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Goldberg and Tarloff

the breakfast table
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from: Lucianne Goldberg

No Tell Motel

Posted Wednesday, Aug. 26, 1998, at 5:25 PM ET

Dear Erik,

If there were any motels in my neighborhood I don't doubt that Bill Clinton has considered checking into them. But that's okay with me. It was the Oval Office that I objected to. Well, maybe I would object to a motel if he used the Secret Service to cover it up, forced people to testify falsely and lied about it for seven months--that's what I think gives illumination to any punditry we have been subjected to. I think the only hotel we are talking about here is the People's House. Clinton turned it into a motel anyway by renting out the Lincoln Bedroom to the highest bidder. But enough already. I think we have made our points and both of us are immovable. That's what a democracy is all about.

We agree on not discussing the ruble. Russia is such a terrible mess altogether so there's no point. I know you feel it's capitalism that did it and I think its seventy years of infantilization but--as my hero Ronnie said--well, you know the rest.

Isn't that Las Vegas murderer the one that Leslie Abramson is defending? That's the one in which a guy raped a little girl, strangled her, and put her head in the toilet. Nice. I find the student witness's situation fascinating. I wish I knew more about it currently. My (excuse me) knee-jerk reaction is to wonder, disapprovingly of course, why the friend who looked on didn't report it or intervene. Was he on drugs? Was he threatened by the perpetrator? As Chris Rock says: "What up with that?" I think huge noontime rallies sound terrifying and are not the proper way to get a message across (I'm anti-mob) but something got people very mad. Either that or a small group is stirring people up. Either way it sounds very Berkeley-ish to me. The University's hands-off policy seems a bit irresponsible if the action is on-campus and the student is being threatened in some way. How would this work: Wait until the kids at the rally start throwing their lunches and tipping over garbage cans, and then arrest them for that. Other than that it sounds like peaceful assembly to me and the student should chill until they get over it. If the perpetrator had been the president of the United States, the toilet had been in the White House and the student had been Linda Tripp we'd be back to square one. I get the feeling the people at the rally know something more about the student's behavior in the men's room back in Las Vegas.

By the time I got away from the office yesterday my local CD bunker was closed. I'm going to try again. I love to listen but sadly, I don't know enough about music to know if it's perfect enough. Like Justice Stewart, I know it when I "hear" it.

I'll catch you in the morning. My sun is going down over the Hudson.

Lucianne

the breakfast table
entries
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from: Lucianne Goldberg

No Tell Motel

Posted Wednesday, Aug. 26, 1998, at 5:25 PM ET
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Lucianne Goldberg is a New York-based book agent. Erik Tarloff is a writer based in Berkeley, Calif. His novel, Face-Time, is forthcoming.
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