Tilting at Windmills

...Clinton, and George Stephanopoulos were making in regard to press relations seem to have been understood as such for a long time by practically everyone in the White House except the offending parties...

...If you believe that there really is equal justice in this country, you might consider that the fee for the kind of celebrity lawyer available to a rich individual charged with capital murder starts around $500,000, according to a recent article in The New York Times...

...During the last five years the Republicans were in the White House, they got $1.18 million from Andreas while the Democrats had to settle for $326,000...

...And Judge Sentelle, the head of the panel that appointed Starr, not only had that suspicious lunch with Jesse Helms, the man responsible for his appointment, and Lauch Faircloth, the leader of the dump Fiske movement among Senate Republicans, but his two best-known decisions as a federal judge overturned the convictions of Oliver North and John Poindexter...

...I abandoned the latter in part because my wood game had headed south and my putting game had never existed...

...We all know how members of Congress abuse their free mailing privileges by sending out newsletters by the ton, newsletters that have no other purpose than to help them get reelected...

...When Spielberg withdrew from the project, Joe Eszterhas, the scriptwriter, said, "I don't understand it...

...Take this passage from a recent fundraising letter: "When the bullets start coming, it's important who is in the foxhole with you...

...The Watergate and Iran-contra investigations concerned the actions of sitting presidents...

...In Wisconsin, for example, it got so bad that reformers were able to enact a requirement that in an election year no free mail should be sent out after May...

...That person can give you the support, encouragement, and cover you need to survive and win...

...president who's blackmailed after he's caught in the clinches with a cow...

...Recently he chaired a presidential fund raising dinner for the Democrats, personally contributing $100,000...

...But the members of the legislature rose almost as one to meet this challenge...

...One hundred and eighty-five of these officers are so tainted by their own criminal problems that prosecutors can't put them on the witness stand, a problem that has in turn led to the dismissal of cases and to accused criminals being set free or allowed to plea bargain for reduced charges...

...Starr not only served in the Reagan and Bush administrations, he has given $6,000 to Republican candidates in just the last year...

...And even if Harry gets competing bids from other contractors, the "competition" is likely to consist of only slight shavings of the high side estimate...

...In tennis a bad shot is immediately followed by a chance to do better...

...One of Donna Shalala's guards was ordered to wash her car...

...Or are they ignored...

...And it will certainly take Starr longer because he is not an experienced prosecutor and therefore lacks the networks of friends, acquaintances, and former associates whom he can rely on to recommend the right assistants...

...Just a few weeks after the presidential dinner, the EPA made a ruling that gave major benefits to his company, Archer Daniels Midland...

...The replacement of special prosecutor Robert Fiske and the subsequent departure of more than half of his staff attorneys mean that his replacement, Kenneth Starr, will practically be starting all over again...

...In golf, there is the walk down the fairway or, worse, an often lengthy search for your ball in the rough during which you berate yourself for not having held your head down or squared your shoulders or sinned in any of the myriad other ways that cause the meeting of ball and club to have unhappy results...

...Reporters were angry because he wasn't FDR...

...Hazel O'Leary, the secretary of Energy, spent $8,000 to have her security guards accompany her to Paris...

...It's from the August 9 edition of Daily Variety...

...Those who are torn between the arguments for and against school prayer may find South Carolina's solution to the problem appealing...

...I know you think all that fresh air and green grass must be good for you...

...They would then have no interest in inflating the bill you would pay someone else...

...But in just the first 13 months of the Clinton administration, the Democrats got $206, 500 while the Republicans received only a measly $47,500...

...The university's degrees are approved by the state...

...The last attempt on the life of a Cabinet officer, reports Ruth Larson of The Washington Times, to whom, along with the CBS "Evening News," I am indebted for these facts, "occurred in 1865 when Secretary of State William Henry Seward was wounded in his home on the night that President Lincoln was killed...

...Since he's not rich or a big corporation, this amount is strong evidence that he wants to be a serious player in Republican politics...

...One reason may be a shortage of courage on the part of the staff...

...If there are others out there who are by temperament and talent ill-suited for the game and need an excuse to get out, I have one for you...

...The Sentinel actually found five convicts who were hired as security guards while on work-release programs...

