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Adam Clymer, who covered congressional intrigue, eight presidential campaigns and the downfall of both Nikita S. Khrushchev and Richard M. Nixon as a reporter and editor for The New York Times and other newspapers, died early Monday at his home in Washington.

Dale L. Bumpers, a liberal governor and four-term Democratic senator from Arkansas who came out of retirement in 1999 to make a passionate closing argument defending President Bill Clinton against removal from office in a Senate trial, died on Friday at his home in Little Rock, Ark. He was 90. His death was confirmed by his granddaughter Linn Bumpers. Mr. Bumpers was part of a generation of moderate Southern Democrats, among them President Jimmy Carter, who emerged in the late 1960s and the ’70s. He always said his proudest achievement had come early in his career when, as a small-town...

There are consequences when we forgive the depraved. America has duly performed its solemn rituals to mark the passing of Ted Kennedy -- the pompous displays, the airy speeches, the pseudo-dignified deference to the dead. What we ought to reflect upon, with equal solemnity, is what America's legitimization and ultimate acceptance of such a man portends for ourselves. The tale of Chappaquiddick has, of course, been told and retold. But what Ted Kennedy did to Mary Jo Kopechne that summer night in 1969 is so depraved that the story bears repetition. Put aside the debauchery of the party Kennedy attended...

Poll: Troops, families question Iraq strategyMost surveyed say Bush sent too few troops; relied too much on Guard WASHINGTON (AP) -- Members of the military and their families say the Bush administration underestimated the number of troops needed in Iraq and put too much pressure on inadequately trained National Guard and reserve forces, according to a poll released Saturday. The National Annenberg Election Survey questioned active duty troops in the regular military and the National Guard and Reserves, as well as family members of active duty members. Family members were more critical of the administration's Iraq policy than those on...

WASHINGTON — Members of the military and their families say the Bush administration underestimated the number of troops needed in Iraq and put too much pressure on inadequately trained National Guard (search) and reserve forces, according to a poll released Saturday. The National Annenberg Election Survey (search) found that 62 percent in the military sample said the administration didn't send an adequate number of troops to Iraq. And 59 percent said too much of a burden has been put on the National Guard and the reserves when regular forces should have been expanded instead. Family members were more critical of...

NATIONAL JOURNAL'S CONVENTION DAILY E-MAIL ALERT Presented By Business Roundtable o Plan B For Buckeye Dems o Poll Shows Solid Minority Support o News Flash: Dems "Optimistic" o Jesse Jackson's Partisan Diet =================================== Growing the economy. Our most important job. Business Roundtable http://www.businessroundtable.org =================================== THE PARTY SCENE Plan B For Buckeye Dems When it comes to tonight's delegate reception, Ohio originally seemed to be sitting pretty -- delegates were set to party at the Samuel Adams Brewery. Then the Buckeyes backed out, due to threatened police picket lines at the event. Those protests are now off, but Ohio Dems say...

ASHINGTON — Americans like to say they are not influenced by campaign commercials, but then many people plainly believe the attack ads that President Bush and John Kerry are hurling at each other. Even people who say they learn nothing from the advertisements believe the claims made in them, the University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey shows. At the same time, people are remarkably unfamiliar with the candidates' true positions — the stuff that hasn't been advertised much. The Annenberg survey recently interviewed 1,026 adults in the 18 battleground states where the campaigns have been showing commercials since March....

Ten months after returning home from Vietnam, a young John Kerry strolled into the offices of The Harvard Crimson on Feb. 13, 1970 as an obscure underdog in the Democratic Congressional primary. The decorated veteran, honorably discharged after a tour of duty in the Mekong Delta, spoke in fierce terms during his daylong interview with The Crimson’s Samuel Z. Goldhaber ’72. But almost 34 years later, Kerry’s remarks on American military and intelligence operations vastly diverge from opinions expressed by the present-day Sen. John F. Kerry, D.-Mass., the leading candidate in the Democratic primary for president. “I’m an internationalist,” Kerry...

There is no end to the soul-searching at The New York Times. Or the committees. The Times, already distracted by a month of scandals and newsroom unrest, was bracing for more of both as two ranking editors formed a second group to improve inhouse communications. Assistant Managing Editors Craig Whitney and Andrew Rosenthal invited staffers to join what they're calling the Communications Working Group. They said it would differ from a powerful committee headed by Assistant Managing Editor Allan Siegal by "concentrating on internal communications" and having no outside consultants. Many at The Times viewed formation of the new group...

To: xxxxx@nytimes.com From: Adam Clymer (xxxx@nytimes.com) Subject: The Times Colleagues, I think it's time to take a deep breath and think about the New York Times. I share your contempt for Jayson Blair and Rick Bragg. And I share your anger at some of the failures of management that enabled them. I agree with a lot of what Times people have told outside reporters, either directly or in internal E-mails that have quickly found their way to the Internet. In particular, Peter Kilborn made the case against Bragg's excuses with telling effect. But I think by now we have hit...

  Identity crisis     New York Times reporter Adam Clymer, following up on a Sunday article in which he portrayed the Republican Party as increasingly confident, wrote yesterday that the Democrats appear to be in the midst "of another of their periodic painful identity crises." Rest of thread here

EELAND, Mich. — The Republican Party's dream of becoming the dominant party was on full display the other day at the Ottawa County Lincoln Day dinner here. Although George W. Bush lost Michigan in 2000 and the state elected a Democratic governor last November, the national and state party officials heaping roast beef and chicken onto their plates at the local fish and game club were buoyantly predicting they would take the state in 2004.The attorney general of Michigan, Mike Cox, elected in 2002 by 5,200 votes after carrying Ottawa County by 40,712, said President Bush could count on a...

ZEELAND, Mich. The Republican Party's dream of becoming the dominant party was on full display the other day at the Ottawa County Lincoln Day dinner here. Although George W. Bush lost Michigan in 2000 and the state elected a Democratic governor last November, the national and state party officials heaping roast beef and chicken onto their plates at the local fish and game club were buoyantly predicting they would take the state in 2004. The attorney general of Michigan, Mike Cox, elected in 2002 by 5,200 votes after carrying Ottawa County by 40,712, said President Bush could count on a...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 2 — The Bush administration has put a much tighter lid than recent presidents on government proceedings and the public release of information, exhibiting a penchant for secrecy that has been striking to historians, legal experts and lawmakers of both parties. Some of the Bush policies, like closing previously public court proceedings, were prompted by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and are part of the administration's drive for greater domestic security. Others, like Vice President Dick Cheney's battle to keep records of his energy task force secret, reflect an administration that arrived in Washington determined to strengthen the...

Institute of government studies University of California public affairs report Vol. 41, No. 3, May 2000Adam Clymer on Writing About Ted KennedyWhen I came back to Washington to be The Times' chief congressional correspondent in 1991, I was looking for a book subject, and Ted Kennedy stood out for two reasons. First, he wasn't particularly well known for his accomplishments. When we went to sell the prospectus, the reaction from a lot of publishers was, "A book about Kennedy that isn't largely about sex, what else could there be?" Second, there hadn't been a serious book written about him in...