Entry 6:

Does Hollywood love McCain? Let's get one thing straight: Hollywood loves big grosses, everything else is just a passing fling. America doesn't have to have a dip in the GDP to consider flaky presidential candidates. At what we kept being told is the best of times, Warren Beatty and Donald Trump are being taken semi-seriously. What we flirted with during the depression was far worse. And maybe our Harvard guys who went to Russia in the early '90s should have suggested taking the keys to the treasury away from the apparatchiks before the place was stripped bare.

OK, I've tried. I've really tried to concentrate on this trivial stuff, but the real news is--again!--Clinton's women. Monica does a Jenny Craig commercial, and MSNBC debated this afternoon whether this was damaging to her dignity. I beg to differ: Her dignity could be damaged only by doing commercials for a company that sells sinks. Then there's Linda Tripp, if the New York Post's reporting of the National Enquirer's reporting is to be believed (and why not?), she joins the list of women in Clinton's life (Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones) who've gotten cosmetic surgery long after everyone knows what they look like. Timing, gals, is everything. This is the first case in American medical history in which cosmetic surgery was reported to have been caused by John Goodman. What makes America both great and funny is our stubborn belief in the redeemability of people, which is the flip side of our disdain for history. "If Monica ever wants to be taken seriously ...," said a woman from Mademoiselle magazine on MSNBC. Let's start one premise back: If a woman from Mademoiselle magazine wants to be taken seriously ... No, wait: If MSNBC wants to be taken seriously ... uh oh, I see where this leads.

Harry Shearer

Photograph of Boris Yeltsin on the Slate Table of Contents by Viktor Korotayev/Reuters.