HOME / the breakfast table: An e-mail conversation about the news of the day.

Katha Pollitt and Andrew Sullivan

p.s. Slippery Bill

Posted Friday, May 1, 1998, at 12:49 PM ET

p.s. I too was entertained by the President's press conference yesterday. He's another person I hold no brief for, but I quite enjoy watching him elude the nets of spluttering reporters. The President's enemies--Starr, Scaife, Newt, Linda, Paula, Lucianne--are not winning any popularity contests. This shows the American people are not totally insane.

As for Clinton's reluctance to take responsibility, when DO Presidents take responsibility? Did Nixon take responsibility for the secret bombing of Cambodia? Or Carter for depriving poor women of medicaid abortions? Did Reagan take responsibility for his many press-conference lies, for Ollie North and Iran Contra and the mining of the harbor of Corinto, Nicaragua, for which the US was found guilty by the World Court? Can't remember George Bush taking responsibility for the Somalia mess either. Or for that matter, discussing his own lack of family values with the American people, as, apparently, you think Clinton ought to be doing now.

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Katha Pollitt is a columnist at The Nation. Andrew Sullivan is a senior editor at the New Republic.
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