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chatterbox: Gossip, speculation, and scuttlebutt about politics.

Chatterbox Is Schizophrenic

Walter Shapiro
Posted Monday, Nov. 23, 1998, at 12:25 PM ET

Once in a while, Chatterbox's notoriously split personality compels him to publicly disagree with himself. Earlier today, the Other Chatterbox (O.C. to cognoscenti) waxed indignant over press criticism of Ken Starr for failing to publicly exonerate the president over Filegate and Travelgate before the election. In the O.C.'s misguided view, everyone knew that Starr "had failed to nail Clinton on anything other than Monica Lewinsky-related probable perjury and possible obstruction of justice."

Not exactly. This Chatterbox had post-election conversations with Republicans on the Judiciary Committee like Steve Chabot who said (this is a paraphrase), "Let's see what other evidence Judge Starr has to offer us when he testifies." Chabot's response was the standard Republican refrain, as the GOP clung to the desperate hope that Starr would come riding over the hill like the cavalry with smoking-gun new anti-Clinton evidence.

My good friend, O.C., also cites a Starr answer to Barney Frank to suggest that the books are not completely closed on Filegate and Travelgate. But in his endless opening statement, Starr said regarding the White House Travel Office purge: "The president was not involved." As for the FBI files, Starr's verdict was that no one above the level of Craig Livingstone "was in any way involved in ordering the files from the FBI."

Having made these points, This Chatterbox hopes that, with the help of psychotherapy, the discordant halves of the Chatterbox persona will soon again find themselves opining in total harmony.

--Walter Shapiro

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Walter Shapiro has covered the last seven presidential campaigns and just completed a fellowship at the Joan Shorenstein Center at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He can be reached at .
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