_______________ANALYSIS: GRACE UNDER PRESSURE BY CHARLES TAYLOR (09/22/98)
	I was delighted to see Charles Taylor's report on the great and disgusting airing of the videotape of President Clinton testifying before Kenneth Starr's tame grand jury. I am intrigued by Henry Hyde's assertion that there are precedents for such un-due process, political uses of evidentiary material and the dumping of same into the stream of civic discourse. Could he please specify what they are? I do not think I have ever felt so alienated from the elites, the media and the rest of the chattering (and back-stabbing) classes since the McCarthy era. And I am old enough to have watched that live television coverage. I have also watched, with depressed amazement, a press determined to tell us what to think about Bill Clinton and do all they can to "sell" news -- and un-elect the president we elected and still support, warts and all. Well, I have a message for them, for Starr and the sinister people hiding behind his stained judicial robe: We are not as stupid as you think. We are aware of the deliberate conflation of news (infotainment) and docudrama/commentary that have been given to us by the small number of proprietors who dominate the bandwidth, given to us as a contemptuous substitute for the pitifully minor obligations they have to deliver some real news (and relatively unadversarial and objective news at that) as a pitifully insignificant payment for the enormously profitable use of a public domain, the radio-TV spectrum. And these are the same people who want (with the help of people like Dan Coates) to clamp a lock on the last anarchic and free medium of expression (the Internet) left to ordinary Americans, the ones who can't afford to have their "Representatives" represent them. You scared? I am. I canceled my subscription to the New York Times (a polite version of the National Enquirer cum MSNBC wearing a Falwell-like vestment of virtue) and will do what little I can to give wind to a faint civic voice of protest. Even a civil one, in contrast to what I hear coming from the press, the Congress and all those who hate Clinton for being a flawed man but the best president he can be, given the yahoos of the right-wing dominated Republicans and the temporizing cowards in the Democratic Party and leadership. May they all reap the full rewards of the pollution, lies, leaks and pious hypocrisy that they have employed to poison discourse in this country. I don't think (or at least I hope not) that ordinary people will become docile cattle nourished on the steroids injected into their minds by the people who own most of the wealth in this country and want, like the Cosmo girl, to have it all. If we are to have a republic, we must measure up to Ben Franklin's challenge; we will have a republic -- if we can keep it! And keep our good common sense and critical faculties intact, something the press threw away some time ago in a desperate quest to make a profit out of irresponsible journalism and entertainment pandering. What a collection of whores -- inside the Beltway and right in the saddle of prime time. -- James O'Shea Wade While I have grown increasingly disgusted with our president's twisting of the English language like so much pipe cleaner (did he actually have the gall to say that the truth depended upon your definition of the word, "is"? This Rhodes Scholar apparently failed basic English), I am appalled at the lengths to which some will go to defend his reprehensible conduct. A perfect example can be found in Charles Taylor's "Grace Under Pressure." As anyone who viewed the president's taped testimony yesterday will tell you, this is one of the most inaptly titled columns ever published. Taylor has substituted bile for analysis, and in the process he has alienated several moderate Democrats, like myself, who have struggled to find a lifeline the president can cling to in order to stay in office. Taylor, apparently, believes that anybody who questions the president's conduct in this matter is a mindless drone of the far right, and arguments in favor of his resignation or impeachment amount to so much "bleating." Serious people have serious problems with the president's behavior, Mr. Taylor, and some of us have given this matter a great deal more thought than you. Taylor has done the Democratic Party a great disservice by demonstrating that the president's ardent supporters have no understanding of either the definition of perjury or the ramifications of the president's commission of it. To quote Taylor: "There is no dishonor in lying to people who are asking questions that are none of their goddamn business to begin with." Taylor is completely misguided on (at least) two points: First, there is a great deal of dishonor in lying when you are under an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Second, the prosecutors questioning the deponent have every right to go into the issue of the president's sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky. The president's lack of discretion and self-control has made his sexual life a national issue. Can you not grasp these basic concepts? Look at it this way: Could the president have simply said to the prosecutors, "That's none of your goddamn business"? No -- it is not up to the deponent to decide what is the prosecutor's "goddamn" business -- that's why judges are present. Taylor, and others like him, are willing to set the worst precedents in the name of partisanship. What will it do to the law in this country if the president lies under oath without legal consequence? Can a cheating husband now lie about adultery in a divorce proceeding under the same rationale? Unlike Mr. Taylor and the other Democrat attack dogs, I demand a higher standard from my president than I do my friends and co-workers. Unlike Taylor, I can see how stating that, even under the most narrow reading of the applied definition of sexual relations, the president had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky several times. Let's put this plainly. He got blow jobs. He kissed her. He felt her up. He jacked her off. He spewed on her dress. In the White House. No president other than Nixon has abused the power of the bully pulpit the way this president has. When he stood up before the nation and looked us in the eye (with all the defiance that morons like Mr. Taylor adore), waggled