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

David Brooks and Susan Estrich

the breakfast table
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from: Susan Estrich

Brill's Piccolo

Posted Tuesday, June 16, 1998, at 2:01 PM ET

Dear David:

So here I was, raring to go about Ken Starr and Louise Woodward, and comes soccer. Soccer . . . I do believe in gender differences; if our bodies work differently, it only makes sense that our heads do. I know very little about soccer. Shopping is my favorite sport, a communal activity (I go to places like Loehmann's, where the dressing room is more diverse than any Washington cocktail party), both challenging and relaxing. My newspaper today is full of ads, coupons, discounts. Everything is on sale, all the time. The Wall Street Journal is adding--what--16 new pages of ads. Here it all is. As good as it gets. What do we want?

Speaking of brains, how dumb can Ken Starr be? What was he doing talking to Steve Brill? So Starr briefed the press. I'm shocked. Shocked. Gambling in Casablanca. Really, everyone knew this. He briefed the press. So, I noticed this morning, did all his predecessors. Then Steve Brill breaks the story with the "quote" from Starr, and the press goes hog wild, the scoop of a lifetime, the story that leads the news, that the guy they were talking to was talking to them.

How do you explain the press letting Steve Brill play them like a piccolo?

Do you care that Trent Lott--the Senate majority leader-- is out there saying that being gay is a "sin"--sort of like being an alcoholic or a sex addict. I am none of the above, but find it deeply offensive. I know many people agree with him, and he has every right to believe whatever he wants. But at a time when gay teenage suicide tops that of every other demographic group, when at least in Los Angeles, hate crimes against gays are among the fastest growing, what possible good does it do--and how much harm--to have a person of Lott's official statute comparing who you are to alcoholics or gamblers?

One more. Louise Woodward may be free, but everyone else is still fighting about it. If she were black, we'd all be writing about race. Thank Goodness she isn't--sometimes, it's just hard to reach a consensus. How severely should an unintentional killer be punished? The lawyers who represented her are old friends of mine, but I'm troubled that they were allowed to play the odds game--lose--and then be spared the outcome. They took a risk putting it to the jury as murder or nothing, lost, and then got the judge to save them.

Best, Susan

P.S. My kids don't want to see Mulan. Too babyish. "I only like PG13 movies," my daughter's friend explained (she is almost 8).

the breakfast table
entries
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from: Susan Estrich

Brill's Piccolo

Posted Tuesday, June 16, 1998, at 2:01 PM ET
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David Brooks is a senior editor of the Weekly Standard. Susan Estrich is a law professor at the University of Southern California.
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