...The Golf Superintendents Association has found that its members have high levels of cancer of the lung, brain, large intestine, prostate, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma...

...This item belongs in a wholly owned subsidiary of our Only in California Department called Only in Hollywood...

...Truman Capote called her the best card to hold in his International Daisy Chain game because through her "you could get to anyone—from Cardinal Spellman to the Duchess of Windsor...

...This is seven times as much as the average farmer uses...

...Still inebriated when he awakens, he spies an unsuspecting bovine and does the unthinkable—unaware that he's created a photo-op for the rightwingers shadowing him...

...they want him to be a man who can inspire with words like "Ask not" or "The only thing we have to fear...

...Robb's opponent, Oliver North, could be a dangerous demagogue...

...The insanity of Whitewater got more insane this summer...

...They include a doctorate in philosophy and sensuality which costs about $40,000 to obtain____ Everyone in journalism should be shamed by the study for the Center for Media and Public Affairs that found a nearly 75 percent tilt against Clinton on the network news...

...So a religious practice is not forced on the students, but an opportunity is offered for it or for contemplation of a secular nature...

...Yet the errors continued...

...The down-to-earth unpreten-tiousness that Clinton, Carter, and Truman share seems mostly laudable to me...

...I have an idea for a new profession...

...For example, the errors the president, Mrs...

...y The script is about a president who has sex with a cow and I'm sure Bill Clinton hasn't done that...

...So the next time you hit a ball into the water hazard next to the 9th hole, just throw your clubs in after it and walk away, free at last to worry about something else besides the follow-through on your swing...

...Why investigate a president's conduct before he became president...

...Or, if they do talk to Clinton, do they fail to tell him what they really think...

...The impact on the health at least of those responsible for the care of the course does not seem salutary...

...Senator Dale W. Schultz had 207 sacks of mail delivered in May alone, a total that was almost equalled by Senator David A. Zien, whose staff had managed to lug 188 sacks to the post office before the end of the month...

...Golf may be hazardous to your health...

...It is right to expect a decent measure of dignity in a president who may have to ask others to sacrifice, sometimes even their lives, for the common good...

...Let's call it Objective Repair Consulting...

...According to a 1991 study conducted by New York's attorney general reported in The Wall Street Journal by Timothy Noah—he has an article on another subject in this issue...

...T]here are parallels between the protagonist and the prexy...

...It's a minute of silence during which students can pray, reflect, or think about the baseball strike...

...So in this sense it isn't hypocritical for a leader to be concerned with how he looks...

...Sam Parr is a liberal Democrat in his 60s whose reelection campaign is dogged by incessant rumors that he's unable to turn down a good-looking woman...

...Robert Lichter, the center's director, explains that Clinton "had the misfortune of being president at the dawning of an age that combines attack-dog journalism with tabloid news...

...Charles Peters...

...Another may be the Clintons' bad tempers, which may frighten potential bearers of unhappy tidings...

...With such antecedents, it is hard to see how Starr's investigation can have any credibility at all...

...These are words that are sacred in the tradition of real fighting men...

...Andreas' generosity has not gone unrewarded...

...I remember the same thing happening to Harry Truman...

...So what's wrong with communication inside the White House...

...What we'll see is a parade of minor embarrassments for the Clintons such as Hillary's unusual success investing in commodities, or the coincidence of bank loans to Clinton and his campaign from banks whose officials either held or soon received appointments to positions in the government of Arkansas...

...According to the Milwaukee Sentinel, 14 of the 17 state senators facing reelection this fall had large shipments of mail delivered in their districts at state expense...

...To use them cheaply to raise campaign funds is contemptible...

...The Washington Post's Jonathan Yardley adds that reporters are romantics who are disappointed that Clinton isn't John Kennedy and recalls their being similarly let down by Jimmy Carter...

...Why involve the prosecutorial majesty of the government of the United States in the trivia of Arkansas politics...

...What you want to know is exactly what needs to be done and how much it should cost...

...The advice is: Praise those who have spoken up and never let it be said you fired or injured the career of a subordinate because he told you the truth, however unpleasant...

...Alan Greenspan's $400,000-a-year security team even goes to the movies with him...

...see page 24—the golf courses in the Long Island area use 18 pounds of pesticide per treated acre...

