South Koreans chose opposition leader Kim Dae Jung as their next president. The romantic spin: He's "the Nelson Mandela of Korea," a pro-democracy dissident who survived jail, torture, and attempted assassination; defeated the ruling party's presidential candidate for the first time in the country's half-century; and will shake up the government and stand up for workers. The sober spin: Global markets have humbled him already (he threatened to renegotiate the International Monetary Fund's bailout of South Korea, but quickly reversed himself after his comments spooked foreign investors and walloped the Korean stock market). This will make him govern as deferentially to capital and as harshly to labor as any other candidate would have. (12/19)

New Jersey approved the nation's first nondiscrimination policy for gay couples seeking to adopt. Under a settlement, gay and unmarried heterosexual couples will be evaluated just as married couples are. Spin roundup: 1) It's no big deal, because other states are already letting gay couples adopt kids without acknowledging in principle that gays are fit for parenthood. 2) It's a big deal precisely because it acknowledges this principle, thereby advancing the movement for gay family rights everywhere. 3) Courts are becoming more sympathetic to gay couples who want to adopt kids, because many heterosexual parents are doing a lousy or indifferent job. 4) New Jersey's policy increases the likelihood that a heterosexual couple will lose an adoption opportunity to a gay couple, triggering a political explosion. (12/19)

President Clinton said he would keep United States troops in Bosnia past the June 1998 withdrawal deadline. Members of Congress are so tired of Clinton's reneging on Bosnia deadlines that this time they asked him not to insult their intelligence by stipulating another one. He obliged by scrapping the whole concept of a withdrawal date (which was clear, thereby making him accountable) in favor of withdrawal conditions (which are unclear, thereby making him less accountable). Critics argue that U.S. troops, whose original mission was to keep Bosnians from killing each other, have become a crutch for European powers that ought to finish the repair job themselves. (12/19)

Cultural news: 1) Comedian Chris Farley died of a heart attack at 33. Even before the exact cause was determined, obituaries compared him to John Belushi (who died of a drug overdose at the same age) and implied that Farley may have similarly burned out on "food, drugs, alcohol and women" (the Washington Post). 2) The New York Times reported that author Barbara Chase-Riboud, who has filed a $10-million suit claiming to have been plagiarized in Amistad, egregiously plagiarized another book 11 years ago. Her explanation: "I have a technique of sort of weaving real documents and real reference materials into my novel and making a kind of seamless narrative." 3) The Clinton administration picked the head of Nashville's Country Music Foundation to chair the National Endowment for the Arts. The Times questioned whether this is another maneuver to appease congressional Republicans by "installing a kind of Southern folklore mafia inside America's cultural institutions."(12/19)

President Clinton held the longest press conference of his administration. Absent competing news, Clinton made several headlines: 1) Having recently demanded that a critic give a yes-or-no answer on whether she supported affirmative action, Clinton gave a long, dense, nuanced answer to a question on the subject, concluding, "I haven't given you a clear answer because it's not a clear problem." 2) He avoided expressing confidence in FBI Director Louis Freeh. The media's translation: Clinton wants Freeh to pack his bags but can't say so because it would look Nixonian. 3) He accused the Republican Party of using congressional campaign-finance probes to bankrupt the Democratic Party. 4) He again dangled the implicit threat of military action against Saddam Hussein. 5) He denied snubbing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but added that he wants a "real" agenda the next time they meet. (12/17)

The big story leading up to Clinton's press conference was what he would name his new dog. He decided on "Buddy," spurning suggestions such as "Reno," "Shredder," and "101 Donations." ("Pundit Central" rounds up more suggested names.) The media obsessed about the dog-name question for two weeks, ignoring the slaughter of hundreds of prisoners of war in Afghanistan (many of whom were found to have been shot, drowned, and/or buried alive in wells) and Tutsi refugees in Rwanda. (12/17)

The federal government announced standards for organic food. Among other things, companies will be fined if they use hormones, pesticides, or synthetic fertilizers to produce raw food that they sell as "organic." Editorialists applauded the government for overriding weak and conflicting state laws, but complained that the Agriculture Department was resisting stricter standards (against sewage-sludge fertilizer, irradiation, and genetic engineering), possibly at the industry's behest. The Chicago Tribune joked that no regulations can provide what baby boomers really want from organic food: a halting of the aging process. (12/17)

U.S. officials reportedly tried to squelch a Voice of America interview with Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng. They argued that VOA broadcasts should not hurt U.S. interests and that the United States had promised China not to exploit Wei's recent release. According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. ambassador to China called National Security Council officials, who called the U.S. Information Agency director, who urged VOA administrators to cancel the broadcast. VOA aired the interview anyway. (12/17)

Update on the Indian casino scandal: 1) Tribes who opposed the casino were billed for lobbyists' meetings with top aides to Vice President Gore. Reporters suggested this might drag Gore into the investigation. 2) Attorney General Janet Reno rejected a GOP request to include President Clinton in the preliminary inquiry into whether the casino decision merits an independent counsel. 3) The Washington Post reported that a newly disclosed document "suggests that career officials were still viewing the [casino] application favorably while higher-ups in [Interior Secretary Bruce] Babbitt's office had already told the White House that it would almost certainly be turned down." 4) Babbitt said he was "out of the loop" regarding the decision. Meanwhile, former Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor admitted that he helped Web Hubbell extract a consulting payment from the city of Los Angeles after Hubbell pleaded guilty to Whitewater felony charges. Previously Kantor had said that helping Hubbell would have been "inappropriate." Question: Did Kantor's assistance help keep Hubbell quiet about the Clintons' roles in Whitewater? (12/17)

President Clinton appointed Bill Lann Lee to be acting assistant attorney general for civil rights. The "acting" appointment is less offensive to Senate Republicans than the alternative "recess" appointment because, in theory, the former is a temporary posting. Clinton said he will continue to seek Senate confirmation of Lee. Republicans previously had threatened payback against other Clinton nominees if Lee were to get a recess appointment. After Clinton chose the acting over the recess appointment, some Republicans threatened payback anyway. (Should agreeing with the president disqualify you from an administration job? Read Jacob Weisberg's "Strange Bedfellow.") (12/15)