‘D.C. Madam’ had Nevada link

Deborah J. Palfrey, the "D.C. Madam" who has been tied to at least one U.S. senator, also may have had short conversations with a couple of Nevadans between 2000 and 2004, according to voluminous cell phone records made public last week.

Palfrey, who is from Vallejo, Calif., released 2,250 pages of phone records dating to 1994 as part of her defense in a federal racketeering case. Four phone numbers from Nevada appear in the records, but who was called and why is a mystery.

One Las Vegas cell phone number appears twice: once on March 9, 2004, for 2.7 minutes, and again on Aug. 25 of that year, for 4 minutes. The number is a T-Mobile account that records show is based in Blue Diamond.

When a reporter called the number, a man answered but refused to identify himself. He said the phone number was owned by a construction company he wouldn't name, and is used by multiple people.

On Jan. 10, 2000, a 3.8 minute call was made to a number in Hawthorne. A woman who answered said she was not the owner of the number in 2000, having obtained it only in 2002.

The woman, who asked not to be named, said she thought she knew the previous owner, a woman who may have since moved to Reno or California. Efforts to contact her were not successful.

Las Vegas directory assistance was called on April 18, 2003, and on March 4, 2005, a 2.3 minute call was placed to the front desk of the Riviera.

Records also show seven incoming calls from Nevada to Palfrey's number on July 26, 2003, between 4 p.m. and 5:33 p.m. However, the AT&T bill did not list the numbers.

Asked about the Nevada calls, Palfrey said in an e-mail that she "simply cannot remember such details from so long ago."

'GOV. MILLER' WILL DO

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has picked up so many endorsements in Nevada, her campaign can't keep them straight.

An exhaustive memo sent out by the national Clinton campaign last week noted that the New York senator is "a leader with key endorsements that have proven valuable in organizing support in early primary states and across the country."

One of those listed was "former Nevada Governor Bill Miller."

Former Nevada Gov. Bob Miller said he wasn't bothered by the mistake.

"That's some staff person," he said. "I can assure you Hillary knows my first name."

Because it rhymes with his common last name, he's often mistakenly called Bill, Miller said.

Informed of his inclusion on the national campaign's short list of big names, Miller's ego was briefly inflated; informed of the mistake, he said, "I guess I'm not so important after all."

The founder and chairman of the Past Governors Association, Miller is national co-chairman of Clinton's Governors' Council. He said his work for the campaign so far has mostly consisted of calling other past governors across the country on behalf of the campaign.

The Nevada campaign for Clinton, which got Miller's name right in its own recent memo, wouldn't comment.

OBAMA LATE FOR DINNER

Nevadan Michael Griffith won a contest to have dinner with Sen. Barack Obama, but it almost turned into a midnight snack.

The dinner was set for 7:30 p.m. at a Washington restaurant on Wednesday, but Griffith cooled his heels for hours when Obama's flight from Iowa was delayed.

Griffith's filet mignon finally was served after 11 p.m. at the District Chop House, after Obama arrived and greeted him and three others who also were selected to dine with the Democratic presidential candidate from Illinois.

Griffith, a miner from Fernley, shrugged off the delay.

"We could tell he was tired. We were all tired, but the four of us didn't mind," Griffith, 34, said. "It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

Entering the still-busy restaurant with Obama, Griffith was reminded of the famous restaurant scene from "Goodfellas," where the camera follows Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco as they similarly are led to their table amid bustling waiters and well-wishers.

Obama had salmon.

Griffith said his friends back home were pushing him to order lobster.

"They're all, 'You've got to get the lobster. Do it. He's got $31 million,'" Griffith said. "I don't really want lobster anyway."

Griffith said he spoke to Obama about health care for veterans. Griffith's father, an Army veteran, was paralyzed from the waist down in 1979 when a drunken driver hit his pickup.

"He explained the way it worked. He knows there's a definite need to change the way it works," Griffith said. "It satisfied me."

GIBBONS MEETS SADDAM

Was that really Saddam Hussein hanging out with Gov. Jim Gibbons in his office in the Capitol recently? Did the former dictator cheat death in Baghdad to make his way to Nevada?

And what was he doing with Gibbons, who fought in the Persian Gulf War against Iraqi troops commanded by Hussein back in 1990-91?

The Hussein look-alike was actually Jerry Haleva, who has enjoyed a movie career playing Saddam Hussein.

Gibbons met with Haleva in his office on July 2, along with Gen. John Abizaid, former commander of the U.S. Central Command in the Middle East.

The general recently retired to Gardnerville, near his childhood home of Coleville, Calif. At the meeting, Gibbons thanked Abizaid for his career of service to Americans and congratulated him on his decision to live in Northern Nevada.

Also present for the odd photo-op was Reno resident Tyrus W. Cobb, civilian assistant to the secretary of the Army for Nevada and former special assistant to President Reagan for national security affairs.

Gibbons and first lady Dawn Gibbons hosted dinner for the trio at the Governor's Mansion, where conversation ranged from national security and the likely course of the global war on terror to the political relationship between Nevada and California. The governor's press office then sent out the unique photo as a curiosity.

Haleva, who portrayed the dictator in such movies as "Jane Austen's Mafia" (1998) and "Hot Shots" (1991), is also a governmental consultant in California.

RADIO PORTER

The president and the leaders of the opposition party claim air time for weekly radio addresses. Now, House Republicans are getting into the act, and Nevada Rep. Jon Porter was picked for duty this past weekend.

Porter recorded a 2 minute, 45 second speech touting the announcement last week that this year's budget deficit would be $40 billion less than expected, and saying that Republican tax cuts should be credited.

The radio outreach is a strategy by the Republicans to get their message out now that they are in the minority, but it's not clear who might be listening.

Party spokesman Brian Schubert said at least four AM stations in Las Vegas are among the "hundreds" of radio stations nationwide that get the addresses, but he didn't know whether they'd be broadcasting them.

In advance of Porter's address, Nevada Democrats put out a statement touting the budget they passed in May that aims to balance federal spending within five years.

Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault and Review-Journal Capital Bureau writer Sean Whaley contributed to this report. Contact political reporter Molly Ball at 387-2919 or MBall@reviewjournal.com.