_______________ SALON'S COVERAGE OF THE CLINTON CRISIS (01/21/98 - 04/27/98)

Stop the insanity! Please please please get back to the provocative and interesting articles you have traditionally published on topics other than an Arkansas bait shop owner's supposed leadership of a national conspiracy to dethrone the Clintons. Unless you can tie in the Freemasons, Rosicrucians and/or Trilateral Commission, which would at least be amusing, just accept the fact the Bill Clinton is a liar and a cheat and that our country has put too much invasive power in the hands of prosecutors. -- Andrew Hazlett New York Last night I had a jolly good time telling the New York Times where they could stick their weekend edition. I had canceled my subscription after I started comparing their Starr coverage to the articles appearing daily in Salon. Perhaps it is too early to say, but Salon may have a journalistic team that rivals Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Not only have Murray Waas and Jonathan Broder (et al.) gone where none of the mainstream press has dared to go, but in the process they have validated the World Wide Web as a news medium. Your coverage has effectively canceled out the efforts of men like Richard Mellon Scaife and Rupert Murdoch to control the news. There is no controlling the power of the Web. Finally that has become a good thing rather than an excuse for censorship and private encryption tools. No matter what becomes of this sordid Scaife story, the work done by Salon has been truly revolutionary. Thank you for giving the entire planet an excellent daily newspaper. -- Michael Daecher Just about every time I log on to Salon now there is something new, one more shocking revelation than the last. Let's see how good my memory is: Last week we learned that Scaife investigated a CNN reporter; then we learned that Ewing was having secret meetings with a Scaife investigator. (Funny, Ewing stated that he did not have any "improper" meetings with Armistead, or whatever the investigator's name is; although his boss is vigorously investigating Bill Clinton, who said he did not have an "improper" relationship with Monica Lewinsky.) And now we learn of the machinations by the Clinton-haters to remove Judge Woods so that Starr could be better assured of a conviction. I think that Salon is doing a great job. Right now you are the lonely voice crying in the wilderness, as it appears that the hot-shot dailies are happier denigrating Clinton than looking at the corruption of Starr and his men. Starr has spent four years plus trying to get something on the Clintons; the thing he does not realize is that the longer he takes the more likely it is that his men will also make mistakes, or their abuses will also come to light, as they are now through Salon. The only problem I see with all these stories is that they are not yet coherent. At some point one of your brilliant writers ought to take a look at all the pieces and pull them together, showing how Starr is involved up to his neck in a partisan hunt to destroy the president. -- Winston L. Cooper Thank you so much for being a voice of sanity. I'm so tired of flipping channels and listening to Republicans repeat their old mantras, "It's not sex, it's about perjury and ..." so forth. What most disturbs me, as a woman, is that Republicans are so unwilling to believe a black woman (Anita Hill) and so willing to believe any white woman (I'm not black, by the way). Someone should expose this obvious racism. What also burns me is the self-righteous, "the ends justify the means," civil rights-trampling Republican attitude. I'm not entirely sure Clinton is innocent. But I'm very sure that Republicans are guilty of far worse than anything Clinton is alleged to have done. -- Helen Dunn San Jose, Calif. Your recent article would intimate to many readers that Hick Ewing met with a Scaife-paid investigator to receive information. Think the other way -- to give information. It defies credulity that after Starr's agents spent last year investigating Clinton's sex life (with the power of subpoena and threat of criminal prosecution if false statements were provided even during interviews) that they would have overlooked the value of that information to Jones' team (and apparently they were after specific information -- not just names of women Clinton may have engaged in pillow talk with -- e.g. perjury bait in an upcoming civil suit). Paula Jones' attorneys assert they never talked to anyone with the OIC. But how about an intermediary bringing "anonymous" information? A final observation: It seems that the logic of Starr's argument to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals-- that Woods suffered the appearance of partiality in the public's eye as a result of unfounded news reports -- would apply in spades to Kenneth Starr. A number of recent polls suggest that a majority of Americans believe Starr is conducting a partisan investigation (no such polling data even existed for Judge Woods). While the 8th Circuit may have rejected Eisele's petition, perhaps they would find it more difficult to dismiss Starr's own successful argument before them -- just change the name from Woods to Starr and submit new articles and polling data. Obviously, the public could not believe that justice was being pursued in an impartial way. Remember, according to the argument made by Starr and accepted by the 8th Circuit, it's perceptions as reasonably concluded from news reports that count ... not reality. -- Bill Luthans For a couple of years now, I've considered Salon one of my daily must see Web sights. Unique perspective and fun, provocative writers with interesting topics made your zine stand out in a sea of mediocrity. But your journalistic successes with the Starr investigation are starting to overwhelm the publication. Why don't you spin that political stuff off into its own section or even another zine? It's really starting to clutter up the magazine. Just an opinion. -- Mike Whatley Alexandria, Va. I love your articles on Starr. You seem to be the only ones who can come up with this stuff. I love it. Keep up the good work. That voyeuristic pervert is trying to make a retirement plan for himself out of this fiasco. He should pick up an April Penthouse, get off on Paula and get it over with. He's a sick man and a leftover from the Gestapo. I don't know why the ACLU or somebody doesn't go after him for all the people whose rights he has violated. -- Gail York Penngrove, Calif. I only wanted to thank you for reporting on what has been my worst fears in the Clinton investigation. I have been stunned how allegations are being reported as fact, void of any proof to back them up. This sets forth a frightening precedent for America, its future and the very roots of our system of government. I will continue to be a regular visitor to your site. Keep up the good work. -- Ron Huddle Lamesa, Texas At least somebody is finally starting to expose some facts about Paula Jones' lifestyle that so many of us here in California were aware of but nobody seemed to be mentioning. But first let me point out something about what her attorney said in regards to her Mercedes -- or whoever contributed the money to her so she could buy it -- a 10-year-old Mercedes is worth more than a Ford Escort unless it is a low-line Mercedes with miles and damage and no records and the Escort in question is brand new and the most expensive model you can buy. But if you are comparing a 10-year-old Mercedes with a10-year-old Ford Escort and said Mercedes didn't cost more than the Escort then I need to buy about a dozen of them. Also, I must be in the wrong profession (auto sales) because if you can live in the kind of place (gated community in an expensive part of Long Beach) that she and the other Jones live in, drive a Mercedes, go to the club, put the dog in the kennel and raise two children, and do it on wages made by taking tickets at the airport, then I must have been doing something wrong all these years. I have a better idea though -- either somebody is paying for them to continue the lawsuit or she is bilking the legal defense fund. I wonder what would happen if she had to pay her own bills on her husband's wages? -- Milton Blough I would imagine that as your "conspiracies" collapse of their own weight, you will be wondering what happened to any credibility you may have once had. Doesn't take too much in the way of observations to see them fall apart as soon as you build them. But it is fun watching. Some great imaginations! Your reporters could find a chicken bone in someone's backyard, and, from it, re-construct a tyrannosaurus rex. -- Norman E. Miller SALON | April 29, 1998

R E C E N T L Y+| HOLLYWOOD SWINGERS BY RAY SAWHILL (04/22/98)

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