At 10:15 a.m., a handful of students—including at least one of the N.Y.U. students who helped lead the takeover of a student center on Washington Square Park in February—were standing at the corner of 14th Street and Fifth Avenue, as close as they could get to 65 Fifth Avenue, the New School building which students from an organization called The New School in Exile had entered at the crack of dawn. Police had already shut down Fifth Avenue, between 13th and 14th streets, and they soon expanded the cordoned-off area south to 12th Street, and east-west to encompass a block and a half of 13th Street, and two blocks of University Place. Dozens of cop cars streamed to the scene. There were fire officials and police trucks, presumably on hand to cart off offending students.

A 25-year-old politics graduate student in a blue plaid jacket and brown knit hat had been standing outside for hours. She declined to give even her first name (too readily identifiable, she said), but she was eager to tick off the ways in which she believed New School President Bob Kerrey had damaged the institution of higher learning.

"There isn’t a library," she said. "Did you know that?"

"He increased his salary, and decreased student amenities. … We pay $30,000 a year and have the poorest paid TAs and RAs." The list went on to include complaints about the lack of transparency of the budget, and his tarnishing of the school's reputation for radicalism. Presumably also on the list of complaints is Kerrey's refusal to step down after the senior faculty's vote of no confidence in December, which precipitated a similar sit-in.

Two blocks south, at 12th Street, a number of onlookers were gawking at the battalion's worth of men in blue. 

“I like it when students take action,” said Virginia Giordano, a middle-aged artist and onetime student activist who lives nearby on Fifth Avenue. “I’m not even sure of the issues, but it’s not important.”

“There was lots of activism in the ’60s, but then it sort of died down," she said. "Now it seems to be back.”

 “It reminds me of the ’60s, the students rebelling against administrative policies,” said Benjamin J. Phillips, a former City College student activist, who was clutching a coffee cup in one hand and a neon orange flag in another, waving cars into Brevoort Garage on University Place. "But maybe this isn’t the best way."

He said he was more partial to peaceful protest and negotiations.

One block north, at 13th Street, Michael Jacobs, in black fedora, sunglasses and argyle sweater, was chomping on a cigar.  Mr. Jacobs, a former student activist at Virginia State University in the 1960s, called the protestors  “a lot of spoiled kids trying to make a point.”

Back on the corner of 14th and Fifth, the number of students had grown to dozens. Rumors of the police unleashing tear gas inside the building coursed through the crowd.

“Curse them! Curse them! How are you going to go home to your loved ones at night?” yelled one man. “Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you!”

“How about, fuck you!” yelled a woman behind him. "Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you! From New York to Greece, fuck the police!”

Nearby, a young man was handing out a flyer called "April Fools Occupation FAQS." The flier claimed 60 students had barricaded themselves inside. "This is an occupation without a list of demands, besides the obvious. Kerrey and [Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer James] Murtha need to go. After that a new system needs to be set that accounts for student authority over how our money is spent and how our school is operated. As of now we have been systematically eliminated from that process. Sick of not having a library? Sick of high  tuition? No space to do your work? Are there a hundred things you're pissed about? Look at what we won at the last occupation. This time we're going all-in."

At 12:46 this afternoon, Detective Madelyne Galindo of the NYPD confirmed that all 19 students in the building had been arrested. "Everything is over and done with," she said. The students will likely be charged with criminal trespass. She said the rumors of tear gas were "not true."

Caroline Oyama, a spokeswoman for The New School, released the following statement:

On December 15, 2008, an unofficial student organization calling themselves the New School in Exile occupied the cafeteria at 65 Fifth Avenue, barricaded themselves into the room, and issued a set of demands.  Early on the morning of December 16, a group of students and non-students broke through a fire exit on 14th street and entered the building.

Although the occupants had violated a number of important security rules, the university made the judgment they were neither an operational or a security risk. Accordingly, we did not file a complaint with the New York Police Department to have the occupants removed. Instead we entered into a process of negotiations with our students and reached agreement on a list of demands including amnesty for all involved early on the morning of December 17.  The students left peacefully at that time.

