I think the author said it best herself: "the tone of white frat boys whining about affirmative action to excuse their own mediocrity." These people have probably been festering for a long time, waiting for Tiger or his dad to say something so that they can use it and vindicate Fuzzy for his comments.

Will white men ever stop being angry? Maybe that is the key to equality. Or do we all have to be angry, too? Sounds too ridiculous to me.

-- Brenda Brody

If Earl Woods had been white and made his comments about Africa instead of Scotland, he would have been crucified in the media, so the answer is yes, he is a racist. That Susan Zakin does not understand this and indeed further compounds her hypocrisy with the sexist and racist crack about "angry white frat boys" shows she has no business being a serious journalist.

-- John Dinkeloo

My magical movie mystery tour
BY CAMILLE PAGLIA
(06/16/99)

At last, Camille Paglia has clarified her bewildering claim to have the mind of a man. Turns out she doesn't have the noggin of your average Joe six-pack, though, but that of a "pre-Stonewall gay man."

Putting aside the unexpected revelation that all pre-Stonewall guys thought alike, it occurs to me that Paglia's time travels can be a source of great comfort for us post-Stonewall gay guys. For example, who knew that the guy who was dragged outside and thrown into a paddy wagon for having the crust to enter an illegal gay bar could soothe his pain by reflecting on Rosalind Russell's wacky brilliance in "Auntie Mame"? Even better, on his first Christmas away from the family that no longer wanted anything to do with him, a pre-Stonewall gay guy had only to attend a Marilyn Monroe movie in an empty theater and join the pagan celebration of female sexuality to make everything better.

Paglia's startling insight will change everything. I mean, who could have guessed that the discussion in pre-Stonewall gay bars centered on an effete, snobbish bitch fight in academia over structuralism that has absolutely no relevance to the real world? Man, oh man. Us modern gay dudes got rooked.

-- Bernard Gundy
San Francisco

Only the Shadow knows
BY JAKE TAPPER
(06/18/99)

The tragedy is that Bob Woodward -- one of America's great investigative journalists and a man who made history with his Watergate reporting -- now wastes his talent on inconsequential, inside-the-Beltway accounts of political ephemera.

I reluctantly concluded after interviewing Woodward for my 1996 "Frontline"documentary "Why America Hates the Press," that he has become little more than a stenographer to power -- a palace scribe. His reporting is almost irrelevant to the rest of the country.

Did anyone actually manage to read his book "The Choice," about the Clinton-Dole race? It was stupefyingly dull and almost completely devoid of meaning for anyone outside official Washington. Remember the hook for that tome -- that Hillary consulted Eleanor Roosevelt in a "seance"? Now that was a real contribution to our understanding of the American political system.

Tapper makes a passing reference to Woodward's book on Dan Quayle, but neglects to mention that the book is so shallow and such an embarrassment -- it was a pathetic attempt to convince readers that then Vice President Quayle had matured in office and was worthy of serious consideration for the presidency -- that it has conveniently disappeared from lists of Woodward's published works.

Some day I hope Woodward will return to the days when he pierced the secrecy of the Nixon White House, the Supreme Court and the CIA. Until then I'll skip his "insider" accounts of Washington talking to itself. As Jake Tapper's friend says, "Who cares?"

-- Stephen Talbot

Presidents since Nixon have lived in the shadow of Watergate. Indeed, as Woodward wrote: "The presidency has changed." But so has the press. So, judging from his "larger thesis," has Woodward.

When Woodward and Carl Bernstein exposed the abuse of government power known as Watergate, reporters followed a simple rule: A public figure's private life was private, unless public responsibilities are affected.

Today, Woodward asserts, presidents must tell the reporters everything "from policies to their personal lives to foreign policy to pardons." Policies are public, so are pardons and foreign policies. But private lives?

Woodward is not alone. His paper, the Washington Post, played a major role in giving the nation a year of Monica. Michael Isikoff's keyhole journalism garnered various journalism awards, but never linked President Clinton's dismaying personal behavior with his public responsibilities.

"This was not Watergate," Isikoff wrote in his book. Indeed it wasn't.

-- Peter Donhowe
Editor, TV & Politics Watch
Champaign, Ill.

Jake Tapper is correct to focus on the accuracy of Bob Woodward's work. Insofar as public figures are concerned, a reporter really has only one obligation, which is to get the story right. Woodward has done this, so there simply is no "ethical" case against him, period. I consider Woodward to be a national asset. Without him, we might not have a historical record in our age of shredders, spin and cover-your-ass. I'm glad he's on the scene, and that he does his work without regard to those jealous ants who occasionally try to throw stones at success.

-- Charles Pluckhahn
Newton, Mass.

Inside the Starr chamber
BY JACK HITT
(06/17/99)

One scarcely knows what to make of it when Jack Hitt characterizes Kenneth Starr's distinction between the office of the U.S. presidency and its present occupant as "curious." Is this not the stuff of elementary-school civics classes?

In making judgments about the impeachment debacle, there is a principle that might profitably be kept in mind. The process of impeachment ostensibly exists in order to keep in check presidents who misuse the power of the office -- not to check the freedom that every person, president or not, has to lie, dissemble or abuse the truth for personal gain, an art which Bill Clinton has plainly mastered. Such acts are the small beer of Washington political life, the grease that keeps the political wheels spinning.

If Kenneth Starr, the media (including Salon) and the U.S. political establishment generally were not hopelessly in thrall to the image of the president's penis, they might have opened their eyes to the real and substantial (not to mention impeachable) abuses of executive power that Bill Clinton has committed for personal gain. Among these are the criminal attacks on Sudan and Afghanistan which took place in the aftermath of the African embassy bombings. But it is little wonder that such a thoroughly compromised president can remain in power when he has publications like Salon around to blur the distinction between the man and the office.

-- Lorne Beaton

Hitt misses the point as he paraphrases Bob Woodward's latest book, "Shadow," to find more ammo to harangue Ken Starr. Hitt may even have a point that Starr made mistakes; even Starr admits to this. Yet it was not Ken Starr that caused this mess and it was not Ken Starr that even started the impeachment process. Hitt should realize that Ken Starr's mistakes -- made in an effort to do his job against a White House spinning in an all-out effort to stop him -- will never be as bad as Clinton's.

I guess only the Shadow knows.

-- Ira S. Stevens