- By William Saletan - Slate Magazine

HOME / the week/the spin: The week's big news, and how's it's being spun.

By William SaletanUpdated Sunday, April 19, 1998, at 3:30 AM ET

In the happiest hunting grounds

Former Cambodian dictator Pol Pot died. According to his wife and Cambodian captors, he died of heart failure in his sleep. Skeptics noted the convenient timing of the report--the Cambodian army was closing in on him and the United States was building international support for a war crimes trial--but journalists saw the corpse, confirmed his death, and broadcast video of him to prove it. Everyone agreed he was one of history's worst butchers, having killed between one-fourth and one-seventh of Cambodia's population. The spins on his death: 1) It cheated Cambodians of an explanation of his atrocities. 2) It cheated justice. 3) It prevented him from testifying against his ex-lieutenants who remain at large--which is why they may have orchestrated his death. President Clinton has promised further efforts to bring them to trial. 4) Some of these ex-lieutenants serve current dictator Hun Sen, on whom the world must maintain pressure to restore democracy and human rights. (Last year, David Plotz wrote this appreciation of the much-misunderstood tyrant.) (4/17)

Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr launched a PR counterattack on the White House. First, he renounced his job offer from Pepperdine University, saying it would be wrong to make Pepperdine wait for him to finish his investigation. Pundits theorized Starr's true motive was to distance himself from right-wing Clinton conspiracy theorist Richard Mellon Scaife, a major donor to Pepperdine who is accused of funneling money to Clinton Whitewater accuser David Hale. Second, Starr suggested the Justice Department could not credibly investigate the Hale allegations because of two conflicts of interest: the threat posed by Hale to Clinton, and DOJ's efforts to prevent Secret Service officials from giving testimony sought by Starr. Third, Starr blamed the slow pace of his investigation on Clinton's invocation of executive privilege. The White House spin: Starr's withdrawal from Pepperdine is a confession of a conflict of interest. The short-term spin: Clinton's surrogates have succeeded in focusing media attention on Scaife. The long-term spin: Starr is finally getting the hang of the PR game. (4/17)

Paula Jones will appeal the dismissal of her suit against President Clinton. Nobody was surprised. Jones said she was initially reluctant to appeal because it would put "stress on my family" but that she decided to go ahead for the sake of women everywhere. The media's spins on her press conference: 1) She cried. 2) She appeared to be coached and directed by her friend/Svengali Susan Carpenter-McMillan. 3) Carpenter-McMillan seems to have been demoted for being a loose cannon. The legal consensus: The appeal is doomed. The political consensus: The public has stopped paying attention, and the media will follow suit, because the appeal is confined to matters of law rather than salacious subpoenas and depositions. (4/17)

Republicans are hammering Vice President Gore for having donated only $353 to charity last year. His income was $197,729. The Republican National Committee called him "Scrooge" and peddled the story to radio talk show hosts, who dubbed him "Cheap Al." Gore aides pleaded that he has given $85,000 to charity over five years, and they accused the GOP of trying to "slash money for education, health care, and the environment." The backspin: Gore's rivals and critics, such as Bill Bennett, Newt Gingrich, and House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, won't even divulge their charitable donations, as Gore has done. Commentators who deemed Gore innocent of parsimony faulted him anyway for permitting the appearance of parsimony. (Slate's "News Quiz" asked participants what $353 referred to: Click here to read their speculations.) (4/17)

Cheap or candid?

Virginia executed Paraguayan citizen Angel Francisco Breard for the murder (during an attempted rape) of an American woman. The International Court of Justice had asked Virginia to postpone the execution, saying police had violated the Vienna Convention by failing to inform Breard of his right to be helped by Paraguayan consular officials. The U.S. Justice Department, Republican Gov. Jim Gilmore, and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected these entreaties, saying, variously, that 1) Breard had failed to protest in state courts; 2) access to a consular official would probably not have changed his insistence on pleading innocence (against his lawyers' advice); 3) the murder was especially vicious; 4) the case (complete with DNA tests and the defendant's confession) was open-and-shut; and 5) an apology to Paraguay would suffice. U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and other internationalists protested the execution would embolden other countries to deprive U.S. citizens overseas of the same rights. (4/15)