In January, this same unofficial student organization issued a public threat to forcefully shut down the university on April 1 unless the President and Chief Operating Officer were removed.   Following this they were caught stealing an entire edition of the student newspaper on account of a story they regarded as unfavorable to them; and subsequently they vandalized the university's presidential residence.

During this time the university has allowed and accommodated every peaceful protest, teach-in, and demonstration.   We have enforced our rules governing such events in such a way as to permit protests, so long as they don't endanger the safety of other members of the community or destruction of property.

This morning's illegal occupation of 65 Fifth Avenue was joined by a number of New School in Exile students as well as individuals without any affiliation to The New School.  Their claim that this was a simple political protest is false.  Their entry into this building was forced, they removed a man who was cleaning the building, took his phone, injured a security officer, and did physical damage to the building.

Accordingly, in this case the university asked the New York Police Department to remove and arrest those who were trespassing on our property. We suspended, pending administrative review, all New School students who were a part of this action.

The New School prides itself on civic engagement. We have been and will continue to be a refuge for open and critical political debate.  Students and faculty who choose to peacefully and passionately oppose the policies of the university will have their rights to do so protected as strongly as we protect our right to safely and securely operate our university.

On the school's website, Mr. Kerrey posted this statement on December 11:

Mr. Kerrey went on to say that he would be meeting with the faculty and staff to discuss their concerns openly and will work with them to resolve the issues. But earlier this week, when Mr. Kerrey spoke with New York magazine, he said he had no idea what the problem even was exactly. 

"I didn’t even know about the vote. I still don’t know what they want me to do," he told the magazine. "They say I don’t understand higher education. To a certain extent it’s true I don’t understand. It’s baffling at times." (The latter statement some might find particularly troubling since Mr. Kerrey also happens to be an investor, along with Graydon Carter and John Leguizamo, of the Greenwich Village High School, founded by Vanity Fair deputy editor Amiee Bell.) 

But when asked if he believed his own job was in jeapordy, Mr. Kerrey responded, "It’s not even close to a crisis."

This morning, City Room reported that students, who had occupied the school's dining hall on Thursday to protest Mr. Kerrey's leadership, ended their sit-in around 3:30a.m. this morning after the president agreed to meet some of their demands. Mr. Kerrey (who was chased down Fifth avenue yesterday morning and was targeted with lunged tomatoes) agreed to give amnesty to the student protesters; to give students a say in the appointment of a new provost; to find a replacement for the library that will be lost with the closing of 65 Fifth Avenue; and to create a committee on Socially Responsible Giving to for the school's endowment.

The students were originally calling for Mr. Kerrey's resignation, but eventually agreed to the terms presented to them after realizing that their initial demands would not be met. 

Mort Zuckerman and charities run by Steven Spielberg and Elie Wiesel were among those ripped off by crooked investor Bernard Madoff. [NY Post]

During her split from John Mayer, reps for Jennifer Aniston were "scouting candidates" to play her boyfriend on the promotional tour for Marley & Me. [P6]

New School faculty are rebelling against university president Bob Kerrey. [Intelligencer]

Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber's second son was born on Saturday. [People]

Exclusive St. Barts hotels are soliciting customers for their usually impossible to get high-season rooms. [Intelligencer]

Nineteen-year-old model Daisy Lowe, who also previously dated Mark Ronson, has reunited with ex-boyfriend Will Cameron. [Page Six Magazine, last item]

But in today's Times piece about the high school, we learned that Ms. Bell's little project happens to be backed by some important names including her boss, Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, president of the New School Bob Kerrey and his wife, television and film writer Sara Paley, actor John Leguizamo, and President of Scholastic Richard Robinson.

