House Speaker Newt
Gingrich announced that he will pay his $300,000 ethics "assessment" (i.e.,
fine) out of his own money. The catch: He will borrow that money from Bob
Dole. The terms: 10 percent annual interest, no payments required until 2005.
Pundits figured that if Gingrich had paid the fine out of his campaign kitty or
a legal defense fund, he would have been forced from office. Instead, the loan
allows him to serve out the maximum eight years as speaker, at which point he
can repay the loan out of his campaign kitty or a legal defense fund. The
short-term betting says Gingrich has quelled the Republican mutiny against him
and bought himself time to regain his stature as a policy leader. Liberal
politicians and editorialists, having warned Gingrich that he would be evading
justice and creating a conflict of interest if he failed to pay the fine with
his own money, accused him of evading justice and creating a conflict of
interest when he agreed to pay the fine with his own money. (4/18)
Israeli police recommended
indictments against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , his justice
minister, and his chief of staff. The charges concern an alleged deal to
appoint an attorney general who would go soft on a Netanyahu ally (the nominee
subsequently quit). Pundits quickly concluded that Netanyahu was in grave
trouble, then backed off after learning that the proposed indictment against
him rested largely on the testimony of one witness. The growing scandal is
expected to hinder the peace process by preoccupying Netanyahu, weakening his
hold over Israel's extreme right, and discouraging the Labor Party from forming
a coalition government with him. (4/18)
German prosecutors
indicted CompuServe's top German executive on charges of distributing
pornography . This is regarded as an ominous precedent: the first
prosecution of an Internet service in the West for providing access to material
it did not produce. (The porn is produced by independent sites and distributed
through Internet newsgroups.) Under German law, the executive could get five
years in jail, though this is considered unlikely. He has previously threatened
to circumvent prosecution by playing the Internet's trump card: moving
CompuServe's German offices to France. (4/18)
Philip Morris and RJR
Nabisco are discussing a possible $300 billion settlement of all cigarette
liability suits against them. They would accept FDA supervision and
advertising restrictions in exchange for an act of Congress that would require
plaintiffs to seek compensation from a general tobacco-industry fund rather
than from the companies. The media initially gloated over the news, on the
grounds that the tobacco companies were offering unprecedented concessions. But
within a day, pundits and politicians turned skeptical, complaining that 1)
even $300 billion wouldn't hurt the companies enough; 2) they would simply pass
the cost along to their addicted customers; and 3) awarding them immunity from
liability would be immoral, unconstitutional, and profitable, as evidenced by a
rise in tobacco-company stock on news of the talks. (4/18)
The Supreme Court struck
down a Georgia law requiring drug tests for political candidates . The
court ruled 8-to-1 that the urine tests were an unreasonable search under the
Fourth Amendment because: 1) there's no evidence of a drug problem among
Georgia politicians and 2) the law was designed to be symbolic rather than
effective (e.g., it allows candidates to pick the day they will be tested). The
Fourth Amendment spin is that the court, having upheld a series of drug-testing
laws (for railroad crews, customs-service workers, and student athletes),
finally encountered one too preposterous to tolerate. The ideological spin is
that the principled left and principled right (including Justices Thomas and
Scalia) defeated the unprincipled center (Chief Justice Rehnquist).
(4/16)
Republicans are turning up
the heat on Attorney General Janet Reno for failing to appoint an
independent counsel to investigate the Democratic fund-raising scandal. House
Speaker Newt Gingrich compared Reno to Nixon henchman John Mitchell, and
threatened to summon her before Congress and investigate whether she was
involved. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., replied that Gingrich,
"the guru of ethics," had neither the right nor the credibility to intimidate
the attorney general. The press contrasted Gingrich's invective with the more
careful and substantive criticisms leveled at Reno by Senate Judiciary Chairman
Orrin Hatch. The New York Times and Los Angeles Times joined in
the criticism of Reno, while the Washington Post and the Chicago
Tribune came to her defense. (4/16)
The Dow Jones
industrial average bounced back strongly after falling nearly 10 percent
below its March peak Friday. The drop had wiped out this year's gains and
persuaded some market watchers to declare the slide a correction. Healthy
corporate earnings reports and near-zero inflation in the consumer sector
turned stock speculators exuberant. Irrationally so? asked the Wall Street
Journal . Probably not, said most analysts, while agreeing that the market
was likely to keep lurching in response to changes in economic indicators.
(4/16)
Major League Baseball
retired Jackie Robinson 's number. To commemorate Robinson's shattering
of the color barrier in sports 50 years ago, no player will ever again be
assigned the number 42. President Clinton and Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig
joined Robinson's widow at a ceremony honoring Robinson during a Mets-Dodgers
game at Shea Stadium. Sports writers boasted that baseball was once again
crystallizing the story of American progress. Killjoys pointed out that blacks
own none of the league's teams, that the stadium failed to sell out, that the
crowd was overwhelmingly white (as is usual at baseball games), and that nearly
everyone left the game after the 5 th inning ceremony. The New
York Times ' George Vecsey suggested that latter-day black sports heroes
such as Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan have insulted Robinson's legacy of
sacrifice by devoting themselves to self-promotion and corporate marketing.
(4/16)
China defeated a U.N.
resolution criticizing its human-rights abuses. Under threats from Beijing,
several nations abstained. Germany and France refused to co-sponsor the
resolution (human-rights groups blamed France's eagerness to conclude an
airplane deal with China). Nevertheless, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright said she would attend the ceremonies in Hong Kong when the British
colony reverts to Chinese control--to show her support for continued democracy
in Hong Kong. (4/16)
An Illinois insurance
company is selling life insurance to people with HIV . This is the first
such insurance offer since the onset of AIDS, and is viewed as tentative
commercial confirmation that AIDS is now, in the company's words, "a treatable
chronic illness rather than a terminal disease" for many people. The Wall
Street Journal hailed it as proof of the success of new drugs. If the
company makes money on the policy, other insurers are expected to follow.
(4/16)
Iran is being
fingered in two cases of terrorism. 1) The Washington Post reported
that a top Iranian official has been linked to the group suspected in last
year's bombing of a U.S. military base in Saudi Arabia. Newt Gingrich said that
if the evidence holds up, the United States should consider a military strike
against Iran. 2) A German court implicated Iranian leaders in four recent
assassinations in Berlin. More than 100,000 Iranians marched on Germany's
embassy in Tehran to protest the ruling. Students trying to storm the embassy
were thwarted by Iranian troops. The betting is that neither side will let the
crisis escalate, because their trade relationship is too cozy.
(4/14)
Tiger Woods
won
the Masters golf tournament and was anointed a Transcendent Sports
Phenomenon. Woods became the first black or Asian-American to win a major golf
tournament, and broke the course records for best score (18 under par), biggest
margin of victory (12 strokes), and youngest victor (he is 21). Pundits
declared it a triumph of youth and racial progress, comparing Woods to Jackie
Robinson (whose 50 th anniversary of breaking the color barrier is
being celebrated simultaneously), Arthur Ashe, and Lee Elder (who became the
first black golfer to play in the Masters in 1975, the same year Woods was
born). The game's current stars declared Woods the best player in the world and
possibly in history. Optimists predicted that Woods will make golf hip and
popular, especially among nonwhite kids. Pessimists grumbled that Woods is so
superior he'll make tournaments boring, and that his corporate marketing
machine (whose hour-long biography of him was aired by CBS during the
tournament) is tarnishing his divinity. (4/14)
