Bill Clinton's Browser
Bill
Clinton's Browser
Whom
should we run into the other night in T.G.I. Friday's at the mall but Bill
Gates and Janet Reno! They were out together celebrating the settlement of
their little tiff over that consent decree. Gates' guard dogs snarled as we
approached, and so did the crack team of Justice Department arsonists who were
standing by, ready to set the whole restaurant on fire at the slightest hint of
danger. "Down, Higgins! Down, Ballmer!" said Gates, feeding them small bits of
his braised Myhrvold nacho salad and inviting us to pull up a pew. Reno called
off her flamethrowers as well, and it was the beginning of a jolly evening.
After a few Old Neukom Pale Ales, we couldn't resist asking them what they
thought of this latest Clinton brouhaha. Gates observed tartly, "Someone should
tell that guy to keep his browser separate from his operating system." Reno
guffawed, "Maybe someone should tell him to keep his browser out of other
people's operating systems." Gates stared at her briefly, clearly annoyed
at having had his metaphor appropriated by the government. But then he relaxed
and added with a philosophical chuckle, "Of course in Clinton's case the
browser and the operating system seem to be one integrated product."
Clinternalia
If ever
there was a moment for pack journalism and media overkill, this is it. For
those who are too excited by this Clinton story to even think about their
browsers,
Slate
offers plenty of grist. Our chief political
correspondent, Jacob Weisberg, is filing daily dispatches from
Washington until further notice. "Chatterbox," our
on-again/off-again feature of short observations, gossip, and other tidbits, is
on again. Mickey Kaus, a former senior editor at Newsweek and the
New
Republic , will be filing from Washington. Our ongoing
"Dialogue" about Internet gossip columnist Matt Drudge and his
Drudge Report , between Susan Estrich and David Frum, switches from
discussing the issue of libel on the Internet to the question of Drudge's role
in starting the Clinton scandal. A "Tangled Web"
column by
Slate
's Seth Stevenson traces the path of the story
from Drudge, to the Internet as a whole, to television--and only then to the
newspapers. Speaking of papers, "Today's Papers"
and "International Papers" will keep you abreast of how the major
newspapers around the world are treating the scandal. And for an elegant
summary and analysis of the latest developments, go to "The Week/The Spin."
Is Not!
Is Too!!
Second only in urgency to
the question of whether the president of the United States should be impeached
for subornation of perjury is the question of whether a 501(c)(3) charitable
organization is legally permitted to engage in lobbying of Congress. In a
recent column about the Heritage Foundation, Jacob Weisberg asserted that it
isn't. In "E-Mail to the Editors," a reader asserts that it
is too. Who's
right? By a fortunate coincidence, one of the world's living experts on this
deeply troubling topic is the live-in husband of
Slate
's
Washington editor, Jodie T. Allen. George Allen's definitive memo is available
here.
George is
not the first
Slate
spouse to appear in our pages. Deborah
Needleman, author of two gardening columns (and we hope many more) is married to Jake
Weisberg. And Hackathlete Hanna Rosin is married to
Slate
'ssenior
writer, David Plotz. Suspicious minds may be thinking at this point that being
married to a
Slate
editor carries some kind of unfair advantage
in getting published in
Slate
. Absolutely not. If anything, the
opposite is true. After all, Washington editors and writers and political
correspondents are a dime a dozen. In choosing among the many candidates, it is
only reasonable to give a modest preference to those who can bring along a good
gardening writer, a gifted hack, or an expert on 501(c)(3) organizations.
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