Jimmy Carter, energy expert

Seemingly playing into the hands of the GOP, former President Jimmy Carter has accepted an invitation from Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) to testify at a May 12 committee hearing on energy and foreign policy, a Senate source confirmed to ITK.

Carter’s failed reelection bid was hampered by his handling of the energy crisis in the late 1970s. While sporting a cardigan sweater, Carter also famously asked Americans to save oil by turning down their thermostats.

Congressional testimonies from U.S. presidents — sitting or past — are rare.

According to Senate Historian  Don Ritchie, Carter was the last president to testify on Capitol Hill when the House Armed Services Committee called on him in 1995 to speak about Bosnia.

Enough of the men, already

When AP correspondent Jennifer Loven became president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, she made it a top priority to select a female entertainer for the annual dinner.

“I was pretty certain I wanted a woman comedian,” she said.

But how did comedian/actress Wanda Sykes get the nod for Saturday night’s bash? Well, CBS late-night talk show host Craig Ferguson, who was last year’s entertainment, had something to do with it.

Loven and Ferguson huddled after the 2008 dinner, with Ferguson saying what a good time he had and how he’d like the gig again.

Loven had to break the news that it’s a one-shot-only deal. But Ferguson took it well, and offered some advice for future dinners.

Ferguson “gave me some pointers on the person who would be good for the room,” Loven said. “He was very gracious to help.”

And Sykes will see one familiar face among the 2,700 guests in the room. Her “New Adventures of Old Christine” co-star Julia Louis-Dreyfus is scheduled to attend at a CBS News table.

For the record, Sykes is a backer of President Obama, contributing the maximum $2,300 to his campaign during the Democratic primary and another $2,300 for the general election.

A slow day for Newt

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) is usually a busy man, but he wasn’t on Saturday.

On Saturday, he offered up this Twitter feed (We don’t fully get it, so we’re running it unedited):

“So far a slow day of suburban dry cleaning shoe repair looking for buttons for a jacket and having breakfast at mclean family restaurant.”

Hopefully, those buttons were found before the breakfast.

What will Hoyer and Cantor chat about?

Newsweek has some impressive guests for Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner — including rival Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Eric Cantor (R-Va.).

Majority Leader Hoyer and former GOP Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) are good friends, but the same cannot be said of Hoyer and the new minority whip.

But the duo will need to mingle at the Newsweek pre-party and perhaps at dinner (though we’re betting they’re at separate tables).

Other Newsweek guests include Arianna Huffington and actors Owen Wilson and Natalie Portman.

Sen. Baucus invites boatloads of hassle into his life

It’s one thing to create a Twitter feed or a Facebook “fan” page, but Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has loosed the Internet hounds: He gave away his personal e-mail address during a conference call with reporters, bloggers and God knows who else Monday morning.

Baucus, the chairman of the Finance Committee and the chief architect of health reform on Capitol Hill, was finishing up a call hosted by the liberal Center for American Progress when he was seized by a moment of … well, it was either genius or madness.

“This may be a bit dangerous but I’m going to give everybody my personal e-mail address,” he said.

We won’t publish the address in this space (though we’re sure it won’t be hard to find by the end of the day) but we will observe that the senator seems to be one of the only people left in America who tethers his e-mail address to his Internet service provider. And no, his address is not a series of numbers@compuserve.com. ITK, which already had this e-mail address, is also disappointed that it’s no longer special.

Even lawmakers can’t afford baseball tix

Some Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill, who make a minimum of $174,000 per year, are not heading to the ballpark this year.

During an Appropriations subcommittee hearing last week, Rep. José Serrano (D-N.Y.) said he has signed up to get all Major League Baseball games on his laptop for $149.

“At $2,500 a Yankee Stadium seat, $149 a year for 2,000 games is a pretty good deal,” Serrano said, adding: “I shouldn’t say that. They’ll probably raise the prices now.”

Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.) is also dismayed at skyrocketing ticket prices.

“The reason that I also got the baseball channel on my TV was because at [the] Cardinals stadium, not even for the good seats, it’s $89 a seat now,” Emerson said, noting her old seats were $27 a pop.

Sighting

Former Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) was spotted at the Off the Record bar at the Hay-Adams Hotel on Saturday. Stevens appeared to be interested in the Kentucky Derby festivities on the TV, but he left before race time.

But the story doesn’t end there.

Mine That Bird, a 50-1 longshot, was the surprise Derby winner on Saturday. The horse is owned by Mark Allen, who is the son of Bill Allen, former CEO of the oil company Veco. Bill Allen was the lead government witness in the prosecution of Stevens. As part of his plea deal, Bill Allen secured immunity for his son, who Allen says bribed two state lawmakers (including, coincidentally, Stevens’s son Ben Stevens, a state senator.)

If Mark Allen had been charged and convicted, he would have lost his license to purchase horses in New Mexico, where he bought Mine That Bird.

And that’s not all, according to the Anchorage Daily News, which noted that  Mine That Bird indirectly figured into one of the oddest events in the Stevens trial.

After the jurors began deliberating on the fate of Stevens, one of them, Marian Hinnant, skipped town. She initially said her father had died, but then admitted she had a ticket to see the Breeders’ Cup, a major thoroughbred stakes race Santa Anita Park in California.

 Mine That Bird, which at that time had recently been purchased by Allen and his neighbor Leonard Blach, ran in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile as a two-year-old. In that contest, Mine That Bird was true to form — he was a 30-to-1 long shot and finished 12th.

Hinnant, meanwhile, was subsequently replaced by an alternate juror.

Lawmakers want ED ads labeled indecent

Lawmakers want advertisements for drugs to treat erectile dysfunction declared “indecent” and banned on radio and television during the vast majority of daytime and primetime hours.

Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) introduced the “Families for ED Advertising Decency Act” last week, which would force advertisements for products like Cialis and Viagra to broadcast only between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

The bill would allow the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to levy fines as high as $325,000 against the ads, Broadcasting & Cable reported.

Rep. Robert Brady (D-Pa.) has signed on to co-sponsor the legislation.

Ads for the products are prevalent during sporting events, which often run on television during afternoons and evenings.