The Daily Transom asked Mr. Carter at his book party on Monday night about his involvement in the school; he said he was serving "only as a friend." But friendships with Graydon Carter usually come with benefits, as patrons of the Wavery Inn know.

Benefactors certainly have been kind. The school's board of 18 members has already donated $3 million for start-up costs and plans to raise $12 to $17 million more over the next five years. (We expect to be scratching the Greenwich Village High School Spring gala into our calendars any day now.)

Ms. Bell reportedly "dreamed" up the school over breakfast at Balthazar with her West 11th Street neighbor, Sara Goodman, great-granddaughter of Bergdorf Goodman founder Edwin Goodman. Ms. Goodman attended The Dalton School, but told the Times that she wanted her two daughters, Georgia, 9, and Lily, 6, to be part of a "downtown community."

The ladies expect the school to grow to 360 students by 2013 with tuition set on a sliding scale from $1,000 to $34,729 (what!). Somehow, Ms. Goodman believes that the $1,000 dollar kids won't be sorted out from the $30,000 kids after first bell.

Wise Village parents who put themselves on the low end of the sliding scale may want to get their rent-controlled butts in gear: All applications are due in January at which point 45 9th graders that will be selected to enroll in the fall of 2009. And Ms. Bell has already received applications from families across Manhattan, Hoboken and Jersey City.

The reason was simple: Clinton was an inexperienced small-state governor whose Vietnam draft avoidance would be a major issue in the fall – especially since he was running against a World War II hero, George H.W. Bush. The presence of Kerrey, a decorated Vietnam combat veteran widely celebrated for his sacrifices, would inoculate Clinton against the G.O.P.’s ugly attacks, just as Kerrey’s Senate experience would complement Clinton’s gubernatorial resume. Plus, Kerrey’s perceived foreign policy and national security expertise would reassure voters worried about Clinton’s seasoning.

It made plenty of sense on paper, but – of course – it didn’t happen. The main reason probably had to do with the stormy personal relationship between Kerrey and both Clintons. They’d both competed for the Democratic nomination and Kerrey had himself pointedly raised Clinton’s draft record, arguing that the Republicans would open him “like a soft peanut” in the fall. There were reports that Hillary Clinton, in particular, weighed in emphatically against Kerrey’s selection. On the other hand, Clinton hit it off well with Al Gore, the other finalist, in their personal meetings. And the idea of an unconventional ticket – two moderate southern boomers from neighboring states – struck his fancy. You know the rest.

I’m bringing up Kerrey because – and the events of the next 24 to 48 hours may make a mockery of this notion – I have a hunch we’re seeing the same thing play out right now with Joe Biden. In the last few days, Biden’s stock has risen dramatically. He’s leading Drudge’s poll (well, technically “a wild card” is – but Biden is tops among humans, by far) and NBC is even reporting that he’s “the leading contender, partly due to his working-class roots and foreign policy expertise.”

Biden, like Kerrey in ’92, makes perfect sense as a running-mate. Obama’s biggest challenge is offering reassurance to voters who generally like him and want to vote for the Democrats (or, more precisely, against the Republicans) this year. If Biden is chosen, these voters will be barraged with mentions of his experience, foreign policy expertise and “gravitas.” And in perhaps his biggest moment as the nominee, the vice-presidential debate, Biden would almost certainly shine – particularly on foreign policy and national security matters. His working-class Irish-Catholic image wouldn’t hurt either. It’s true that V.P. candidates can’t win over many voters on their own. But the right V.P. can provide the final nudge for voters who are leaning toward a presidential candidate. Biden would be a terrific nudger.

But does he really have much of a relationship with Obama? True, their personal history during this year’s primaries wasn’t overtly hostile like Kerrey’s and Clinton’s in ’92, but there did seem to be a telling moment during a debate last summer, when Biden announced that Obama had had an H.I.V. test. Rather coldly, Obama jumped in to clarify Biden’s comment. His body language was icy. The moment suggested that these two may not be enemies, but they just don’t naturally click with each other.

