Tilting at Windmills

...Casas...

...The latest disillusionment comes from Iowa...

...That's right, they want to subject the poor sucker who has lost his bankroll on the races to being fleeced of his pocket change by one-armed bandits...

...That doesn't mean they weren't guilty of the criminal acts they were alleged to have performed...

...What is interesting is that the most influentially positioned of these, an op-ed piece by Robert Berenson in The New York Times, argued that a weakness of the Canadian system is that it permits free choice of doctor...

...Still, it has long been a symbol of how the affluent who can afford clever lawyers, as John Hinckley's family could, are able to evade punishment for their crimes...

...Would the Bay of Pigs have happened if the fellows had just ordered a soda...

...If the IRS cheats, why shouldn't the rest of us...

...If that doesn't make your blood boil, consider this: Congress, having heard about the IRS' scheme, decided to value its own free parking at $155, thus exempting itself from taxation as well...

...Accounts of life in the agency, such as Night Watch by David Phillips, make frequent references to alcoholic lunches at restaurants such as Napoleon and La Nicoise...

...Lois Forer made the same case in these pages in our April 1988 issue...

...Contracts"____ I 'm a real old maid about gambling—or, to be more precise, about government actively encouraging it, as the District of Columbia does with glitzy ads for its lottery...

...So when they weren't anxiously conferring on the phone with their brokers, they were forgetting their troubles in the sun and fun of the Del Coronado Hotel, where Marilyn Monroe cavorted with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in Some Like it Hot...

...How can the government be so insane as to underinvestigate real security risks, such as CIA and Department of Defense employees, while it wastes millions investigating people who will have no access to real secrets...

...After we published Richard Reeves' article last month arguing that we should stop wasting disaster benefits on people who choose to live in disaster-prone areas, especially if they are affluent enough to really choose where they live, Congress rejected a law that would have at least reduced construction in the most vulnerable parts of the coastline...

...In the cases of national service and student loans, the administration has shown that it is willing to compromise crucial elements of a program in order to get a bill...

...The leaders know that on the last day they can bring up bills without anywhere near enough time for adequate debate...

...The Monthly continues to view Whitewater as a snipe hunt, but unfortunately a snipe hunt to which the Clintons' defensive reaction has revealed some unhappy aspects of the presidential couple's character...

...These are for public officials threatened with indictment: "Cooperating fully" and "Do not recall...

...So this is when mining companies get exempted from regulation and tax breaks for special interests are enacted...

...The solution, though, isn't to reject the Canadian system, but to radically reduce overspecialization and malpractice litigation...

...The bad news is that there are still enough people who want to go to law school to fill the 41,000 places available...

...It's interesting to note why so many violent criminals had to be put into work-release...

...Jince it is not in the nature of a law firm either to let the public know it has overbilled clients or to betray sources of power and influence, I can think of only two possible reasons why the boys at Rose blew the whistle on Webb Hubbell...

...What it should mean is that after guilt is determined, the mental state of the accused should be taken into account in determining the nature of his punishment...

...The excessive coverage of Whitewater may have climaxed with those Time-Newsweek stories...

...Accustomed as we are to this kind of moral leadership from the bar, the good news is that the number of applicants to law schools has dropped by 11 percent in the last three years...

...I realize that insanity is only used in a tiny number of cases...

...The tax is supposed to be payable when the value of the parking is greater than $155 a month...

...A robber, then, is not a mere shoplifter but someone who pulls a knife or a gun on you...

...According to David Rosenbaum of The New York Times, they determined the worth of a parking space on the basis of the "rent" the agency pays the General Services Administration, another federal agency that acts as the government's landlord and, to put it gently, sometimes fails to drive the hardest bargain...

...If he needs psychiatric treatment, try to give it to him...

...Ickes and Stephanopoulos had good reason to be concerned about Stephens, who held a press conference in 1993 denouncing Clinton for firing him even though that's what every new president does to every U.S...

