_______________A CLEAN SLATE AT THE MICROSOFT TRIAL BY SUSAN LEHMAN (11/12/98)
	Thank you for your kind words about Michael Lewis' dispatches from the Microsoft antitrust trial in Slate. Susan Lehman implies there is something suspicious about the fact that Lewis has stopped filing. Lacking any evidence, she employs the following classy journalistic techniques: 1.) She quotes my colleague Jack Shafer saying Lewis "got sick of the trial" and quotes me (approximately at best) saying "he was always planning to stop to work on a book." What I said was he was originally planning to return after a break for previously scheduled work on his book. So there is no contradiction, your author knew it, and she deliberately misled her readers. 2.) Lehman reports that "a little squib stating that Lewis would file occasional dispatches from the trial has disappeared." Then she notes ominously that in online publishing "the archival record can be altered at will or whim!" It's true that we have stopped saying that Michael Lewis will be filing occasionally. This is because -- and I apologize for the subtle complexity of this point -- Michael Lewis will not be filing occasionally. Indeed, as Lehman points out, we go beyond merely not saying that Lewis will be filing occasionally: We actually say that Lewis will not be filing occasionally. This seemed to us the best way to share the concept that Lewis will not be filing occasionally. But I see now it would be less suspicious to continue saying that Lewis will be filing occasionally although -- technically speaking -- Lewis will not be filing occasionally. 3.) The best authority on why Michael Lewis will not be filing occasionally is Michael Lewis. We gave Lehman his e-mail address. She does not trouble to quote him. Finally, I'm sorry Lehman finds my writings on Slate's relationship with Microsoft "unfathomably ironic." Try this one. It's a piece titled, with unfathomable irony, "Slate and Microsoft," and it goes on in a similar multilayered, postmodern vein. -- Michael Kinsley Editor, Slate Susan Lehman responds: I did not mislead my readers, nor did I get the story wrong. Slate editors offered contradictory explanations for Lewis' departure -- not hugely contradictory, but contradictory just the same. I did contact Michael Lewis, who e-mailed back and said essentially the same thing Kinsley did. And I still miss Lewis' reports. Thanks for the semi-exposé on Slate's trial coverage. I'm always a bit skeptical about these conflict-of-interest stories, though -- I guess I'm cynical about your cynicism. (If Disney is brimming with pedophiles, why didn't CNN, NBC, PBS, etc. pick up the story, instead of just dumping on ABC?) I, too, enjoyed Lewis' trial coverage. But if he was indeed dumped, you guys are missing a great opportunity to pay him to cover the trial for Salon. Lewis' trial coverage was the first thing I read in Slate. It made it worth the $20 subscription. If you guys get him to cover the trial instead, I just might think about becoming a Salon member. -- Stephen Ng
_______________ THE AMAZING DISAPPEARING NEWT BY STEVE ERICKSON (11/11/98)
	Steve Erickson's theory that Newt Gingrich was never important and simply was the beneficiary of some historical political cycle seriously misses the mark. I don't like Gingrich, his tactics or his politics. But he remains an important historical figure, for both his success and failure. Gingrich is important for two distinct acts. First, he pioneered the congressional GOP's departure from a perennial "gentlemen of the loyal opposition" mode into an aggressive and highly partisan organization. His ouster of a Democratic speaker was only one of many moves he made to discredit the entire institution of the House, and by connection, its Democratic majority. A collateral benefit of this approach was to alienate people from their own elected government so that "government" could be demonized as an almost alien force rather then the agent of collective will. Diminishing the "government" at large and delegitimizing the Democratic Congress in particular were big items on the road to the 1994 Democratic collapse. Next, Gingrich, having discredited the Democratic Party and the entire idea of using government to do public good, successfully collated public anger into the "Contract with America," which nationalized an off-year election and was the first attempt by a major political party in a generation to actually contest congressional contests on specific national questions. It was the first such attempt since 1938, when FDR tried to use an off-year election cycle to replace conservative pre-New Deal Democrats with friendlier faces from his own party. But Gingrich's successes were the basis of his failure. The contract was a monument to political gimmickry. The theory that cutting off welfare queens and aid to Mongolia would magically balance the budget and yield handsome tax cuts proved to be an illusion. The government shutdown was a remarkable national tutorial on what life would be like without the many services the federal government delivers. Tort reform, once applauded by "Joe Six Pack" as an economic panacea, turned out to be a way to leave Mr. Six Pack without the right to sue the giant corporation that sold him a defective product. The stock market provided a timely reminder, for those without historical perspective, on the dangers of making Social Security private. Oklahoma City did to the "revolutionaries" in the GOP what riots did to the progressives of the Democratic Party a generation before by associating an ascendant ideology with terror and violence. In the end Gingrich's rise and fall was an exercise in irresponsibility, and irresponsibility in power may be regrettable but is always very important. -- Douglas Green
_______________"KING OF THE WORLD" BY DAVID REMNICK REVIEWED BY HAL HINSON (11/12/98)
	When I was a boy, Muhammad Ali was one of my heroes, as much for his loud, raucous speech as for anything he did in the ring. Being so young, I understood very little of what motivated this amazing man. It was enough that he was a powerful and winning boxer with a quick wit. But I see him differently now. That Ali chose to resist the draft and oppose the war in Vietnam is not the issue; that he did so as a member of a militant and racist cult is. Muhammad Ali's achievements in the ring should never blind us to the fact that he willingly associated himself with an organization whose leaders held some truly vile beliefs, and it is not unreasonable to believe that Ali shared in these hateful beliefs. Muhammad Ali was a great boxer and celebrity; he was not, unfortunately, a very wise man. -- George Mendez Crownsville, Md.
_______________NO MERCY BY MARC HERMAN (11/13/98)
	There is a supreme and grotesque irony here: Lame duck Gov. Pete Wilson might actually put someone to death on the remote chance that it would help him win the presidency -- which he never could. Competing with George W. Bush to see who can turn down the most death clemency appeals is of itself grotesque. And anyone who presides unapologetically, with no attempt at reform, over a parole system that makes life and death decisions long-distance by fax, as is done in Texas, should not be a U.S. president. -- Bonnie Simrell
_______________WEEP AND READ IT BY JAMES PONIEWOZIK (11/10/98)
	Thanks to James Poniewozik for articulating something I've suspected for years: namely that many people like books more than they like reading. It's easy to forget that books are made up of words and that those are the things that count, regardless of how they're packaged. I've found that you can tell the real readers in the bunch by looking at their bookshelves. They're filled with paperbacks, and not the big trade kind, either. These wonderful (and disappearing) items fit in your pocket and you can read them standing up on the bus. -- Fred Maslin SALON | Nov. 17, 1998

R E C E N T L Y+| IS THERE SUCH A THING AS A SOFTWARE MONOPOLY? BY MIKE ROMAN

If you would like to submit a letter to the editor for publication, please e-mail us at salon@salonmagazine.com. Letters sent by fax or "snail mail" are less likely to be accepted. Do not send attachments. Please include your full name and a phone number where you can be reached during business hours, so we can confirm your identity. This information will not be used for any reason other than verification and will not appear on the site. Letters may be edited for clarity and conciseness. Brief letters are more likely to be published. Place the name of the article you are responding to in the subject heading of your e-mail. If you do not wish your letter to be published, please say so in the subject line. For more information on Salon's letters policy, click here.