Meanwhile, Obama seems to have natural personal chemistry with Tim Kaine, much the way Clinton did with Gore. And like Clinton, Obama might be attracted to the idea of an unconventional ticket – two Washington outsiders without extensive ties to the political establishment.

Of course, I’ve already made the case that this kind of thinking could be problematic for Obama – that 2008 is fundamentally different from 1992, and that he can’t discount the importance of the appearance of national security expertise the way Clinton did. But this nugget from today’s New York Times has me thinking Obama doesn’t see things this way and that the pick won’t be Biden:

If this is true, then Obama reached his decision somewhere mid- to late last week, or maybe even sooner. This is just a hunch, but doesn’t Kaine seem more like a choice Obama would have settled on early, since, all things being equal, it’s probably the choice he’d like to make personally? Biden, by contrast, seems like a choice that Obama would make only if he felt he had to. It seems like the kind of decision he’d leave unresolved as long as he could, just to make sure it was necessary – not something he’d settle on in Hawaii.

Or maybe not?

Two months after his wife formally conceded to Barack Obama, the former president is still pouting in full public view. In an interview with ABC News last weekend, he was noticeably stinting in his praise of the presumptive Democratic nominee while making it clear that he has some primary-related grievances to air just as soon as this election is over.

“I will be glad, as soon as this election is over in January, to have this conversation with you and everbody else,” Mr. Clinton said when the discussion turned to this year’s primary campaign. “I have very strong feelings about it.”

To his loyalists, Mr. Clinton has, in defeat, sounded like an aggrieved man venting valid and reasonable frustrations. But if he’s trying to convey a sense of injustice, he’s a deeply flawed messenger.

Was Mr. Clinton victimized in this year’s primaries? Probably. For instance, his much-discussed characterization of Mr. Obama as a "fairy tale” was itself a fairy tale. The comment, made on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, referred explicitly to Mr. Obama’s Iraq war views – which, Mr. Clinton claimed, were indistinguishable from his wife’s. In its own way, this was a dishonest claim. But it had nothing at all to do with race – and yet it was recycled throughout the campaign as evidence that Mr. Clinton had played the race card.

But does this mean that he is justified in behaving like a victim? That he’s owed some kind of apology or act of contrition by those who did him wrong? There is, after all, a bigger picture to consider here, one in which Mr. Clinton is only suffering the same fate that he imposed on someone else on his way up the national political ladder.

Few people now recall the details of the 1992 Democratic primary race, which attracted a fraction of the media interest and voter turnout of this year’s contest. And that means that almost no one recalls the distortions that the Clinton campaign used that winter to derail Paul Tsongas, the former Massachusetts Senator whose unlikely campaign emerged as the chief threat to Clinton’s nomination.

After Tsongas won the New Hampshire primary, Mr. Clinton and his forces went to work on him. He was, in their telling, a Republican in disguise, a foe of Medicare and Social Security, an enemy of Israel, and a man intent on spoiling open land with nuclear power plants, among other deliberately false and inflammatory charges. Within weeks, the underfunded Tsongas campaign withered and folded.

No doubt, Tsongas felt an injustice had occurred – that his good name and reputation had been unfairly trashed and that the perpetrators had gotten away with it. In other words, the same basic emotions that Mr. Clinton feels today.

“I’m not sure that Paul, in his lifetime, ever got over it,” Tsongas’ friend (and fellow ’92 candidate) Bob Kerrey said not long ago.

In politics, the cliché about history being written by the winners really is apt. When he turned his guns on Tsongas, Mr. Clinton knew that all the gory details would be forgotten in due course as long as he ended up victorious. And he was right. After the ’92 campaign, Mr. Clinton won international fame and a permanent place in history, while Tsongas faded from the national scene, a (mostly) forgotten man. (He died in 1997.) In a system like this, justice, in the rare event that it is meted out at all, can be severely delayed and imperfect.