...Yet it took them eight years to catch Aldrich Ames, who was driving into the agency's parking lot in a Jaguar he couldn't afford and returning at night to a house he couldn't afford, either...

...w haven't they always done that is the question you have to ask yourself after reading two recent headlines: "CIA to Require Employees to File Financial Disclosures" and "Past Performance Becomes a Factor in U.S...

...Others include the need to encourage enterpreneurship and to teach values in school...

...Of course, this good news had to be accompanied by some negative opinions about single payer...

...The latter has already corrected its report that Hillary Clinton did not use her own money to finance her speculation in cattle futures...

...According to Mireya Navarro of The New York Times, "The pressure to release inmates in New York and elsewhere has mounted as the cumulative impact of tougher sentences for drug-offenders is felt...

...oes the right have a new agenda for Asia...

...Really good humor requires that the humorist be able to laugh at himself, and you can't laugh at yourself unless you're willing to acknowledge your own shortcomings...

...attorney of the opposite party...

...Code and to the possibility that "At least one and perhaps several indictments could result in imprisonment as long as five years...

...When I practiced criminal law, it occurred to me that most of my clients were at least a little bit nuts...

...The media's embarrassment may have something to do with it, but I suspect a larger factor is that the drop in the stock and bond markets reminded reporters, editors, and producers that there are more important subjects than Whitewater...

...Another possible explanation is that the week following the Time-Newsweek stories, the White House press corps accompanied the president on his San Diego vacation...

...Doesn't this suggest that the interviewee, instead of thinking of himself as providing information, sees the interview as an opportunity for publicity for which he should be warmly grateful...

...As for overspecialization, we would have the government refuse loans to medical students who want to specialize and make the monthly loan payments for those who opt to be family and primary care physicians...

...It cost $15...

...The latest example is New York's work-release program, in which the number of prisoners sent to work-release centers has tripled since 1989...

...If you have a theory, let me know...

...Charles Peters...

...Speaking of the fifties, in 1959 I ordered a black-and-white checked cotton gingham suit for my wife from Best's, which was then one of the Fifth Avenue stores in New York...

...Two recent escapees who immediately proceeded to commit other crimes had originally been in prison for robbery which, as some people don't know, is a violent crime—taking property by putting the victim in fear...

...If you have ever been involved with the legislative process, you know how tempting it is to do anything that will get a bill enacted so that your team can brag that "we got the bill passed...

...For more examples, see Charlotte Allen's article on page 10...

...Another is that the partners think the reputation of the Clinton administration has headed so far south that their connection with Hubbell—and with the Clintons—is doing them more harm than good...

...Nevertheless, the New York work-release program put the robbers back on the streets where they robbed again, one of them shooting a cabdriver in the process...

...The other day she showed me a page from a Saks catalog advertising a suit that appeared identical in every way except for the price, which was $318...

...If it does the same with health reform and tries, say, to achieve universal coverage without performing radical surgery on costs, the result could be a fiscal catastrophe...

...My main worry about health reform is that the Clintons will sacrifice effective cost control in order to get the bill through Congress...

...As Edward Walsh recently pointed out in The Washington Post, here was the scene of The Music Man, which is dearly loved by all us sentimentalists for capturing what was good and wonderful in the America of the midwestern small town...

...The office of the Mexican president sometimes provided a passenger jet for longer trips, such as those to the beaches of Acapulco and the ruins of the Yucatan...

...Was it that second martini that gave the boss the courage to say "Let's build another plant" or "Let's open an office in L.A...

...The first paragraph of the accompanying story, by George Church and Michael Kramer, contained this allegation: "Fiske's probers, Time has learned, are weighing charges that White House aides tried—though unsuccessfully—to force the firing of [Stephens...

...For me the low point in the media's coverage of Whitewater came with the April 4 issues of both Time and Newsweek...

...Furthermore, just as the First Couple has held power too close, contributing to the chronic tentativeness of their subordinates that I have previously deplored in thi s space, on Whitewater the Clintons held too many facts too close to their vest for too long, making the staff visibly nervous about what might still be hidden...

