Rep. Charles Schumer won the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat held by Alfonse D'Amato, R-N.Y. Schumer trounced former vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro by a margin of nearly 2-to-1. Analysts called it a career-ending defeat for Ferraro, who swore off any future runs for office, and a major boost for Schumer against D'Amato. Editorialists applauded the Democratic candidates for their mutually courteous primary campaigns and looked forward to a vicious Schumer-D'Amato blood bath. (9/16/98)

Iran and Afghanistan are on the verge of military conflict. Background: 1) Iran has been supplying military aid to opposition groups that are fighting Afghanistan's fundamentalist Taliban government. 2) Iran is angry because Taliban soldiers recently killed several Iranian diplomats. 3) Iran says the Taliban has committed atrocities against Shiite Muslims, who are a minority in Afghanistan but the overwhelming majority in Iran. Iran's leader has told the Iranian military to prepare for "forceful" action. A Taliban spokesman says that "if the soil of Afghanistan is attacked, we will target Iranian cities." Meanwhile, however, the Taliban is pleading for U.N. intervention. Translation: If there's a war, Iran will win. As with the Schumer-D'Amato race, cynics are having trouble deciding which combatant to oppose. (Who's who in Afghanistan? See Slate's "Explainer.") (9/16/98)

Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal has cited executive privilege as a basis for refusing to answer questions posed by gossip reporter Matt Drudge. The context is Blumenthal's $30 million defamation suit against Drudge. Blumenthal's lawyers raised the issue of executive privilege when Drudge's lawyers asked Blumenthal about his private comments to Hillary Clinton regarding the "vast right-wing conspiracy" and other matters. Blumenthal's attorneys fired back by telling the press that Drudge's lawyers had also asked Blumenthal whether he had read Karl Marx. Drudge's lawyer says such questions are relevant because Blumenthal is "claiming his reputation was ruined by the Drudge Report," which raises the question of "what kind of reputation did he have to begin with." As with the Schumer-D'Amato race and the Iran-Afghanistan military showdown, cynics are having trouble deciding which combatant to oppose. (9/16/98)

Politicians and pundits debated whether the Starr report justifies impeaching President Clinton. The pro-Clinton spins: 1) He "misled" interrogators in the Paula Jones case but didn't commit perjury. 2) Even if he committed perjury, it's not impeachable, because it's just about sex. 3) Starr is a bad guy, too, for filling his report with gratuitous sexual details to humiliate Clinton. (Clintonite buzzword of the weekend: "salacious.") 4) Clinton has suffered enough already. The anti-Clinton spins: 1) Cut the legalistic garbage and admit Clinton committed perjury. 2) Perjury is perjury and is impeachable, because if Clinton gets away with it, nobody will respect the laws. 3) Starr had to include the sexual details, because Clinton maintained his infuriating legalistic position that what he and Lewinsky did didn't constitute "sexual relations." 4) Nothing short of impeachment will punish Clinton sufficiently. (Click here for a software-generated summary of the Starr report. You can also download a Microsoft Word version of it, or link to the full report.) (9/14/98)

Sports news: 1) Sammy Sosa tied Mark McGwire with 62 home runs this season. Sosa is on a roll, while McGwire has stalled, but Sosa is getting little of the hype that has followed McGwire. Cynics suggested the reason is that McGwire is white and Sosa is black. Those skeptical of the cynics said the reason is simply that McGwire got there first. Now everyone is waiting to see which of them will end the season with the most home runs. Pundits rooting for Sosa argue that he's a better Horatio Alger story and is leading his team toward the playoffs, while McGwire is only excelling individually. The ultimate feel-good scenario is a Sosa-McGwire tie. 2) Australian tennis heartthrob Patrick Rafter won the U.S. Open. The story of the tournament was supposed to be Pete Sampras' 12^th Grand Slam victory, which would have tied him with Australian legend Roy Emerson. Instead, the Australians reasserted their glory by winning both berths in the finals. Lindsay Davenport redeemed the United States by capturing the women's title. (9/14/98)

George Wallace died, allowing newspapers to finally run obituaries that have been in the can for years. The spins: 1) He was the father of contemporary racism. 2) He was the father of Nixon's Southern strategy, Reagan's populist conservatism, and contemporary Republicanism. 3) There's no difference. 4) He redeemed himself by spending the latter part of his life repudiating his early racism. 5) He compounded his deceit by spending the latter part of his life spinning his early racism as conservatism. (9/14/98)

Russian President Boris Yeltsin nominated KGB veteran Yevgeny Primakov as prime minister. Spins and counterspins: 1) In dropping his bid to put former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin back in office, Yeltsin showed that democratic compromise can work in Russia. 2) But the end result is to put a Politburo-style, anti-West government back in power. 3) That's not so bad, since Russia needs a strong government to keep it from total economic collapse. 4) But Primakov knows next to nothing about the economy, and what he does know is outmoded statist isolationism. 5) Can that be worse than the chaos and corruption that the free-marketeers and their robber-baron cronies have produced? (9/11/98)

Northwest Airlines reached a tentative settlement with its striking pilots. While waiting for details of a final deal, commentators noted that: 1) No matter what, the strike will be costly for Northwest as it tries to woo back irritated customers and placate its near-striking machinists. 2) President Clinton took time out to announce the likely deal on the White House lawn. 3) This unusual presidential attention still failed to make a bigger story out of the good news. (9/11/98)