But Mr. Clinton might consider the example Tsongas set in the summer and fall of 1992, after their nomination battle had ended. Instead of threatening to unload all of his pent-up anger after the November election, Tsongas endorsed his old foe, delivered a primetime convention address that sang the nominee’s praises, and even headed down to Little Rock to speak up for Mr. Clinton on the day after the Republican National Convention. He was far from the most enthusiastic Clinton backer, but he made sure his own sense of pique didn’t harm the party in the fall.

Mr. Clinton, by contrast, has made it clear since the end of this year’s nominating contest that any work he does on Mr. Obama’s behalf will only come from a personal request from Mr. Obama himself, setting the stage for a potential media-driven distraction if he’s not a visible presence at the Democratic convention and on the campaign trail this fall.

As the nominee in 1992, Mr. Clinton expected – and received – much more than this from his defeated foes and their supporters. To judge by his recent behavior, he’s forgotten.

Here's some of Kerrey's explanation:

“Here’s what she’s going to have going back in. She’s campaigned in all 50 states plus Puerto Rico—nobody in the Senate will have that claim. She’ll know those states exceptionally well, she’ll have an e-mail and mailing list in those states that are at least as good as the people who actually represent them. So she’s going to have the capacity to debate and participate in the legislative action much more than she ever did before. Even more than Ted Kennedy.

"I mean, Teddy didn’t campaign in all 50 states. The fact that she’s been in all 50 states is what’s impressive. She’s got a base of support in every single state, so let’s say now I’m Bob Kerrey and I supported Barack Obama, and I’m running for reelection in Nebraska, and it’s a three-point race—top of my list, in terms of getting me elected, is Hillary Clinton.”

He did say that there was no reason for Clinton to yield to pressure to get out of the race before then, even as a famous South Dakotan, George McGovern, renounced his support of Clinton and called on her to quit.

“Speaking as someone who’s been a candidate, it’s offensive to me to hear pundits talking about how Hillary ought to get out,” said Kerrey, a former two-term Nebraska senator who is now the president of the New School in New York.

“She will make that call. She’s fought a tough campaign and has been giving this her all for more than a year, while all the other pundits telling her to get out have been taking vacations and having their weekend off.”

If anything, Kerrey suggested, calls for Clinton to quit are bound to backfire, only compelling her to dig in her heels: “The paradox here is that the more nasty things that pundits say about her and try to push her out of the race, the harder it is to get her out of the race.”

Kerrey was in a somewhat similar situation 16 years ago, when he sought the Democratic nomination. The initial favorite, his campaign struggled to develop a clear theme and focus, and he quickly found himself running in third place, behind Bill Clinton and Paul Tsongas. He finished a distant third in New Hampshire, rebounded a week later with a surprise win in South Dakota, but then faltered badly on “Junior Tuesday,” barely registering in Maryland, Georgia and Colorado. That prompted Kerrey to quit the campaign, but rumors persist to this day that his harsh criticisms of Bill Clinton during that campaign ultimately cost him the number-two spot on Clinton’s ticket.

He said that Clinton actually fared better in North Carolina than he had expected her to (she lost to Barack Obama by a 56-42 percent spread), but acknowledged that his assessment is at odds with the prevailing interpretation.

“She finished poorer than expected last night,” he said. “He exceeded expectations, she came up short of expectations, and his delegate margin grew. So if you’re trying to get to 2,025 delegates and the person you’re running against is getting closer than you, that’s not good.”

Asked how Clinton could possibly achieve a victory now, Kerrey pointed to her push to count the results from outlaw Florida and Michigan primaries from January and to seat convention delegation based on those results. Doing so might ultimately allow her to claim a popular-vote victory (mostly because Obama’s name wasn’t on the Michigan ballot) and to cut his pledged delegate advantage by about 50 (although there is a consensus that he’ll still hold a 100-plus pledged delegate advantage even with both states counted).

