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At least he didn't win. That was the attitude of "Survivor" fans who tuned in for Sunday's finale to see if one of the most shameless liars ever to appear on television would leave with the million-dollar prize. Jon Dalton -- or "Johnny Fairplay" as he preferred to be called -- did make it to the final three after he hatched an elaborate plan to garner sympathy and gain an advantage over his fellow players. He told a friend that if the show brought him on for a visit, which he knew that it might, he should tell Jon -- in front of the cameras, cast and crew -- that his grandmother had died. The scheme worked; the other players were choked up and conspired to let Jon win the reward challenge. Later, when teammates questioned his loyalty, he was quick to swear to them, on his grandmother's grave, that he was being true to his word. They didn't find out about his lie until the show aired last week.

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I was born in Nicaragua, in a country where we had a dictatorship for 43 years. I grew up as a child not knowing what free elections meant. I longed through those years to be able to live in a country that abides by the principles of democracy. I used to think that America was a place where the will of the people elected a president. Having observed elections in third-world countries and having observed the irregularities that took place in the elections in America, I saw similarities. If a parallel situation had taken place in a third-world country, we would have called it fraud. We would have called for reelections or a recounting of the votes.

This is not a shining moment for American democracy because, in the end, Americans have opted to preserve the institutions rather than to preserve democracy. Vice President Gore was pushed into a wall. From every side they urged him to be gracious and to come out and concede defeat. But the truth, which we all know, was that this election was won by Gore, and that President-elect Bush is usurping the position of the presidency. He has stolen the presidency from Gore. I think a lot of people are frightened and too cautious of using plain English. The American media is afraid to use the word "fraud." Why? It is important for Americans who believe in democracy, its principles and independent legal institutions to speak up.

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Of course I do not have "proof" for the assertion that Clinton surpasses all presidents in corruption, which Conason built a whole column around. Though many Clinton officials have been convicted, many more (including the culprit-in-chief) obviously have not.

Nonetheless, I believe the key charges in the Clinton scandals -- including the Whitewater crookery, the abusive use of military force for domestic political agendas and the collusion with Chinese agents that led to the loss of America's nuclear secrets and missile technologies -- will be shown over time to be as firmly based in fact as the deposition of Monica Lewinsky. (Let us not forget, moreover, that if it weren't for the preserved blue dress with its stain, people like Joe Conason would still be righteously insisting that she, and not he, was the liar.)

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Ewing's moral certainty about Hillary Clinton's guilt soon seeped into the media coverage of the Clinton "scandals." With an unseemly eagerness, Clinton critics in the press began to trumpet rumors of her impending indictment. And when a set of long-misplaced billing records from the Rose firm were found in the White House, the crescendo of accusations reached a frenzied pitch.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - -- - -- - -- - --

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But a settlement, no matter how favorable to Jones, wouldn't have served the
political purposes of the so-called "elves," an informal group of conservative attorneys who were secretly assisting her case. At a delicate
stage, the settlement discussions could be scuttled by creating distrust
between the Clinton and Jones camps. And there was no better way to raise
tensios among the lawyers than by leaking sensitive investigative material
about the president to the press.

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But however zealous, those fringe advocates on the right couldn't do much for Hale by themselves. The crooked judge's gambit couldn't succeed without attention from the national media -- including a few timely phone calls from a certain well-connected reporter for the New York Times.

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A disgruntled former state employee fired at then-Governor Clinton's behest after he got caught using a toll-free state phone to solicit funds for the Nicaraguan Contras, Nichols played a key role in bringing Gennifer Flowers' allegations of her alleged 12-year affair with Clinton to The Star tabloid newspaper. (A musician and composer of ad jingles, Nichols shared the same talent agent with Flowers.) He later went on to national fame as the narrator and star of "The Clinton Chronicles," a Jerry Falwell-sponsored videotape which alleged that the president was involved in drug-smuggling, money-laundering and murder.

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Just three days ago the sheriff's department showed up in my office with the pictures I sent for development. They had some naked pictures of my daughter who is 5 years old. They were questioning me regarding the "pornographic" contents of the pictures I took. The detectives and child protection service agents pulled her into a private room at her school without an adult she knows and questioned her about this. I cannot find out what was said. In the end they believed they were family pictures, but they kept the pictures and negatives. They also had me go to the criminal investigation office and make a statement. They say this is over but emotionally it is not for me, my daughter and our relationship.

-- Name withheld at writer's request

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Oddly, I think McCain really helps Bush because all the other candidates are to the right of him. With McCain there, Bush can always say, "I'm the conservative in this race." And conservatives, you know, they do go out and vote when its raining outside. What's more amazing is really the media's orgasm over McCain. He's the New York Times' candidate. He's Geraldo's candidate. He's Chris Matthews' candidate. I think that they just decided that, after eight years of Clinton, the next president is going to be a Republican president, so they want it to be their Republican. The smart Democrats want Bradley, but he can't win. So they went for McCain, and now his real constituency is the editors of the New York Times. And, for the most part, he's won them over.

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I am an Australian citizen, and a permanent legal resident of the United States,
thanks to my American wife, and I have three American children. I have
lived here for seven years. I pay taxes like everyone else, however I
am
not eligible for most of the benefits that citizens are provided. I am
not
eligible for student loans, I am not eligible for Social Security, even
though I have it taken out of my paycheck every month. I am not
eligible
for unemployment benefits even though my company pays unemployment
insurance for me. The list of programs I am not eligible for is long.

