CORRESPONDENCE
Correspondence ADS ALONE WON'T STOP DRUGS As John P. Walters and James F. X. O'Gara point out, President Clinton's $1 billion taxpayer-funded antidrug advertising campaign is not unwelcome;...
...She did...
...You cannot be discouraging drug use through ads and facilitating drug use through needle distribution simultaneously...
...WENDELL JENNINGS GRAND BLANC, MI ABANDONING TAIWAN Matthew Rees writes that President Clinton's public declaration of Beijing's "three no's" policy "signaled a subtle yet significant shift in the American posture toward Taiwan" ("GOP Taiwanabees," July 20...
...Newsweek was here guilty of "a flat untruth" with "important implications...
...We must follow up with health care, the balanced budget, welfare, Social Security, and education reform...
...Gillis and Fox did originally write, as we reported, that Isikoff "might be considered a contributor" to the talking points...
...Gillis and Fox have advanced the theory, which they now reaffirm, that the talking points are bogus: incriminating evidence manufactured by the president's enemies...
...However, I wish that he and other conservatives would make more of an effort to condemn smoking itself and to perhaps try to show a little empathy for the millions of non-smokers of all political persuasions who detest cigarette smoke...
...Our reading of the talking points strongly supports that conclusion...
...Since police are often ordered not to harass addicts at the exchanges, they become safe zones for drug pushers as well as drug users, a one-stop-shopping center for addiction...
...It isn't new: Teddy Roosevelt spoke of it when he said, "This Country will not be a permanently good place for any of us to live, unless we make it a reasonably good place for all of us to live...
...They acknowledge as much, above...
...Sorry...
...She will shortly tell the grand jury that no enemy of the president wrote the talking points...
...We stand by our account of their work, in this and every other respect...
...There is a world of difference between saying, "We have no intention to perpetuate the existence of two states," and the Clinton formulation, which all but calls upon Taiwan to accept the embrace of its despotic motherland...
...Their report concluded: "Vancouver is literally swamped with drugs...
...GLENN SHELLER PICKERINGTON, OH HOLD THE CHAMPAGNE Fred Barnes chuckles about Republicans who don't appreciate their victories ("Happy Days Are Here," July 27...
...Last week, of course, this theory was blown to smithereens...
...And for good reason...
...But if ours is a fair reading, not presidential obstruction...
...And drug use carries risks other than HIV infection...
...James L. Curtis, a professor of psychiatry and director of addiction services at the Harlem Hospital Center, calls needle-exchange programs (NEPs) "simplistic nonsense that stands common sense on its head," warning the exchanges "hurt not only individual addicts but also poor and minority communities...
...We do not claim, as you falsely suggest, that Newsweek's "deliberate, knowing falsehood" was related to its description of the "talking points" as "typed...
...Rather, what we do claim was deliberate and knowing was Newsweek's possession of exclusive evidence (an unpublished letter to the editors dated August 14, 1997) that Tripp did not believe Kathleen Willey's account of her meeting with the president, the very predicate of the talking points...
...With an at-risk population without access to drug treatment, needle exchange appears to be nothing more than a facilitator for drug use...
...not a conspiracy by the president, but a conspiracy against him...
...As the authors point out, Baltimore, under Mayor Kurt Schmoke, is "distributing clean needles to addicts," one of many government entities to do so...
...Janet Lapey of Drug Watch International observes that needle-exchange programs often become "buyer's clubs" for addicts, concentrating formerly isolated addicts into a marketing bonanza for dealers...
...The president made matters worse by capitulating on two further points, placing the United States squarely against "independence for Taiwan" and its "membership in any organization for which statehood is a requirement...
...Actually, Clinton made a major diplomatic blunder by coming down blatantly on the side of the People's Republic of China, a one-party dictatorship that has made no secret of its desire to absorb democratic Taiwan...
...This was not a trivial nuance, the two men's Internet exercise insisted...
...It is not news that Tripp disbelieved Willey's account of her state of mind after the president allegedly groped her in the Oval Office...
...To support this accusation, Gillis and Fox first—and at considerable length—debunked the news magazine's initial description of the talking points as "typed...
...In truth, while the United States did recognize the government of the PRC as the sole, legitimate government of China in 1979, it merely "acknowledged the Chinese position that there is but one China, and Taiwan is part of China...
...Unfortunately, he only has what my old uncle called his "shootin' eye" open—he is right-on about the victories, but he joins most other conservatives in being blind to a perspective that, if missed, threatens to beach the conservative movement...