Miscellany: Colin Powell died in a car crash. He was 50. Obituaries recalled his career as a hard rock drummer (he was better known as "Cozy") and did not mention the retired U.S. general who bears the same name. ... Economist Robert Barro decided to stay at Harvard rather than take Columbia's offer of a $300,000 salary and lavish perks. Columbia is humiliated. Observers searched in vain for an economically rational explanation for Barro's change of heart. (Slate's Paul Krugman explains why universities are throwing money at economists.) ... Clinton budget director Franklin Raines resigned to become chairman of Fannie Mae, the giant, government-chartered home mortgage lender. (4/15)

The Pulitzer Prizes were announced. "Times Wins 2 Pulitzers for Spot News, Photos," declared the front page of the Los Angeles Times. "Katharine Graham, Philip Roth Win Pulitzers," declared the front page of the Washington Post, praising the recognition of its former publisher's autobiography. The New York Times highlighted three prizes won by the New York Times. Eventually, all three papers got around to acknowledging that the Grand Forks Herald had won the top prize for its coverage of last year's North Dakota floods and fires. (4/15)

Some famished North Koreans are eating their children, according to refugees and aid workers. One account says a woman ate her 2-year-old child. Another says an orphan was killed, salted, and eaten. There have been other tales of cannibalism in North Korea, none of them confirmed. Cynics suggested the government allows such tales to be disseminated in order to attract sympathy and foreign aid. (4/15)

George Mitchell: Nobel effort?

Negotiators in Northern Ireland reached a peace agreement. It must be approved by voters in the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland, as well as by British and Irish legislators. Basic elements: a new Belfast Assembly and a North-South council of lawmakers. Catholics will be freed from "British rule," while Protestants will be freed from the Irish Republic's claims on Northern Ireland. Former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell got some credit for nursing the talks for two years. White House spinners made sure President Clinton got even more credit for phoning negotiators in the last few hours. Pundits began debating which players will get the Nobel Prize. Cynics suggested the deal was driven less by heroism than by the dissolution of Britain's superiority over Ireland in wealth, power, prestige, and secularization. Pessimists predicted extremists on both sides will try to sabotage the referendums through violence. Optimists argued that this will prove that the deal is fair. Ultra-optimists suggested the Middle East crisis might be solved next. (For British and Irish newspapers' reactions to the emerging pact, see Slate's "International Papers.") (4/13)

The banking merger frenzy escalated. Last week, Citicorp and Travelers Group announced they will form the world's biggest financial services company. This week, NationsBank and BankAmerica announced plans to merge; the union will create the biggest U.S. bank as measured in branches and deposits, with $570 billion in assets. Banc One and First Chicago are also merging and will become the country's fifth-biggest bank, with $240 billion in assets. Analysts say the urge to merge has given way to merge-or-be-purged: Companies are rushing to consolidate before others beat them to it and kill them with economies of scale and superior geographic and product diversification. Pundits worried anew that neither the consumer nor governments can hold such behemoths accountable. (4/13)

The Palestinian Authority is cracking down on Hamas. First Hamas accused Israel of killing its chief bomb maker. Then the PA investigated the killing and reported Israel was innocent and a rival Hamas leader was responsible. Some Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders rejected this report and implied the PA had collaborated with Israel in the killing and in an alleged cover-up. Now scores of Islamic militants, including senior leaders, are being arrested for denouncing and falsely accusing the PA. Israel is loving it. (4/13)

Dr. Laura Schlessinger and Howard Stern have overtaken Rush Limbaugh in the race for radio listeners, according to an industry survey. Limbaugh's numbers have declined from 21 million listeners in 1996 to 17.25 million today. The high-minded spin: Americans are flocking to Dr. Laura's old-fashioned morality. The low-minded spin: Americans are lapping up Stern's adolescent filth. The compromise spin: Americans are sick of politics and are trying to talk about anything else. (4/13)

Top mouth: Howard Stern

Photographs of: Pol Pot's body from the Thai army/Reuters; Al Gore by Tami Chappell/Reuters; George Mitchell by Jeff Christensen/Reuters; Howard Stern by K.C. Bailey/Paramount Studios/Reuters.

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William Saletan is Slate's national correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War. Follow him on Twitter here.