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But before tuning the whole thing permanently out, it's worth remembering that a little over a year ago the nation saw what should have been merely an embarrassing episode in the career of a randy politician turned into a constitutional crisis. The Clinton affair was a bedroom farce that could have ended as tragedy. In all probability, only a harried prosecutor's badly worded definition of "sex" prevented an American president from being removed from office for the crime of lying under oath about a consensual sexual affair. Instead of amusing ourselves with ever more gargantuan corporate copulations, we could be in a toxic civil landscape, the tanks of triumphant Limbaughism rumbling against an army of bitter, morally relativist boomers. Which is why it's important, now that partisan passions have cooled, to look at exactly how and why this gigantic mess landed in our laps.

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Joe Conason's essay, "The Millennial Struggle Continues," was superb.
Every
point he made exposed the religious right for what it really is: A
collection of dangerous reactionaries intent on imposing their twisted
view
of morality on everyone.

Consider the maniacal zeal with which these people, led by Ken Starr,
carried out their insane witch hunt against their most hated enemy,
President Clinton. We can breathe a huge sigh of relief that the
effort
failed, for it could have permanently weakened the institution of the
presidency and resulted in grave consequences for our constitutional
system
of government.

Future historians will judge not the personal flaws of this president,
but,
rather the deliberate attempt by self-righteous demagogues to overthrow
him. That judgment will be harsh.

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and

Publisher halts George W. Bush bio
BY DARYL LINDSEY

(10/22/99)

As much as I would like to believe this story, simple cultural history would seem to contradict it. Why would such an obviously conventional thinker, social conformist, fraternity member yearning for acceptance and approval, use a drug in 1972 which would not become conventional, social or fraternal until the disco era of the late-'70s/early-'80s? Could these cocaine rumors, desperately looking for a vessel, have been mistakenly placed in a vial of a punitive "community service" which actually has another account? I suspect so.

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Bill Wyman's piece on Elvis Costello is typical of the treatment Costello
has received from rock critics over the past 10 years; once the electric
guitar and the snide putdown ceased to be the focus of his work, their
adoration turned to ridicule. Costello's ambition and sophistication should
be welcomed as relief from the witless, one-dimensional rubbish that passes
for popular music in 1999, but instead the media has cast him as a poseur
and has-been. The prevailing critical wisdom that rock 'n' roll must be
loud, simple and angry has consistently discouraged the kind of stylistic
experimentation that would keep rock alive as an art form. Wasn't rock 'n'
roll about freedom once? It has now become the most conservative music there
is, and that's why Elvis Costello has outgrown it.

-- Neil Oliver

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Through their own actions, the airlines have created conditions
that will predictably and reliably produce violent behavior in a segment of
the mass population now flying. The airlines must take responsibility, and
should act to 1) identify and reduce the possibility that
violent outbreaks will occur under current conditions and 2) alter the
conditions that create the violence. Otherwise, an informed and clever
lawyer will be able to argue that the airline "provoked" violent behavior.

-- Denny Kernochan

Northridge, Calif.

Without minimizing what happened to Renee Sheffer, I submit that
Salon could find more immediate topics to report on instead of hyping
such a minimal "problem." My guess would be that flight crew are at
greater risk of bodily injury in airport parking lots than they are
while in flight.

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Casting aspersions on Stephen Stayner, as did the lady in the coffee shop whom Sarah Beach refers to,
is clearly wrong. He emerged from his ordeal more a hero than a victim,
walking from Comptche to Ukiah (at least 10 miles, over a mountain range)
to save Parnell's second victim.

But the questions about the Stayner family remain, and are really
unaddressed by Beach in her article. Steven was picked up by a stranger
in Merced and was told his family had given him away. I am not sure what is
known about Steven's immediate reaction to that, but he does not seem
to have found it utterly unbelievable. He lived for seven years without, it
seems, ever telling anyone that he had an earlier family that gave him
away. Life with Parnell must have been hell on earth, but Steven does not
seem to have been nostalgic for life with his real parents. Beach, if I
understand her correctly, seemed to have had no inkling during the years
they were close friends in Comptche that Steven had a previous family.

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Ever since "The Blair Witch Project" was screened at Sundance, I've been reading notices at Internet
fan sites describing it as the scariest flick ever made. But the curtain is
coming up on their product, and "The Blair Witch Project" doesn't even
come close to living up to its hype.

Two weeks ago I attended a preview screening in a packed theater. When
the lights came up, people actually chuckled. There was a palpable sense
of "That's it? That's all?" in the air. Somebody came down to the front
row and asked, "Gee, was it scarier down here?"

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Christopher Kelly delved into Cruise's sexual ambiguity in certain roles, and his vulnerability,
as being particularly appealing to gays. I submit, however, that those qualities are universally appealing.
Tom Cruise is Everyman, as every man would like to think he is --
intelligent, handsome, caring, brilliantly successful and married to Nicole Kidman.

Cruise often illuminates a universal insecurity in men -- an
insecurity they prefer to deny. It is the rare male who has not known
panic when confronted with his first sexual experience as an adult, confronted with a partner capable of
judging, capable of finding you wanting. The fear of failure is
deeply ingrained in men, who are raised to win at football, baseball --
virtually everything they do from a small age. It's the American way.

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Three cheers for Mary Elizabeth Williams' thoughtful pan of a book of the sort that ought to be burned. The last thing we need is another hymn sung in praise of diet mania -- even a sort of vaguely self-aware one as this tome appears to be.

I will not take Williams up on her invitation to call her
petty and shallow for crash-dieting in college to get more male
attention. But I will respectfully suggest that the men who would only pay attention to her after she lost
weight are the petty and shallow ones. Williams concluded instead that getting thin was
obviously the solution because it "worked."

Worked at what? Getting the attention of insensitive, egotistical men?
I have a teenage daughter and I have already told her: Any man that asks or tells you to lose weight, stay away; do not give him the time of day.

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