Elvis Leaves the Building
Finally, after a solid week, some of the big dailies lead with monographs
that aren't Monicagraphs. The Washington Post leads with the indictment of Clinton
intimate Charlie Trie and another Democratic Party fund-raiser--the first in
connection with the Department of Justice's investigation into the 1996
campaign. (This story is the off-lead at the Los Angeles
Times , but the New York
Times runs it deep inside.) And the LAT goes with Madeleine
Albright's pronouncement that if allies can't be convinced, the U.S. is ready
to launch military strikes against Iraq on its own. Albright added that the
diplomatic string is running out and reiterated the U. S. position: U.N.
weapons inspectors must have unconditional access to Iraqi sites. (Elsewhere,
this story doesn't get that much play either: at the NYT it only gets a
reefer on the front page, below the fold.) USA Today
leads with a new poll indicating the strength of President Clinton's
post-scandal popular support, and the NYT goes with new details about
the last White House meeting between Bill and Monica.
USAT says its new poll (of 684 adults, done in concert with CNN and
Gallup) shows that after his State of the Union speech, Clinton enjoys his
highest approval rating ever--67 percent. The paper also reports that former
White House chief of staff Leon Panetta was questioned yesterday by
prosecutors. (This news is also flagged in the Wall Street Journal front-page news box and on the
NYT front.) USAT also states that Starr investigators picked up
evidence from a former teacher of Monica Lewinsky's, who says he had an affair
with her.
The paper also offers a glimpse into Monica's vie en scandale: long days
sequestered in the Watergate with her mother, watching TV and talking on the
phone in code. Her lawyer is quoted saying that she watched Clinton's SOTU
address. "She thought he did a good job with it," he says. "She thinks he's
done a good job as president. She still considers him a friend."
Pursuing a thread first pulled by yesterday's LAT , the NYT and WP delve into that December 28th White House meeting
between the president and his ex-intern, prompted by her concerns over a
subpoena in the Paula Jones case. The Times reports Lewinsky claims that
Clinton told her at the time that she could testify her visits to him at the
White House were to see his secretary, and that he suggested that she could
avoid testifying altogether by being in New York City. The paper goes on to
point out that besides the issue of what Clinton actually said at this meeting,
it would be "ethically questionable" for a defendant in a civil lawsuit merely
to discuss the case with a potential witness already subpoenaed by the
plaintiffs.
The Times says this meeting was confirmed by a White House aide,
while the Post says the White House declined to comment about it and has
refused to release the relevant entry logs.
The LAT front and the NYT inside report an
increase in the number of applications to the University of California from
blacks (up 4.9 percent) and Latinos (up 7 percent). This confounds
much-publicized concerns that the school's decision to end affirmative action
last year would have a chilling effect on minority applications.
Dick Morris' verbal incontinence yesterday about Bill and Hillary's sex
lives seems to have had immediate results. White House spokesman Mike McCurry
tells the Post that, although in recent weeks Clinton would occasionally
talk to Morris, "I doubt that will ever happen again."
A big color shot of the president greeting an exuberant crowd of young
people sits athwart the NYT lead story about the Monica meeting and
astride its story about his trip yesterday to the Midwest. From just one
glance, it's hard to say which story the picture goes with. In a way, it goes
with both. It was in fact taken yesterday at Clinton's appearance at the
University of Illinois. But it captures the very same hands-on political body
chemistry apparent in those shots we've all seen by now of Bill with Monica.
Indeed, of the eleven people in the photograph looking up at and/or reaching
for Clinton, eight of them are women. They are all smiling at him.
