_______________ THE NEW YORK TIMES: ALL THE FACTS THAT ARE FIT TO OMIT BY GENE LYONS (02/14/98)

Gene Lyons' piece on the journalistic practice of the New York Times so plainly has its own agenda (a multi-year, extended critique of Labaton and Gerth) that his ideas end up much more suspect to me than the reports he criticizes. Surely Mr. Lyons (and the public at large) knows that all parties have agendas. In an intense Washington environment filled with experts at altering perception, it is remarkable that reporters can present stories with as much objectivity as they have. President Clinton knows the facts of this matter and is not legally inhibited from presenting them to the public. If Mr. Lyons wants to stop the destructive dynamic of leaks, he should call for Mr. Clinton to speak out. Without the efforts of reporters like Labaton and Gerth, we would know a great deal less about what is going on with the Clinton-intern affair. In the end, I trust the stories written by Labaton and Gerth (even if, as Mr. Lyons implies without substantiation, they are based on information from Kenneth Starr's office) a great deal more than the silence of Mr. Clinton. -- Benjamin Clemens Editor's note: The writer works in the New York Times advertising department. Thank you for Gene Lyons' fascinating analysis of what has become painfully obvious -- that the New York Times is, at a minimum, ready to believe the worst of Clinton. The interesting question he fails to address is, why? One would think that the Times and Clinton would be mutually supportive. Their political stances are certainly compatible, both being centrist with liberal leanings; the odd disagreement is to be expected, but the Times' editorial choices clearly seem to indicate something more than that. I suggest that the incompatibility is, in fact, social. That fundamentally the Times believes that a guy who names his only kid after a pop song; who loves fast food and Fleetwood Mac; who enjoyed showing up on "Arsenio" and MTV; in short, a man who isn't faking it for the voters when he displays popular tastes -- such a fellow lacks the gravitas required to be president. The things I like most about Clinton are precisely the things they despise. In the words of rulers everywhere, he is "not one of us." Poor Bill. He has spent his whole life trying to become part of the establishment, and when it comes right down to it, he has failed. He is not, and never will be, "one of us," and he may yet be brought down because of it. Deep down, psychologically, he is a closet populist. Not much in this scandal is as it seems. The pundits keep insisting that they are talking about perjury when they are obviously salivating about sex. And even that, in my opinion, conceals a more fundamental and important struggle between the American aristocracy and the American people. So far, the people aren't buying the line their betters have been selling them. Clinton's only hope is to stress policy issues. He may in fact be a sleazy liar and still survive, if his virtual twin, Newt Gingrich (who notoriously shares the oral-exemption theory of adultery), concludes that it would be too unpopular to nail him. That could leave us with the ultimate irony: Clinton driven by the center to reinvent himself as the Kingfish President. Nothing could hurt the New York Times more. -- Pete Shanks SALON | Feb. 20, 1998

R E C E N T L Y+| ASK CAMILLE: THE USES AND ABUSES OF CHELSEA CLINTON BY CAMILLE PAGLIA

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