On my way home from a vacation up north, I flipped on C-Span radio for much of the Jersey Turnpike. The station replays the morning chat shows. Since I am addicted to the presidential race, I just had to listen to George Will and Brit Hume, etc. I’d listen. Then scream. I’d listen. Then Scream. All through Jersey. It was fun.

News had already broke that MSNBC was ditching its fiery brand names (Olbermann and Matthews) because of the view that they might be too liberal. This is an interesting turn of events for the schizophrenic network (tonight is the debut of liberal talker Rachel Maddow’s show) Olbermann and Matthews had sparred with each other on the air and Olbermann had taken a jab at Joe Scarborough. Jon Stewart compared the antics to The Lord of the Flies.

What was Olbermann’s REAL alleged screwup? Going after the Republicans for using graphic 9/11 footage as a prop during its convention. And going after his own network for airing the video. You can read/watch Olbermann’s critique here.

Meanwhile, the chat shows had peppered the McCain campaign about when Sarah Palin would finally sit down for an interview. Yesterday we learned that the McCain campaign awarded the Palin interview to ABC’s news anchor Charles Gibson. I’m sure I will watch it. But I can’t help but think the obvious thought: Gibson is no Russert.

What does Palin need? What do we need? Russert. It would have been awesome to see Russert post up old, pre-convention Palin stances on earmarks, the “Bridge to Nowhere,” Polar Bears, Creationism, and Iraq. Is she really George Bush in lipstick? Russert would not only find out, his findings would stick.

Palin would have to answer all the questions about flip-flops, earmarks and that bridge to nowhere. She would have to prove her readiness. And no Republican would be able to accuse Russert of bias. I doubt Gibson’s interview will change many minds or bring about an accurate portrait of Palin. Say what you will about Russert, his interview would have meant something.

From Audrey Hudson of the Washington Times comes this story about how American Airlines is charging $100 bag fees to soldiers that the company’s planes are transporting to Iraq.

Apparently it’s on the soldiers to fill out the paperwork once they’re on the ground in a war zone to get reimbursed for this travel expense. In other words, exactly the sort of thing we want our troops worrying about in Iraq–if stuff like this continues, perhaps we’ll have a new form of PTSD, pre-traumatic stress disorder.

Of course, no story of this sort is complete without a preposterous statement from a corporate suit. And here it is:

“Because the soldiers don’t pay a dime, our waiver of the fees amounts to a discount to the military, not a discount to soldiers,” said Tim Wagner, spokesman for American Airlines. “Soldiers should not have to pay a penny of it.”

Assistance with translation is welcome.

After more than 30 years of working in the Defense Department, the last five spent at the Pentagon dealing with issues related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Judy Kopff is taking more seriously her job as a clown.

Her last day at the office of the Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Logistics & Materiel Readiness - Program Support) was yesterday. In her farewell note to colleagues, she writes: “I now plan to become a full-time volunteer clown and spend time during the week doing what I’ve had time to do only on weekends for the past few years: bringing smiles to the faces of children and children-at-heart.”

Kopff, who has brought her act, along with her husband, to NIH Children’s Inn, Children’s Hospital, Georgetown Hospital’s pediatric ward, and INOVA Fairfax’s pediatric ward, among other places, now plans to spend the bulk of her clown time at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. At Walter Reed, she feels a connection to the wounded vets and their families: the people her former job, in some way, affected.

She’s careful with the balloons around some, though. They pop. “So you can imagine the trauma that could bring up, especially if you’re a patient just back from Iraq or Afghanistan. So we’re careful. We ask. Or we just do magic tricks,” she says.

Sometimes she’ll ask patients what other VIPs, besides her, have visited. Some say the Secretary of Defense. “Oh, he’s my boss,” she’ll say. “But, to be honest, they’re more impressed with the Redskins cheerleaders.”

No matter. Kopff, 61, still plans to go often, driving from her Cleveland Park house to Mologne House on the grounds of Walter Reed, where she arrives in her getup, complete with a 3-foot baloon hat she gives away at each visit and clown shoes dating from the 1950s. She doesn’t wear face paint, since “some children and, really some adults, are afraid of a clown with face paint.”

The kids at Walter Reed, most of whom are dependents of the soldiers, “love it.” The parents welcome the distraction. Soldiers alone in a room will get the full clown treatment if they’re up for it. “There was this one guy, very handsome, probably in his mid-20s, about 6-5, in a wheelchair and missing a leg. He was outside smoking with his mom and yelled to me: ‘Hello, Clown. If you ever want to get rid of those shoes, I’m a size 16….I can take one of them.’ So they make me laugh sometimes.”

Kopff does more than clown for the vets. Since last December, she’s been collecting music and movies for them. She and her husband are no longer accepting VHS tapes (”my husband said, ‘Enough, already’”), but they will take any DVDs, DVD players, or CDs and donate them either to Walter Reed or the the D.C. VA Medical Center. She keeps a big box on her front porch on Newark Street NW as a dropoff. Got media you’d like to pile in? E-mail Judy: jkopff[at]aol[dot]com. Maybe if you’re nice, she’ll make you a poodle.

John McCain on the U.S. invasion of Iraq: “We were greeted as liberators. We mishandled the war for nearly four years. We mishandled it in a way that was so harmful that I stood up against it.”**

Nevermind that it took McCain a really, really long time to stand up against the Iraq War strategy. He may have even hedged his bets on supporting the surge.

But were we really greeted as liberators?

**McCain quote taken from an interview he did that aired today on “This Week…” McCain also oddly invokes the Oil-For-Food scandal as part of a laundry list of reasons we invaded Iraq. I hadn’t heard that reason.

Rev. Lennox Yearwood thinks the D.C. Attorney General has it out for him. It all began last year, when Yearwood was charged with assaulting a police officer and disorderly conduct after trying to get into a September 2007 hearing featuring testimony from General David Petraeus. The assault charge was soon dropped and, according to a release from Yearwood’s attorneys, the AG’s office dumped the disorderly conduct charge this February, when Yearwood showed up in court, fully prepared to do battle. The AG promised then and there, Yearwood’s lawyers contend, to seek charges against the minister for his participation in an October 2007 protest against the war and global warming. They made good on their word. Yearwood’s next court date is May 27.

I’m still waiting to here back from both sides in this case. The AG’s office did send me a copy of the most recent charges against Yearwood–for disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly. And indeed, the document was signed March 15, just a few weeks after the minister appeared in court for the previous case and about five months after the incident in question.

From the Post’s roundup:

About 9 a.m., one black-clad group of eight sat down in the intersection at 17th and L streets NW, roping themselves together with rubber tubing and blocking traffic. Police were using boltcutters and other tools to separate them from each other and make arrests. The intersection was closed to traffic until shortly after 10 a.m. At that point, the protesters began marching east on L Street.

After congregating at McPherson Square and Franklin Square, the main groups of protesters moved to the Internal Revenue Service building, the headquarters of the American Petroleum Institute, and other locations they had selected. About 20 protesters were arrested when they tried to break through security barriers and block the entrance to the IRS office at 12th Street and Constitution Avenue NW.

At the IRS, some demonstrators wore white ponchos decorated with anti-IRS slogans. Members of the group said they planned to blockade the front of the building and prevent it from opening. They blame the agency for helping fund the war.

Is this the Ron Paul wing of the anti-war folks? Don’t you feel a little bad for the IRS drones who had to face this? Maybe it’s the one time we can feel sorry for the IRS.