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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

The Cocktail Hour

Posted Monday, June 22, 1998, at 2:26 PM ET

Dear David:

See what happens when we meet for drinks. This is a Washington story.

There we all are heading into the Jefferson Hotel for drinks. (For our readers, it looks like a Hollywood set of Washington; think dark and overstuffed and manly.) And who is the first person we see but my old friend Stuart Taylor, now the very famous expert on Starr/sex/Paula Jones, formerly close friend of Steve Brill, almost employee of Ken Starr. I give him a bug hug and say, "Stuart, I hope you're not having drinks with someone you'll be embarrassed to introduce me to" and up jumps a very embarrassed Jackie Bennett Jr., aka Mr. Starr's deputy-for-not-talking-to-the-press-anymore.

Two hours. We sent them drinks (I felt Michael Kinsley would want them to have drinks, as long as we were sitting there, and Jodie agreed). You left, but we stuck it out to the end, when they were forced to come join us and chat some more about the days news . . .

Of course, when I picked up the weekend television listings, there was Stuart Taylor listed for Face the Nation. I went to a wedding on Saturday where who should I run into but David Kendall, the president's lawyer, who thought it a very funny story. . .

Small world, Washington. Thank God I'm back in Paradise. . .

Seriously , I was thinking about it, and what we were really watching was two guys doing their jobs--Stuart and Jackie, both working until 7:30 or whatever, as they do every night. The hell with the rule of law, this scandal has been covered as a series of transactions, in which each side gives stuff up to hurt the other. It's just when you catch them doing it that it seems so unseemly--what's Bennett doing, trying to convince a journalist to be tougher on the president on a television show? This is a prosecutor, whatever happened to the rule of law. I don't mean the Federal Rules--I think Steve Brill forgot the difference between what an advocate tells you and what a good lawyer should conclude--and got the law wrong, but this entire investigation. It has reached an absurd and embarrassing place, when Starr is trying to force Monica Lewinsky to plead guilty to a crime so that he can keep the screws on her tighter, and have a better chance of destroying the president. I hope she tells them to indict her. Really. I'll cover that trial. On television. With Stu Taylor. But will they talk to me?

Later.

Susan

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637
from: Susan Estrich

The Cocktail Hour

Posted Monday, June 22, 1998, at 2:26 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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