Mash Notes and the Masher
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The throwing out of Paula
Jones' harassment case against President Clinton led the last editions of all
the British broadsheet newspapers Thursday, but the tabloids preferred the
theft of love letters from the late Diana, Princess of Wales, to her ex-lover,
James Hewitt. These reportedly intimate letters, dated between 1989 and 1991,
were offered for sale for $240,000 to the London Daily
Mirror by
"Hewitt's spurned Italian fiancée," but the newspaper refused the offer and
handed the letters to the executors of the princess's estate. The London
Evening Standard reported Thursday that Hewitt was expected to take legal
steps for their return.
The Jones
decision came too late for the continental European newspapers and for
editorial comment in the British ones, though the Financial Times, in an inside page feature, said that the
affair had "damaged the Clinton presidency, perhaps irretrievably." "Even if
the sex scandal subsides, the president has been tainted," the paper said. "He
will not be remembered for his economic triumphs, his political agility, his
visionary trade policies, his well-meant dialogue on race, and the dozens of
other smaller initiatives. Already he is the subject of countless jokes, and he
will be remembered as the president who could not keep his zipper zipped."
In France, the press was dominated Thursday by the
conclusion of the country's longest trial, that of Maurice Papon, 87, accused
of (and sentenced Thursday morning to 10 years for) crimes against humanity:
deporting about 1,600 Jews to Auschwitz from Vichy France. The trial gave rise
to a flood of soul-searching comment. It had served, said the daily Le Figaro, "to open our
eyes."
"France loves to dwell on her
past," it said in a front page editorial. "She even lives in it, fascinated by
her navel. But until now, she has cared above all for her moments of glory,
when she thought she could give orders to the universe. She preferred to skip
the black pages in her history. But not for the past few years. One may call it
masochism, or self-denigration, or self-hatred, but it's a good thing all the
same that she dares, at last, to look herself in the face. With stains on her
forehead." Le Monde
published an article titled "France, the Universal Victim?" by writer Pascal
Bruckner, who said France displayed "a unique combination of arrogance and
self-hatred," and added, "We combine an unequalled vanity with a lack of
self-confidence that is the symptom of nations in decline."
Le
Monde devoted a front page article to a Los Angeles Times investigation of supposed breaches in the
traditional wall between advertising and editorial in U.S. newspapers. Relying
heavily on the L.A. Times , it included among its examples the censorship
by the Chicago
Sun-Times of a reference to Neiman Marcus in an article about the death of
Gianni Versace because the store had not bought any advertising space in the
paper.
Other leading topics in the European press were
the political uncertainty in Russia and the crisis in the Middle East peace
talks, exacerbated by the death Sunday in Ramallah of Hamas' Mohiyedine Sharif.
The Guardian of
London said in an editorial that the consequences of this could be "as
severe as those which have almost destroyed the Middle East peace process since
Israeli agents killed the No.1 of the Hamas terrorist organisation two years
ago."
The
London Evening
Standard attacked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for
making "suckers of his people." It urged Israelis and the Jewish community
abroad to "ask themselves what future there is for a country under a Prime
Minister who seems determined to lead it into impasse and isolation." La Repubblica of Rome, in an
editorial titled "Peace at Risk," said Sharif's death might deliver the coup
de grâce to the peace process. "The fear is that Easter, the feast of the
Resurrection, may be transformed into the funeral of peace," La
Repubblica said. "A new blood bath would play the game of the extremists
on both sides who have always been opposed to peace." In Israel, the liberal
Ha'aretz supported
U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's call for direct Israel-Lebanon
talks on the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanese territory.
Under the headline "Dangerous Games in the Kremlin,"
Le
Monde 's editorial Thursday questioned the staying power of
Boris Yeltsin. "The 'Russian miracle,' that of always avoiding catastrophes at
the last moment, remains, however, fragile--more and more fragile," it said.
"One day, soon perhaps, the public will have to stop gaping at the ability of
Boris Yeltsin 'to be good at times of crisis.' " In a report from its Moscow
correspondent, Le
Monde said presidential hopeful Gen. Alexander
Lebed was involved in a Mafia scandal in Siberia.
In London,
the Daily Telegraph reported Rupert Murdoch had read a lesson at a memorial
service for one of his former columnists at the London Times, Woodrow Wyatt. He
read the parable of the talents from St. Matthew's Gospel, with its praise for
those who get a good return on their investments. "Take, therefore, the talent
from him [who had one talent] and give it unto him which hath ten talents,"
Murdoch read. "For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have
abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he
hath."
