The Breakfast Table

Groucho, Not Karl

Jeez, Margo, you write fast! In just the time it took me to get my 1998 (or was it 1997? I forget) inspection sticker, you’re back with more…stuff. Must be that wire service training. No stranger to vanity, I like to cite the famous A.J. Liebling line, when referring to my own compositional celerity: I write better than the people who writer slower than me (to h*ck with grammar; I’m in a hurry), and faster than the people who write better than me. Oooops. I think I’ve hashed this up. Oh, well.

Innuendo? Remember the famous Groucho Marx line: when money comes in your door, love comes flying in your window? I certainly didn’t mean to imply untoward behavior by your man Lieberperson. And, to be fair (those hated words!) it is good that someone other than William (the Gasbag) Bennett spoke out for morals, loud and clear. I meant to say this. When I met Lieberman, he came off as just another grasping, grabby desperately ambitious pol. You and I both know, Margo, that sometimes people do the right thing for the wrong reasons.

I think we need to move on. In your case, up Interstate 93.

Mr. Clinton squeezed off another apology this morning, in Ireland, I believe. They’re coming like Hail Marys now. Maybe he thinks if he apologizes four times each week, Monica will stop telling the tabs how aggrieved she feels. My household predicts great things for Miss Monica, by the way. Self-starter; knows what she wants, etc etc. We’re less sure about Mr. Bill.

I actually wanted to have this long, wheezy discussion about race. (The only people of color mentioned in your last dispatch are Willie Brown and the Haitians; How about Sammy Sosa?) Today’s Globe picked up a piece by the Chicago Tribune’s Michael Kilian (once famous, I believe, for writing a novel that George Bush took on vacation) drawing out Yaphet Kotto and Samuel L. Jackson on the theme of the paucity of good roles for black actors in film or television. Well, I thought it was interesting.

See you on Sunday, Margo, at the real, non-cyber, breakfast table. Mr. Kinsley has assured me he’s footing the bill.