We Are Family
The Los
Angeles Times ' lead national story: the House's approval of a campaign
finance bill. USA
Today leads with more news on the two girls switched at birth. The
New York Times and the Washington Post go with scandal-related leads.
The LAT calls the provisions of the campaign finance bill "the most
sweeping reforms since those inspired by the Watergate scandal." Approved 237
to 186 (with 51 Republicans breaking party lines to support it), the bill would
1) Ban unregulated "soft money" donations to political parties and 2) Restrict
"issue-advocacy ads," which sometimes mask their true sponsors and currently
skirt regulation. Despite approval, the bill still faces competition from other
House bills, and even if passed is not expected to win approval from the
Senate. USAT and the NYT go front-page with the news, while the
WP puts it inside on A02.
USAT continues to lead the way on the engrossing switched-at-birth
tale. Latest news: The two girls' respective guardians have agreed to maintain
status quo and not swap their three-year-olds. Rebecca Chittum's grandparents
(her parents were killed in a July 4 car crash) will continue to raise Rebecca,
while Paula Johnson (mother of Callie Johnson, who is thought to be genetically
related to the Chittums) will continue to raise Callie and not seek custody of
Rebecca (thought to be Paula's biological child, but raised from birth by the
Chittums). Perfectly clear, yes? USAT adds that each family will
establish visitation rights with the other child. (TP's movie-of-the-week
script is already in its second draft.) The WP goes front-page with the
story, while the NYT story hides inside and lags a full day behind in
its reporting.
In scandal news, the NYT and WP run the same story with
opposite spins. The story: Everyone wants President Clinton to fess up to the
hanky-panky we all know he's guilty of, but the White House stubbornly asserts
Clinton's innocence. WP headline: "In Political Washington, A Call for
Confession." NYT headline: "Calls for Clinton to Confess Affair Are
Turned Aside." Several congressmen are hinting that a public mea culpa would
end all of Clinton's worries, but a White House spokesman stated, "The
President has told the truth about this and he will continue to do so."
Elsewhere in scandal-world, the White House has asked Supreme Court Chief
Justice Rehnquist to temporarily stay a subpoena of Clinton lawyer Lanny
Breuer. If Rehnquist refuses the stay, it's likely that Clinton
lawyer/confidant Bruce Lindsey will have to testify, too. (The WP lead
offers the clearest explanation of this legal maneuvering.)
The NYT 's Science Times runs a fascinating story about a mathematical
theorem. Benford's Law, by comparing the digits in a list of numbers to the
outcome that probability would predict, can identify cases where a series of
numbers (tax returns, accounting records) may have been faked. Benford's Law
shows that in any given number, the first digit is most likely to be 1. (For
the reasoning behind this astonishing fact, TP highly recommends reading the
article in full.)
