Wednesday's Starting Lineup

Good Wednesday morning. Jon Stewart, previewing his interview last night by making light of VP Biden's legendary verbosity: "I should tell you, you can watch the entire interview on the web, if you know what I mean. It's only a 22-minute show."

Here are the people to watch, OnCall's Starting Lineup, for Wednesday, 11/18:

AG ERIC HOLDER: The week after Holder announced terrorists held in Guantanamo Bay would be transfered to NYC for trials, and after IL Gov. Pat Quinn (D) signaled a maximum-security prison on the western side of the state could hold more terrorism suspects, the AG will testify about the decision before the Sen Jud Committee. Holder can expect harsh questioning from Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the ranking member, and Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and John Cornyn (R-TX).

In a round of interviews aired 11/17 from China, Pres. Obama backed his AG, calling it a "fundamental mistake" to assume that terrorists will be given a new platform from which to spew their rhetoric. But polls show most Americans are not yet on board, making the move Holder's -- and perhaps the entire admin's -- biggest gamble to date.

SEN. BLANCHE LINCOLN: The AR Dem, under fire in her home state and facing a surprisingly strong re-elect challenge, has inserted herself in the health care debate again, demanding that the bill Sen. Maj. Leader Harry Reid will produce as early as today be public for at least three full days before the Senate takes any votes. In an interview with reporters after caucus lunches 11/17, Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) said debate on the measure isn't likely to begin until after Thanksgiving.

But the longer the wait, the longer GOPers have to poke holes in the bill Reid eventually drops. The GOP used the Aug. recess to effectively scare moderates on both sides of the aisle into slowing down the debate. What's more, while Dems believe the health care overhaul will give them a winning argument in the '10 midterms, every day the debate goes on looks better for the GOP than it does for Dems. Until passage, the bill is a liability for Dems. And with Senate debate, conference negotiations and final passage still to come, Lincoln and other endangered incumbents will have more to answer for every day until a final product reaches Obama's desk.

EARL DEVANEY: The long-time Secret Service agent is now in charge of overseeing the hundreds of billions spent as part of the stimulus package passed in Feb. But new reports indicate that oversight is far from stringent, and that money from the stimulus bill has gone to projects in phantom congressional districts (The U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Marianas Islands and Puerto Rico each got money supposedly spent in their respective 99th CDs, among other egregious examples). Devaney, in a letter to Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), now says he cannot certify that the number of jobs the admin claims has been created or saved by the recovery act as accurate and auditable, per ABC's Rick Klein.

One Friend of OnCall, a GOP communicator in a previous life, has long argued that the sheer magnitude of the stimulus package made it inevitable that money would be misspent. For the GOP, that becomes a political boon as they once again seek to become the party of fiscal discipline. Now, GOPers can argue, wasteful spending is afoot. If the stimulus can't be credited with providing hundreds of thousands of new jobs by Election Day, GOPers may be able to slam their rivals for fiscal mismanagement, a sin at the federal level. Devaney's performance over the next several days will determine whether this becomes a crack in the dam, or a minor annoyance to fend off.

(REID WILSON)