Democratic Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy clearly would be happy if Paul G. Kirk -- a longtime Democratic Party insider and Kennedy family associate -- were named to succeed his father, the late Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

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.

Everyone in Washington loves to wave around a Congressional Budget Office estimate as unimpeachable proof of an argument.

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.

Just in time for the Jewish New Year this weekend, the Republican National Committee is dabbling in a little chutzpah.

The RNC sent out a link Tuesday to a video clip of then-President George W. Bush endorsing then-Republican Sen. Arlen Specter in 2004.

Not so long ago -- say, nine months give or take -- the RNC was Bush's political operation and Republicans would have been ecstatic to see Specter, a notorious party-bucker, stand with the GOP president on anything.

But today, Specter, who has since switched to the Democratic Party, is getting campaign help from President Obama in Philadelphia. So now, his onetime ties to Bush are an issue for the RNC.

Democrat Blanche L. Lincoln's elevation to chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee makes her the first woman -- and the first Arkansan -- to head the committee with jurisdiction over farm policy.

Tiny but very rural Vermont has been home to five Agriculture Committee chairmen, the largest number for any state since the panel's inception in 1825. The last Vermonter to hold the position, from 1987 to 1995, was Patrick J. Leahy, the Democrat who currently heads the Judiciary Committee.

Lincoln is taking the Ag Committee gavel from Democrat Tom Harkin, who was only the second senator from the farm state of Iowa to ever head the panel. Harkin shifted over to take the chairmanship of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee vacated by the Aug. 25 death of Massachusetts Democrat Edward M. Kennedy.

Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, a potentially critical moderate Democratic vote for health care legislation, is predicting that the Senate will pass health care legislation this year, but without a public option.

"The public option is only one of hundreds of issues concerned with health care reform," he told the Lakeland Ledger. "Public option means different things to different people. Some people think of it as socialized medicine, but that type is not and has not ever been considered."

Nonetheless, the former Florida insurance commissioner argued that a government option is not in the cards. "Still any public option will not pass," he said.

But he told a class at Summerlin Academy, a publicly funded institution run like a military school, that some manner of health care overhaul would become law.