published on the subscription-only part of the Web site of the Conservative Republican Alliance in Florida.

Manjarres interviewed Foley at the West Palm Beach restaurant Pistache last week after a fundraiser for Marco Rubio (Rush Limbaugh was there, too). He told Notepad his impression is that Foley is leaving his options open.

But, as White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday morning, it's nothing new.

Long before President Obama sent word to New York Gov. David A. Paterson that he shouldn't run for re-election in 2010, President George W. Bush and his advisers threw elbows in every corner of the political ring.

For every Paterson whose work is no longer deemed helpful by Obama, there's an ex-Sen. Robert C. Smith who believes Bush broke a promise to back him over primary challenger John E. Sununu in 2002.

So does someone working in the Obama administration.

The New York Times reported this weekend that President Obama had send an emissary to New York Gov. David A. Paterson to ask him not to run in the 2010 election. Paterson, the former lieutenant governor who took over from resigned Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer in March 2008, has approval ratings that are near rock bottom.

And the story included this trip-down-memory-lane nugget:

"Is there concern about the situation in New York? Absolutely," the second administration official said Saturday evening. "Has that concern been conveyed to the governor? Yes.

The faces and issues change, but media strategies are timeless.

The measure would deny all forms of federal funding to any organization that has made a fraudulent filing with either a federal or state regulatory agency. Rather than focusing solely on ACORN, an umbrella group for a variety of community organizations, the legislation instead could affect a wide range of corporations and nonprofits, from defense contractors and drug companies, to financial institutions and charities. The affected organization may not even have to have been convicted in a court.

While Republican aides were aware of the scope of the provision, it's not clear that many members of either party knew they were voting for such a broad policy in adding the "Defund ACORN Act" to a student loan bill.

"This amendment is more than just a mechanism to de-fund ACORN, it's a clear declaration that misuse of taxpayer dollars will no longer be tolerated," said Kurt Bardella, spokesman for Republicans on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The Republican-written amendment exceeded the jurisdiction of the committee that wrote the bill and had nothing to do with the legislation at hand, giving ample opportunity for any Democrat to raise a point of order against it because it was not germane to the underlying student-loan bill.

Some Republicans expected Democrats to object and kill the "motion to recommit" that triggered the amendment. But none did. Instead, the whole House voted, 345-75, to prevent the beleaguered catchall community-organizing outfit from getting federal funding.

So even the 75 Democrats who voted with ACORN already had silently assented to the federal-funding ban. After these videos surfaced, it's not hard to understand why.

That's been as much the case with the health care bills moving through the Congress as any legislation in recent memory, with CBO releases on the House's HR 3200 and the Finance Committee's new draft legislation serving as gospel for Republicans, Democrats, conservative and liberal pundits, and journalists -- even this blogger -- alike.

But the secret of the scores is this: So far, they're not based on CBO's own independent analysis.

"The estimated impact of the provisions related to health insurance coverage is based on specifications provided by the committee staff, rather than on a detailed analysis of the legislative language," CBO wrote in its "preliminary analysis" of HR 3200 on July 17.

"There are several reasons why the preliminary analysis that is provided in this letter and its attachments does not constitute a comprehensive cost estimate for the proposal," the agency wrote on Wednesday in its analysis of the Senate Finance Committee's draft.

Perhaps it's not surprising that a conference sponsored by such groups as the political action arms of the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family -- whose parent organizations advocate for the Christianizing of American life -- would not generally be filled with Jews, many of whom are Democrats and very few of whom see the United States as "a Christian nation."

But Values Voters, which has drawn Jewish speakers in the past, can't possibly help its outreach efforts by scheduling its major conference during one of the holiest times on the Jewish calendar.

The results of its 2012 GOP presidential primary straw poll are due to be released at 3:15 p.m. on Saturday, smack dab in the middle of Rosh Hashanah. Though Cantor is the second-ranking House Republican and was, on occasion, mentioned as a VP candidate in 2008, he is not among the nine candidates listed in the straw poll.

A spokeswoman for the Family Research Council said she would check into the decision to hold the conference this weekend, but she never called back.

"We oppose any increase in U.S. troops in Afghanistan, especially in light of the fact that there is no exit strategy," said McGovern, who is still circulating the letter for signatures.

The top American official in Iraq, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is expected to make an official request for more troops soon.

North Carolina Rep. Walter B. Jones, a one-time supporter of the Iraq War who became its most fierce GOP critic in Congress, is signing on to the McGovern letter, ensuring it has support in both parties.

"The president needs to slow down," said Jones, who represents the Marine base Camp Lejeune. "We're going to be more demanding of 'What are we trying to achieve?' because our troops are worn out."

The provision appears aimed, like the motor voter law is with registering to vote, at using the necessary evil of a trip to the DMV to facilitate the purchase of health insurance.

Could it also boost the number of voters -- filling out two forms while waiting in line isn't much harder than filling out one -- at a time when voter registration at DMVs appears to have fallen off?

Hoping to hear soon on that from the League of Women Voters.

For Sen. Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, the answer is bag 'em up, walk them to a receptacle on Capitol Hill and make a quiet, anonymous donation to unknown recipients.

A spy tells us Collins dropped off her clothing on Sept. 13 in a bin managed by The Clothing Recycling Company, which collects and sorts clothes to distribute to other charities that deliver them to needy folks.

Call it social justice, Senate style.