Public redaction

Barack Obama is trying to tone down the criticism some of his over-eager supporters have been dishing out to the opposition lately. Just this week, he had to ask Senator (and fourth-generation oil millionaire) Jay “Homeboy” Rockefeller to apologize for saying John McCain is out of touch with ordinary people. Rockefeller proffered McCain an olive branch in the form of a magnum of Dom Perignon ‘62.

It could be the Obama campaign needs to orchestrate the competitive comments of its allies a little better. A few other missteps:

• Last summer, shrewish hotelier Leona Helmsley reluctantly recanted her critique of Hillary Clinton’s people-management skills.
• Nonagenarian Senator Robert Byrd, on prompting from the Obama camp, said he regretted his use of the phrase “a little long in the tooth” in describing McCain. Senator Byrd said he thinks the Arizona Republican is “the bees’ knees.”
• Recently retired New York Governor Eliot Spitzer had to disavow the public dressing-down he gave McCain on the topic of marital infidelity.
• Bounced New York Times reporter Jayson Blair was asked to backtrack on his criticism of Hillary Clinton for plagiarism in a recent speech. Blair had charged that the occasion of Clinton’s speech was “a date which will live in infamy,” adding, enigmatically, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
• Early this year, Vesuvian actor Russell Crowe sheepishly retracted his allegation that McCain has anger-management issues.
• Impulsive CNN founder Ted Turner acknowledged he made an inappropriate public comment in saying, in typically salty language, that McCain has made impulsive and inappropriate public comments.

But the campaign can’t keep all of the Obamaniacs under control. Despite pressure from the Obama team, celebrity philanthropist Heather Mills McCartney has refused to back off of her charge that “Hillary Clinton is just taking advantage of her famous husband.”

Carrying a torch

It must be interesting to get the seat on the plane next to the guy carrying the Olympic torch from Athens to Beijing. Sure, they have all these people dodging among the human-rights protesters, doing a faux relay race with the flame. But they have to send a chunk of the official combustion to the Games by plane as a backup.

So you settle in to a nice, comfy leather seat (you’ve gotta figure they send the torch first-class), turn to check out your seatmate and you get a guy with a mimosa in one hand and a burning stick in the other. It looks like the Statue of Liberty is going on spring break. You can’t smuggle a four-ounce tube of Prell past security, but this guy has a piece of fire as a carry-on.

And how are the flight attendants supposed to handle it? “Sir, we’re getting ready for takeoff. Can you see if your conflagration will fit under the seat in front of you?”

Flight attendants have seen a lot, so they probably just play it cool: “Gee, we don’t get many people carrying open flames on this route.”

Maybe the flight staff likes the fact that they have a fallback if the microwave goes on the fritz when they’re getting ready to put the lasagna out, or that they can get a light for the cherries jubilee.

But it still must be a strain to spend 22 hours belted in next to the sacred igniter. And it must be nice to hear that you’re landing: “We’re in our final approach to Beijing Capital International Airport. Please return your tray tables and seatbacks to their full upright positions and extinguish all smoking materials. Except the fire in 4D.”

Thousands of terrorists nabbed at Heathrow; lack of luggage the tip-off

Scotland Yard’s crack anti-terrorism squad is closing the books on its most successful week ever, after snaring something over 22,000 terrorist suspects at Heathrow Airport’s new Terminal 5.

“Traveling without luggage is one of your top items on the terrorist profile,” explained Inspector Nigel Puce-Worthington of the Yard. “But it’s that seething look of anger in their eyes that’s the clincher. I don’t care how much training they’ve had, they can’t disguise that from your skilled law enforcement professional. Once the chaps and I recognized the pattern, we were able to start scooping them up like scones off a tea-tray.

“The lads in Intelligence are still trying to figure out what the overall plan was, but clearly some sort of worldwide alert went out to get numbers like this,” Inspector Puce-Worthington explained. “Your top international terrorist tends to work alone or in your pairs. This time some mastermind decided to try to pull a fast one and dispatch whole planeloads of these thugs.

“Well, they’re going to be spending a little longer here than they expected,” he chuckled.

President Bush praised the Scotland Yard sleuths for their record haul and promised full U.S. support in “tracking these terrorists to their lairs.” Tops on the list of apparent U.S.-based front organizations snagged in the sweep, Mr. Bush proudly reported, are “Mrs. Kranzler’s supposed 11th-grade English class from John F. Kennedy High School in Porthole, Indiana, and the so-called Senior Sojourners of West Grounge, Pennsylvania.”