May 14, 1999 | Is President Clinton taking a page from "Lamar Alexander's Little Plaid Book"? The 1998 book, which offers "152 rules, lessons and reminders about running for office and making a difference," counsels candidates (as well as perpetually poll-watching presidents): "Before you play a harmonica in public, think how it will look on TV" (Rule 54).

Perhaps such wise words ran through the president's mind when he goosed the crowd of moneyed Democrats at Wednesday night's "Taste of the States" gala in Washington by picking up a saxophone, only to put it down again (sigh!) and sound a somber note about world peace, tolerance and gun control legislation. On the subject of Kosovo, he told the more than 1,500 attendees, who forked over as much as $1,000 to sample finger food from various U.S. regions, that "the only real cloud looming over the world today is the weakness of people, when together, to fear and hate and harm those who are different from us."

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Truer words were never spoken, except maybe these, courtesy of Alexander's red-and-black book: "If it was a mistake and you did it, admit it and try not to do it again" (Rule 69), "Tell the truth. It's the right thing to do and it will confuse your opponent" (Rule 12) or "Walk in parades ... If it is the Mule Day parade, walk at the front" (Rules 40 and 42).

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Well, that oughta settle that ...

"If I were the president of the United States -- which, as you know, I have some thoughts about -- I would pick up my phone and I would call Jiang Zemin, the president of China, and say, 'OK, stop now. Stop it now, and it will affect our future relations between our two countries if you insist on continuing this embarrassment.'" -- Oval Office-eyeing Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., at a New Hampshire Rotary luncheon, on just how easy diplomatic relations can be.

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Is Willey not so slick?

Yup, she was presidentially groped. And she told her former friend about it right away. So proclaimeth one of two FBI polygraph tests Kathleen Willey courageously undertook in 1998, the results of which were released this week.

Although she failed or gave answers that were "inconclusive" in sections of an initial lie-detector exam, the FBI found former FOB Willey to be "truthful" the second time she answered affirmatively to such delightful questions as "In November 1993 did the president place his hand on your breast?" "Did President Clinton place your hand on his groin?" "Before 1997 did you tell Julie Hiatt Steele that the president came on to you?" and "In 1993 did you tell Julie Hiatt Steele about an encounter with the president in his office?"

Of course, such testimony is in direct opposition not only to Clinton's denial of the incident but also to Steele's Starr-crossed contention that she first heard of Willey's alleged White House woes when Willey asked her to lie to Newsweek in 1997 to back up her scandalous story. But Willey went on CNN's "Larry King Live" Wednesday to say she'd like to see Steele's super-slim obstruction of justice case, which recently ended in a mistrial, retried, and that she'd be willing to testify again should Ken Starr decide to do so. Methinks, lying or not, Willey is starting to enjoy the scandal spotlight almost as much as one William H. Ginsburg.

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Don't worry, Mr. President. Monica thought your stick was perfectly nice ...

"Instead of Theodore Roosevelt's 'talk softly and carry a big stick,' we have yelled and carried a toothpick." -- Ever-pleasant former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, breaking his silence this week to address a group of Republican women, on what he terms Clinton's "pathetic" Kosovo policy

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The Body: Revealed

The hell with those new books from Julian Barnes and Salman Rushdie. The must read of the season will be coming your way any day now: Jesse Ventura's autobiography, "I Ain't Got Time to Bleed: Reworking the Body Politic from the Bottom Up."

The Body's tell-all tale (not to be confused with his unauthorized biography, "Body Slam: the Jesse Ventura Story," by Salon News' Jake Tapper) is, not surprisingly, filled with bravado and bad language, according to an advance review in the Minnesota gov's hometown paper, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. In it, he boasts about winning a teenage bet with his friends to see who could lose their virginity first ("he gave the thumbs-up to his buddies when she wasn't looking," reports the paper), visiting prostitutes in Nevada (then conning one of them out of her pay and $10) and doing his share of toking up from time to time (before he traded in his wrestling belt for a suit, of course).

But the book's most charming revelation may be the fact that Ventura doesn't wear underwear "most of the time," a habit he picked up during his hardy-partying 17-month Vietnam War tour of duty in Southeast Asia. Fondly recalling those "wild, decadent, unpredictable" times of heavy sex and heavy drinking, Ventura says he and his Navy SEAL friends used to expose themselves routinely on top of bars during "skivvy checks."

Hmmm. Could that explain George W. Bush's alleged naked bar-top hula?
salon.com | May 14, 1999

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