WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- Capital Comment -- Daily news notes, political rumors, and important events that shape politics and public policy in Washington and the world from United Press International.
Life. It has its advantages...
Pollster John Zogby's post-election survey of actual voters shows that 41 percent of voters said the abortion issue affected how they voted in the nine closely contested U.S. Senate races where the Republican opposed abortion rights and ran against a Democrat who supported them. The survey of 5,408 voters found that the "pro-life advantage" for U.S. Senate candidates was 7 percent and that, for candidates in general, it was 12 percent.
Among those who said that abortion affected their vote, 55 percent of those polled voted "for the pro-life Republican Senate candidate" -- 23 percent of all voters -- while the "pro-abortion Democratic Senate candidate" got only 39 percent of the vote representing 16 percent of all voters.
What's in a name?
The U.S. Navy's next Nimitz-class aircraft carrier will be named for the only president of the United States ever to have been a naval aviator. At 1,092 feet in length and 97,000 tons, Nimitz-class aircraft carriers are the largest warships in the world. They have a flight deck of 4.5 acres and carry an air wing of approximately 75 aircraft and can travel at speeds in excess of 30 knots.
On Monday, Secretary of the Navy Gordon England announced that CNN-77, at present under construction at the Northrop Grumman Newport News shipyard, will be designated the U.S.S. George H. W. Bush, which is expected to join the fleet in 2009.
The youngest pilot in the Navy, former President Bush flew an Avenger Torpedo Bomber in combat from the carrier USS San Jacinto. During an attack on enemy installations near Chichi Jima in September 1944, his plane was hit by enemy fire while making a bombing run. Although the plane was on fire and heavily damaged, he completed a strafing run on the target before bailing out of the doomed aircraft. Bush parachuted into the sea and was soon rescued by a Navy submarine, the USS Finback. Tragically, his two-crew members were killed. During his Navy service in the Pacific during World War II, he earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and three Air Medals. Sen. John Warner, R-Va., and a former secretary of the navy and the former president joined England at the ceremony held in the Pentagon.
Another tribute...
The U. S. Capitol Historical Society feted retiring U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., in honor of his unprecedented years of service in congress at a luncheon Monday. The 100-year-old Thurmond is both the oldest and the longest-serving member of the Senate. The luncheon is one in a series of tributes for the retiring centenarian, who was first appointed to the senate in 1954. Elected as a write-in candidate that same year, Thurmond resigned his seat to fulfill a promise he made to the voters and was again elected as a Democrat in November 1956 to fill the vacancy caused by his own resignation and took the oath of office on Nov. 7, 1956.
In 1964, Thurmond changed parties and became a Republican, serving as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and of the Armed Services Committee as well as the Senate's president pro tempore, making him third in the line of succession behind the vice-president and the speaker of the house.
Another headache...
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, civil rights leader and two-time Democrat candidate for president of the United States, is calling on incoming Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., to step down because of comments he made at a 100th birthday tribute to retiring Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-N.C.
"I want to say this about my state," Lott said at last week's birthday party. "When Strom Thurmond ran for president, (Mississippi) voted for him. ... We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either." Thurmond, who was then the Democrat governor of South Carolina, ran for president in 1948 as the candidate of the breakaway Dixiecrat Party on a platform of opposition to forced integration.
"Trent Lott must step down," Jackson said in a statement. "He is supposed to be Senate majority leader for all Americans, but he once again has shown he is interested only in Confederates." Through a spokesman Lott has said his comments "were not an endorsement of (Thurmond's) positions of over 50 years ago, but of the man and his life."
In memoriam...
The life of Jim Chapin, United Press International political analyst and commentator, will be celebrated at a memorial service at New York's Cooper Union on Dec. 11. The ceremony, which begins at 6 p.m. and will be held in the Union's Great Hall, will pay tribute to Chapin's many accomplishments over his all-too-short life.
Personnel notes...
Colorado Gov. Bill Owens, fresh off his overwhelming re-election in November, is the new head of the Republican Governor's Association ... Rebecca Hagelin, formerly of WorldNetDaily.com, has taken over as vice president for communications and marketing at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington. Hagelin replaces Herb Berkowitz, who has retired after 25 years in the post.
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