his finger and said he didn't have sexual relations with "that woman," I believed him. I believed that he didn't have sex with her of any kind -- oral or otherwise -- because I live in the real world where "sexual relations" means sex, "is" means "is" and the truth is the truth. He lied under oath. He got caught. He should go. And your tripe doesn't change these basic facts. -- Scott M. Schiefelbein You got to hand it to the president: He made the slimy Starr cabal look like a bunch of rookies. If this were a football match, it would be Clinton U. 35, Starr Tech, O. Time to head to Malibu, Ken. -- Gary Garland Yorba Linda, Calif. Excellent article. Clinton has shown true character in protecting/defending himself, his family and his office. He richly deserved the U.N. standing ovation. All this really brings the hypocrites out of the woodwork. But I am amazed at the press bias. Today Bernard Shaw's voice quavered in frustration that someone failed to fully pillory the president during the noontime roundup of panting pundits. Is it Cotton Mather we Americans have to thank for the concept that all morality is sexual? -- T. C. Hale Charles Taylor's article is wonderfully perceptive. Thank you, Salon. Thank you, Charles. This level of intelligence should be the norm for American media: It's amazing how dumbed-down modern journalists have become. They can't be that stupid and ignorant of history. Or did the entire U.S. television and newspaper industry bow down and give oral sex to Joe McCarthy because they were making so much money with the Communist witch hunt? -- Lorin Roche Charles Taylor is dead on in his Sept. 22 piece. The comments on the silent "cigar" coup are at the bottom of this travesty. Jeez, when I think of what Reagan and Bush got away with! -- Robert Lipton
_______________WHAT THE SPELL-CHECKER KNOWS BY TOM KRATTENMAKER (09/18/98)
	I'm extremely disappointed in today's 21st. Maybe I'm spoiled, since most of the time I actually learn something or at least think about the topic, but this is just plain dumb. Spell-checker humor? Do you have articles scheduled on semi-funny e-mails that endlessly circulate in large corporations? "The Hidden Truth Behind '100 Reasons Beer is Better than a Woman'" anyone? Salon seems to have a pretty high standard for its content, both in writing and in subject matter. Unfortunately, this makes it all the more glaring when you fail to meet it. I might not have noticed had this one slipped into my local paper's "Personal Technology" section, just like I wouldn't notice some of the more ludicrous pieces of sex-related writing if they went into some random men/women's magazine. But fixed among some of the other pieces you've run, they're a shocking reminder that there may not be enough content to go around. -- Derek Zumsteg
_______________WILL MOTHER JONES BECOME MORE POLITICALLY CORRECT? BY ASHLEY CRADDOCK(08/24/98)
	Ashley Craddock Responds to Kerry Tremain's Sept. 9 letter: Kerry Tremain's letter is based on equal parts wishful thinking, condescension and bitterness. Had he not made such a calculated attack on my professionalism -- spamming his screed into every corridor of influence he could think of, from "Dateline NBC" to Newsweek to CNN -- I might have trusted him to dig his own grave. But Tremain's largely ad hominem ramble leaves me with little choice but to rouse the ghost. Tremain charges that "most egregiously, [I] declined to interview principal figures." He is especially incensed that I did not call him, but as anyone who has read the story will realize, he is hardly a principal figure. He then tries to discredit the piece by characterizing me as a "micro-brew" swilling kvetch who "violates basic standards of journalism." He faults me as a former Mother Jones intern with a "know-it-all attitude," "smug" tone and an "ax to grind," and accuses me of writing an error-riddled, "grotesquely biased account" based on the "cozy consensus of my social group." Nothing could be further from the truth. The story was well-sourced. Besides talking to the publisher, current and former editors in chief on the record, I conducted numerous background and off-the-record interviews with board and staff members who were more than happy to talk, but did not want to be named for fear of encountering the wrath of Tremain, whose ad hominem attack was entirely predictable. Tremain is correct that there were a few errors in the article. Judith Klein's death was in 1996, not 1997 as reported. I was mistaken, as well, in reporting that Jeffrey Klein passed over the David Beers story that ultimately garnered a National Magazine Award for Harper's; he did not. I am also told (by one person, anyway) that my characterization of Tremain as a "granola muncher" was in error; he does not. Aside from pointing out those relatively minor mistakes, however, Tremain should have stayed in his glass house. As troubling as anything in Tremain's letter is his urge to take credit where credit isn't due. As he notes, Tremain crafted a lovely presentation of my 1994 investigation. But he makes it sound as though he shepherded the investigation, which is false. This sleight-of-hand, however, pales in comparison to his claim that the Newt Gingrich and tobacco exposés -- arguably two of the magazine's finest efforts to date -- occurred "on [his] watch." They did not. Tremain was creative director at the time, not executive editor. The stories were Klein's. Indeed, in the tobacco investigation, publisher Jay Harris credits Klein with turning a throwaway barroom hint into a full-blown investigation that turned around the legal case against the tobacco industry. As with the Gingrich issue, Tremain had a heavy hand in visual presentation and display copy. But sources -- none of whom are among my less-than-cozy social circle -- say that is all. The real Tremain story is this: He put in nine good years at the magazine, but during his brief tenure as executive editor he oversaw consistently weak issues of the magazine. His flawed performance made it easy for Klein and the board, struggling over finances and editorial direction, to cast him as fall guy, and his personal style -- on full display in his spam attack on me -- left him with few supporters when the ax hit the fan. SALON | Sept. 23, 1998

R E C E N T L Y+| SALON'S COVERAGE OF THE CLINTON CRISIS

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