...For example, those of us who had thought of the First Lady as the president's wisest counselor saw that she gave him perfectly terrible advice when she advocated stonewalling...

...Some years ago, I wrote that if you doubted civil servants were capable of passionate concern, you should try to take away their free parking...

...Maybe single payer has a chance after all...

...The evidence to support this allegation is that Stephanopoulos and Harold Ickes blew up when they heard that Stephens, the Republican former U.S...

...Did you know that the Department of Agriculture spends about $2 million on security clearance for its employees...

...This way, the one legitimate function of harsh malpractice verdicts will still be performed: namely, punishing incompetent physicians, which the boards can do by revoking their licenses—an act doctor-dominated boards are far too reluctant to perform...

...So the conservatives who rave about Willie Horton being on the streets may in fact be the very people who put him there...

...Since the true value of the space is $300, each IRS official who profits from this ruling will be cheating the government out of $626 in taxes...

...Evidence that Ickes and Stephanopoulos tried to "force" a Stephens dismissal does not, to the best of my knowledge, exist...

...Indoor parking in the vicinity of the IRS building costs about $300...

...Their sons, Don and Charlie, were reared as friends of the other children in the home...

...But Time has yet to apologize for its misleading cover photograph of a depressed and concerned George Stephanopoulos and Bill Clinton in the Oval Office...

...There is a method in this madness...

...The "Thank you, Mr...

...I feel the same way, but sometimes it's hard to find even that hint of impact...

...Instead, the solons postponed action and called for a two-year study...

...Finally, we agree with the recent articles in The New Republic and in Newsweek calling for good orphanages as a solution to the problem of abused and neglected children...

...Back to the martinis and the American Empire for a moment...

...The article goes on to ominously refer to Section 1505 of Title 18 of the U.S...

...I have often wondered about the role gin and vermouth played in the triumphs and tragedies of the CIA...

...Trying to find where conservatives and liberals can agree is of increasing interest to me...

...Like the costs of higher education and medical care, they have soared far beyond the inflation rate...

...Buried in a recent Wall Street Journal article about Aldrich Ames and his wife while they were serving in Mexico were these clues to the hardships our foreign services endure: "They lived a swank life of the diplomatic set: Housing allowances, expense accounts and long lunches at the bistros and cafes across the street from the embassy...

...Have you ever noticed how TV interviewees always express appreciation to the interviewers...

...When they were told he couldn't, they dropped the matter...

...Rick Ames' cozy book-lined apartment was in the "Pink Zone," an elegant diplomatic quarter of palm gardens behind pink stucco walls...

...As for malpractice, we would eliminate pain-and-suffering damages—the big ticket item in these suits—in return for doctors allowing laymen to sit on licensing boards...

...There just wasn't much time left for Whitewater...

...It was called the Davis Child Shelter and was run by the Reverend Ronald Cleland and his wife...

...If we are to take the excessive acrimony out of political discussions, we need to find the common ground on which liberals and conservatives can build mutual respect...

...Tilting Windmills In America in the 1950s, Christopher Buckley points out in his new novel Thank You For Smoking, "At the height of its industrial and imperial power, men drank double martinis for lunch...

...I guess what worries me the most about the Clinton-Stephanopoulos humor shortage is that people who lack humor also often lack a healthy sense of self-criticism...

...This is typical of what has happened to the prices of women's clothing...

...Now the Iowa legislature is locked in bitter debate over whether to allow slot machines at racetracks...

...A^hen the judge resisted Leslie Abramson's request for $250,000 to represent Erik Menendez in his second trial after she had already gotten $650,000 plus several million dollars' worth of free publicity courtesy of Court TV, Abramson was able to get five prominent defense lawyers to say her request was not unusual...

...Jy the way, the Los Angeles Times estimates that the CIA's "secret" budget is $30 billion a year...

...The latest illustration of this truth is the IRS, which has managed to figure out how to exempt its officials from a tax on parking that was passed by Congress in 1992...

