The Republican Party's priority? The estate tax: "Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman has other priorities in mind. In an e-mail he sent yesterday, Mehlman called on the Senate to eliminate the estate tax. And he urged his supporters to call their senators -- 'today' -- to demand that they get on board with the plan.

The message arrived in our in box at just about the same time Scott McClellan was pushing away criticism of the president by saying, 'This is not the time for politics.'

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has asked Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to table talk of the estate tax in the wake of Katrina, saying that members of the Senate 'would have great difficulty explaining why we were debating the estate tax during our first days back when we know hundreds of thousands of families are suffering.'"

(Via Salon.)