“At the very least, you should count the popular vote in Florida,” Kerrey said, noting that both candidates were on the ballot there. He also stressed her advantage this primary season in larger population states like Ohio and Pennsylvania and said Obama’s success in caucuses should be viewed skeptically since they “aren’t a good measure of popular support in a general election.”
“There’s a case (for Clinton),” he said. “I’m not saying that it’s going to be a case that persuades superdelegates or Democrats in the remaining states. That’s an open question. There’s no question that it’s an uphill fight.”

Kerrey also dismissed suggestions that the protracted nominating contest has caused lasting harm to the party and weakened Obama should he ultimately secure the nomination.

“He’s stronger than he was before,” he said. “Hillary Clinton didn’t invent Jeremiah Wright. Barack Obama was going to have to face that. And he faced it eloquently and strongly. Imagine if he’d had to face that in October? He’s toast.”

He added: “The fact that she stayed in the race increases the odds that we will win in Pennsylvania and Ohio in the fall.”

While he stressed that “in politics, anything can happen,” Kerrey said he recognizes that Clinton now faces long odds and that she is likely to come up short. But he said he’s confident that she’ll know when to pull the plug and that she’ll be a team player in the fall.

“At some point between now and the third of June, if things stay the way they are now, my guess is that she’ll make that call, make a gracious concession and then rally behind Barack Obama and rally her supporters behind Barack Obama,” he said

At that point, Kerrey said, party unity will depend more on Obama than on Clinton: “If it appears to her supporters that he’s treating her badly, that’s his worst nightmare.”

Here’s a brief recap of their relationship:

• In 1991 and 1992, both Mr. Kerrey and Bill Clinton seek the Democratic nomination. A decorated Vietnam combat veteran, Mr. Kerrey is initially deemed the front-runner, but his chaotic and unfocused campaign quickly loses traction, and Mr. Clinton seizes the top slot. Mr. Kerrey then shreds Mr. Clinton for avoiding service in Vietnam and says that Republicans will open him up “like a soft peanut” in the fall. Mr. Kerrey drops out of the race in early March with little to show for his effort other than a meaningless win in South Dakota.

• Despite the contentious primary sniping, Mr. Kerrey emerges as a finalist for Mr. Clinton’s vice presidential slot in July 1992, with many Democrats pushing the idea that a Southern governor with a potential draft-dodging problem badly needed the balance that a Midwestern senator and war hero would provide. Reports surface that Hillary Clinton—still enraged over Mr. Kerrey’s primary season tactics—vetoes his selection. Publicly, Bill Clinton denies the reports, but Mr. Kerrey is bypassed in favor of Al Gore.

• In the summer of 1993, Mr. Clinton’s infant presidency, already knocked off course by the gays-in-the-military fiasco and his futile push for a $16 billion “economic stimulus” package, seems to hang in the balance. Facing a wall of Republican opposition and Southern Democratic defections, his controversial budget is one vote shy of final passage in the Senate. The key holdout? Bob Kerrey, who torments the White House (at one point he and Clinton had a heated phone call in which Kerrey told the president that he resented the implication that his ‘no’ vote could bring down the presidency) until finally, late in the night, assenting to give the budget its 50th vote. (Vice President Gore then broke the tie).

• Mr. Kerrey, who championed an expansive national health care program during his 1992 campaign, sounds a much more conservative note on the subject as Hillary Clinton pushes her health care plan in 1993 and 1994, delivering a blow to the administration when he joins several moderate-to-conservative Democrats in endorsing a scaled-back plan drawn up by Republican Senator John Chafee.

• As Democrats, hobbled by President Clinton’s low poll numbers, suffer historic defeats in the 1994 midterm election, Mr. Kerrey publicly brands the president “an unusually good liar,” stoking talk that he will challenge Clinton in the 1996 Democratic primaries. Paul Tsongas, who competed with Kerrey and Clinton in the ’92 primaries, publicly endorses a Kerrey candidacy. Ultimately, Mr. Kerrey begs off and instead chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 1996.