...Although the picture had been taken months before on a routine White House day, the cover implies that it depicts a president and his aide agonizing over that week's reports about Stephanopoulos' conversations with Treasury aides about the hiring of Jay Stephens by the RTC...

...The problem is that the number who have used the opportunity to escape from the work-release center has increased tenfold...

...A hard line on violent crime seems to be one...

...When one of the Davis kids was run over by a car and killed, all of us in his fifth-grade class at Mercer School attended the funeral...

...Is it because working women can pay more than the housewives of the fifties...

...Because in the eighties many of these same conservatives supported draconian anti-drug laws that resulted in lengthy prison terms for the non-violent crimes of possession or sale of narcotics...

...I know there really are such things as good orphanages, because I grew up three blocks from one and went to school with children who lived there...

...The New York Times finally gave it sympathetic treatment in a front page story by Robin Toner in March...

...Secretary" is always followed by "Thank you, Larry...

...Speaking of state legislatures, one of their most enduring rituals is the custom of relaxing through the early days of the session and then getting much of the work done at the very end...

...Weekends often brought trips, sometimes to vineyards and other spots in the hills, sponsored by the diplomatic club where he first met Ms...

...The White House has a right to resent the press overplaying the story, but the Clintons and their staff could have ridiculed the mountain while gracefully acknowledging that, yes, there is a Whitewater ijnolehill, thus appearing forthcoming, reasonable, and charming amid the din of the press' indignation...

...In her new book, Living a Political Life, Madeline Kunin, the undersecretary of Education and former governor of Vermont, makes this observation about what motivates a life devoted to public affairs: "The optimistic illusion that one can change the world is difficult to resist, especially when from time to time that illusion is sustained by even a hint of reality...

...Lobbyists love this system because it means they only have to bribe the leaders and not waste their largess on lowly backbenchers...

...Why do their employees need security clearances...

...Berenson also argues that the Canadian system wouldn't work with overspecialized American physicians who are petrified of malpractice suits...

...Suspicions were aroused by a recent Washington Times map which depicts Afghanistan at three or four times its actual size and leaves Pakistan out entirely...

...All the two White House aides did was express outrage—wouldn't you have done the same in their position?—and ask if Stephens could be fired...

...In case you've forgotten, the Monthly has an answer to both these problems...

...Could it be the boldness that built the American Imperium was fueled by booze...

...Jpeaking of crime and ideology, the lesson of the Willie Horton case should be that the Republicans were wrong to play the race card but right to ridicule the kind of softness on crime that permits early release of violent convicts...

...I was delighted by the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Montana law abolishing the insanity defense...

...Clinton's shortage of humor, as well as the president's, and for that matter chief aide George Stephanopoulos', deprived the White House of one of its most effective ways of defusing Whitewater, which was to make fun of the media's tendency to make mountains out of molehills in order to justify the effort and money they devote to a story...

...principles— and it may be the cheapest approach...

...attorney for the District of Columbia, had been appointed to a job in which he would have an opportunity to do serious damage to the president and his wife...

...And in its March 21 issue, Business Week came close to endorsing single payer in an article subtitled, "A Canadian-style plan would preserve bedrock U.S...

...It has been endorsed by The Seattle Post Intelligencer, The Detroit Free Press, and The Atlanta Constitution...

...In the most recent 60-day session of the West Virginia legislature, for example, of the 190 bills passed, 65 were passed on the last day...

...HUD spends about $850,000, the Department of Commerce more than $1 million...

...So how did the gang at the IRS get out of this one...

...One is that a Republican member of the firm leaked the alleged over-billing news to the press, and the rest of the partners worried that they would then appear to be guilty of concealing an ethics violation if they failed to report it to the state bar themselves...

...But first and foremost, make sure he is confined long enough to protect society from a repetition of violent behavior...

...They may be indifferent to health care because they all have generous health insurance, but most of the now-affluent members of the media have investment portfolios...

...5ome new entries in our Safe Answers contest...

...Even worse: By the year 2000, the nation will have 1 million lawyers...

...And Mrs...