...In Alabama a poor person charged with capital murder can count on the state paying a maximum fee of $ 1,000 to his defense...

...Perhaps the most unusual script in active development at a major studio is 'Sacred Cows,' a satire about a U.S...

...In talking with people in the White House about the administration's ups and downs, I have been amazed at how insightful they usually are...

...But Harry Homeowner's only source of information is a contractor who wants to do the repair for the greatest profit he can get and who will therefore tend to provide an estimate very much on the steep side...

...Why on earth do these people need guards...

...Chuck Robb may not be your dream of what a senator should be, but I urge you to contribute to his campaign anyway...

...At best Whitewater is going to show that, as governor and first lady of Arkansas, Bill Clinton and his wife had favors done for them and did favors for others that may not have been in the pristine spirit of the Vermont town meeting but were neither felonious nor the kind of grave breach of trust that would disqualify them from the White House...

...Now what if the people who assessed the need and the cost were not the suppliers of the repair services...

...Does Steven Spielberg have a sacred cow of his own, and did it cause him to back out of producing the MGM pic for fear it would offend his friend Bill Clinton...

...While Andreas always shares his bounty with both parties, he tends to favor the party in power...

...The problem it would address is the one every homeowner confronts when the roof is leaking, the furnace goes on the blink, or some other part of the house needs fixing...

...Do these people not talk to the president enough...

...They honor a rare combination of reliability and courage...

...There are no state or federal training requirements for these people, yet they dress up just like regular cops and are often turned to by the public for help and relied on for protection...

...And you would have a realistic basis from which to negotiate with the repairman, as when you use Consumer Reports to find out the real cost of a car before you go negotiate with the dealer...

...But it does tend to ignore a great need of the American people, which is that they want to look up to their president...

...Andreas can get to anyone in politics because he has given to everyone from Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton...

...And while you've got your checkbook handy, please help Harris Wofford, one of our favorite senators...

...But another reason for forsaking golf was that it is a miserable game for those who have a tendency toward self-reproach...

...People can work as private security guards even if they've been convicted of murder or rape...

...His troubles mounting, the prexy retreats to his brother's farm and falls asleep one night drunk in the barn...

...I voted for Bill Clinton...

...The person I want in my foxhole this election is you...

...It required that one-tenth of all gasoline sold in the United States after 1994 contain corn-based ethanol...

...Even worse is the choice of Starr, which creates an appearance problem infinitely worse than the one that the three-judge court said Fiske had...

...The curriculum offered by More University, located in Lafayette, east of San Francisco, includes courses called Basic Hexing and Basic Sensuality...

...But even if it has credibility, I'm still confident it will turn out to be a waste of time...

...Did you know that we're wasting money on security guards for people like the secretary of Agriculture...

...Two hundred and one District of Columbia police officers have been arrested since 1989 on charges ranging from shoplifting to forgery to rape and murder, according to a recent article by The Washington Post's Keith A. Harriston and Mary Pat Flaherty...

...Why not leave these embarrassments to the press to uncover...

...They certainly don't want him to talk about his underwear or what he did on the astro-turf of his pick-up truck...

...But it seems that what keeps the grass green may be very bad for you...

...Mike Espy spent $20,000 to send four of his security guards to that hotbed of lawlessness and violence known as Switzerland...

...But are you aware that the same practice is carried out at the state level...

...ADM makes 60 percent of the ethanol produced in the United States...

...He lies with such ease and apparent sincerity and appeals to deep emotions in an utterly shameless way...

...In my youth, I played tennis and golf...

...wayne Andreas is to political finance what Mercedes De Acosta was to celebrity sex...

...As one who has from time to time blown up at subordinates, my advice to the Clintons in this matter is given as one sinner to another...

...Another good story from the Sentinel reminds us that if police departments such as the District of Columbia's have a disturbingly high number of bad apples in the ranks, the situation may be even worse in the realm of private security firms whose officers are expected to outnumber police two to one by the year 2000...

...A lesbian, she had affairs with many famous women, including Greta Garbo and the notoriously active bisexual, Marlene Dietrich, who connected De Acosta to people of every romantic persuasion...

...And who can object to a moment of quiet amid the bedlam of modern life...