• As Bill Clinton and his allies seek to clear the 2000 Democratic field for Al Gore, Mr. Kerrey (after himself declining to run) opts to endorse Bill Bradley, the only Democrat who ends up challenging Mr. Gore, and cuts an ad for him in New Hampshire.

Mr. Kerrey’s motives for endorsing Hillary Clinton now are anyone’s guess. His actions have been unpredictable, and in many cases contradictory, through the years. Maybe he simply genuinely believes she’s the right candidate. Maybe as New York’s senator she’s been particularly good to the New School. At least we can rule out one typical endorsement motivation: wanting to be vice president. Since Mr. Kerrey and Mrs. Clinton are both New York residents, they are constitutionally barred from running together next fall.

* In 1991/92, both Kerrey and Bill Clinton seek the Democratic nomination. A decorated Vietnam combat veteran, Kerrey is initially deemed the front-runner, but his chaotic and unfocused campaign quickly loses traction, and Clinton seizes the top slot. Kerrey then shreds Clinton for avoiding service in Vietnam and says that Republicans will open him up "like a soft peanut" in the fall. Besides a meaningless win in South Dakota, Kerrey drops out of the race in early March with little to show for his effort.

* Despite the contentious primary sniping, Kerrey emerges as a finalist for Clinton's vice-presidential slot in July 1992, with many Democrats pushing the idea that Clinton, a southern governor with a potential draft-dodging problem, badly needed the balance that Kerrey, a midwestern senator and war hero, would provide. Reports surface that Hillary Clinton -- still enraged over Kerrey's primary season tactics -- vetoes his selection. Publicly, Bill Clinton denies the reports, but Kerrey is bypassed in favor of Al Gore.

* In the summer of 1993, Clinton's infant presidency, already knocked off course by the gays in the military fiasco and his futile push for a $16 billion "economic stimulus" package, seems to hang in the balance. Facing a wall of Republican opposition and southern Democratic defections, his controversial budget is one vote shy of final passage in the Senate. The lone hold-out? Kerrey, who torments the White House (at one point he and Clinton had a heated phone call in which Kerrey told the president that he resented the implication that Kerrey would bring down his presidency by voting no) until finally, late in the night, assenting to give the budget its 50th vote. (Vice President Gore then broke the tie).

* Kerrey, who championed an expansive national health care program during his '92 campaign, sounds a much more conservative note on the subject as Hillary Clinton pushes her health care plan in 1993 and 1994, delivering a blow to the administration when he joins several moderate-to-conservative Democrats in endorsing a scaled-back plan drawn up by Republican Senator John Chafee.

* As Democrats, hobbled by President Clinton's low poll numbers, suffer historic defeats in the 1994 midterm election, Kerrey publicly brands the President "an unusually good liar," stoking talk that he will challenge Clinton in the 1996 Democratic primaries. Paul Tsongas, who competed with Kerrey and Clinton in the '92 primaries, publicly endorses a Kerrey candidacy. Ultimately, Kerrey begs off and instead chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 1996.

* As Bill Clinton and his allies seek to clear the 2000 Democratic field for Al Gore, Kerrey (after himself declining to run) opts to endorse Bill Bradley, the only Democrat who ends up challenging Gore, and cuts an ad for him in New Hampshire.

Kerrey's motives for endorsing Hillary now are anyone's guess. His actions have been unpredictable, and in many cases contradictory, through the years. Maybe he simply genuinely believes she's the right candidate. Maybe as New York's Senator she's been particularly good to the New School. At least we can rule out one typical endorsement motivation: wanting to be vice president. Since Kerrey and Clinton are both New York residents, they are constitutionally barred from running together next fall.

UPDATE: Local side-note -- as Azi points out, the endorsement can probably be chalked up as a small victory for Fred Hochberg, a New School dean who is a major Hillary fund-raiser.