...Formerly isolated addicts gather for syringe swaps and learn where to acquire new supplies...
...JAY FORD FLORISSANT, CO...
...One of those essays contended that Newsweek's early reporting on the famous Linda Tripp talking points was a "deliberate, knowing falsehood...
...I recall not too many years ago having to work beside chain smokers in a newspaper office...
...STEVEN W. MOSHER FALLS CHURCH, VA THE NON-SMOKER'S BURDEN Dennis Prager makes many reasonable points in his article, and I agree with his major premises ("The Anti-Smoking Crusade," July 20...
...A delegation from drug czar Barry McCaffrey's office returned from Vancouver, which has the largest NEP in North America, in early April with the news that despite more than 2.5 million clean needles being given out annually, deaths from drug overdoses and HIV prevalence have increased...
...FEMINIST PARADISE Now feminists defend Rosa Marie Hartford, who carried an unrelated 13-year-old girl across state lines for an abortion that would destroy the evidence that Hartford's 18-year-old son raped and impregnated the young girl after getting her drunk ("'Responsible Adults' and Abortion," July 27...
...I find it extremely hard to feel sorry for "smokers shivering outside buildings...
...That's putting it mildly...
...I would rather they were outside shivering than inside exhaling smoke that makes me sick...
...Monica Lewinsky has made a deal with the independent counsel...
...What a lovely new world they're building...
...We must open our other eye and begin seeing and speaking to all Americans...
...Tripp disputed Willey's version of the event a year ago in an interview with Newsweek's Michael Isikoff...
...Gillis's Internet home page, about the Lewinsky scandal...
...however, to "say drug use is intolerable but fail to act effectively to stop and punish those who sell and use drugs" is counterproductive nonsense ("Advertising Ineptitude," July 27...
...The cardinal question in the Lewinsky matter, as the office of the independent counsel's extension of authority demonstrates, relates to "obstruction of due administration of justice" and "any person or entity who has engaged in unlawful conspiracy...
...The ellipsis you misleadingly apply to our suggestion that Michael Isikoff "might be considered a contributor" carries from our core analysis—a lawyer, a confidante, and Linda Tripp—to an appended section wherein we try to anticipate objections to our work and acknowledge other more complicated possibilities for the creation of the talking points...
...DANIEL JOHN SOBIESKI CHICAGO, IL MORE CONSPIRACY THEORY We strenuously object to your mis-characterization of our work in your recent editorial ("A Juicy Scandal," July 20...
...In their letter, above, Gillis and Fox deny having based their criticism of Newsweek on the magazine's use of the word "typed...
...The official U.S...
...You declare that "The University of Southwestern Louisiana English Department has not answered and cannot answer the Whitewater/Lewinsky scandals' cardinal questions...
...Yes, this is about obstruction of justice...
...the document was produced on a computer keyboard...
...I am a conservative and all in favor of individual rights, but what about the rights of non-smokers not to have to breathe communally polluted air...
...position, beginning in 1982, had been that the United States had no intention of pursuing a policy of "two Chinas" or "one China and one Taiwan...
...So let's hold off on the celebration for a while...
...Many days I dreaded going to work, knowing I would have to endure hours of inhaling fumes that stung my eyes, irritated my nostrils, and made my lungs feel as if I were sucking air out of an exhaust pipe...
...But they do not acknowledge having also written that "neither Lewinsky nor the 'president's men' could have drafted" the talking points...
...If we don't follow up, the Republican party's time in power may be short because unconsolidated gains are easily uprooted or perverted...
...Consider Clinton's exact words: "Our country recognized China and embraced a 'one-China' policy almost 20 years ago...
...In defending Hartford, feminists have made it clear that they will also wink at rape—even the rape of children—in return for the right to abortion...
...JACK GILLIS SKIP FOX UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHWESTERN LOUISIANA LAFAYETTE, LA THE EDITORS RESPOND: For clarity's sake, we should remind our readers that these two gentlemen are the authors of a series of essays, posted in June on Mr...
...yes, this is about conspiracy...
...Linda Tripp's "unpublished" letter to Newsweek—which Gillis and Fox know about from Newsweek's own reporting—proves nothing about the origins or purpose of the talking points...
...A recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association warned of the arrival of "black-tar heroin," heroin cut with dirt and shoe polish, which can cause paralysis and agonizing death, even when injected with a so-called "clean" needle...
...In many of the more than 100 NEPs in America, users are given a variety of drug paraphernalia, such as pans for cooking heroin...
Vol. 3 • August 1998 • No. 46
