Newt's Hypocrisy
            

            Dear Jim:

            Can it be that our exercise in stunt online writing is nearing its
conclusion already? And just now when we'd gotten to the topic of Newt
Gingrich's sex life, a subject that surely deserves a full week of breakfasts,
if anyone can stomach it.

            Newt's hypocrisy is truly flabbergasting. But the thing that always kills me
about these politician-dallies-with-comely-staffer stories isn't the adultery
or even the hypocrisy, it's how these affairs undermine the work of the other
women (and men) who hold the same jobs as the old guys' paramours.

            I'm still waiting for the masses of former White House interns to file some
kind of class action lawsuit. Couldn't they get damages for their lost future
earnings? After all, their once prestigious job title--White House intern--has
been transformed into the world's easiest one-liner. It's got to be no fun
having a lurid joke embedded in your résumé.

            A final note on the dim fate of the San Francisco Examiner . A column
in today's soon-to-be-Hearst-owned San Francisco Chronicle suggests that
we shouldn't be digging the Hearst-owned Examiner's grave so fast. But
the same story fails to unearth a single credible potential buyer. As you asked
yesterday: Isn't there someone in San Francisco who has the cash and hubris to
lose millions year after year on a daily?

            How about one of those IPO'd cyber-moguls? After all, they're experts in
losing millions. But here's how the CEO of CBS MarketWatch, Larry Kramer,
reacted to the Chronicle columnist's suggestion that he should buy the
Examiner : "How stupid do I look? I reach 10 times that many people now."
Sigh. So much for cross-media synergies.

            Jim, I've enjoyed your musings about murdered birds, dead presidents,
deceased cooking show hosts, and dying newspapers. I wish you luck in all
future poker games, and many newsy breakfasts.

            Yours,
Katharine