Marjorie:
I’d rather sit through a Sylvester Stallone action-movie marathon than spend one more second thinking about Monica Lewinsky. In other words, I totally agree with you about this new, gung-ho independent counsel, Mr. Ray, who seems to be under the impression that Bill Clinton “got away” with lying about the intern. Never has so little sexual misadventure failed so enormously at its presumptive goal of secrecy. Anyone who thinks Clinton got away with his dalliance and his subsequent lies should type the words “Starr Report” into a search engine. To be revealed as a skank, for all the world to see, for historians to ponder, for senators to judge, is a nontrivial form of accountability. Maybe this new prosecutor is secretly enforcing the David Kendall Full Employment Act.
Admittedly, Clinton hasn’t been technically convicted of anything, and thus someone could argue that he escaped punishment. But we, the people, the Americans who had to endure that yearlong ordeal, were punished, night after night, day after day. For Ray to talk about indicting Clinton puts the entire American citizenry in double jeopardy. Thanks for bringing this up, Marjorie, because we need to nip this nightmare in the bud.
Did you see your guy Saylor’s stock has fallen again? Down, down it goes. Excuse me while I laugh maniacally. Of course the Post’s stock fell seven bucks a share the very day we won the three Pulitzers, so we know the market is insane. Oh, and maybe Ralph Reed is earning his money: Today’s Post has a story by James Grimaldi saying that the government is leaning against breaking up Microsoft. They don’t want to create a bunch of Baby Bills. My guess is they hit Microsoft where it hurts and force the company to divest itself of Slate. You can see it coming: In a year, Kinsley’s working for Rupert Murdoch.
Have you figured out your next column? I have to file again this morning. Can I just steal some of your thoughts and insights? I’m Eliáned out, even though the case is rapidly developing. The morning shows report that there have been on-again, off-again negotiations through the night to bring Elián up to Washington today to be reunited with his father. But apparently Elián has told his Miami relatives that he doesn’t want to go. (For the record, in my house, 6-year-olds don’t get to decide which country they’re going to live in. They exist in a dictatorship.) The reports say that if the Miami family doesn’t come to Washington today, they’ll have to turn Elián over to his father tomorrow at 10 a.m. at the Opa-lacka airport just north of Miami. My column Monday, as previously noted, heroically endorsed the primacy of the parent-child bond; today maybe I’ll retract that entirely, and say who are we kidding, Cuba’s horrible, Castro’s the poor-man’s Stalin, let this kid grow up in freedom. (And in that act of retraction, show The New Yorker a way out of its humiliating position regarding the Toobin piece on the Post.)
Did you hear? There’s an anti-World Trade Organization rally today at noon at the Capitol. I may go, just to see what folks are saying; also it’s not far from the vehicle inspection station, and I have serious vehicle inspection problems. Right now I’ve got to make breakfast and lunches, and then I want to read this intriguing article in the Wall Street Journal about a woman who has holed up on a remote Caribbean island because she’s trying to escape fluoridation. It’s part of a series on “Lonely Causes: An occasional look at unfashionable crusaders and their unlikely, unending crusades.” Do you think the next installment will be on the independent counsel and the Monica scandal?
Cheers,
Joel
