Z, I will eventually get to why I despise Clinton (it has to do with Bosnia and Ruanda) , but I can't resist the impulse to relate a few other things along the way.

I guess it was in 1994, I can't be sure, but anyway I passed a newspaper box, where the newspaper had a big headline. Having somewhat more memory than an earthworm, I realized the significance of the story, "Holy cow!" and bought a paper.

The story had to do with a speech Clinton had given to a group of business executives. He said that he realized that they felt their taxes were too high, and that he actualy agreed with them on this. He went on to say that when he came into office, he had wanted to cut their taxes, but that the Republicans in Congress hadn't let him.

As an insult to the inteligence, this whopper has few equals. After reading the article, my thought was that his spinmasters were facing an impossible task.

Then I saw Newt on the tube discussing the story. Newt thought it was a laugh riot.

What the spinmasters came up with was reflected in a retraction by Clinton where he said "My mother always told me not to give a speech when I was tired." Even this feeble nonsense was undercut when it was learned that he had made the identical claim to another group of business exectives that morning.

(Hey, people, I am not making any of this up.)

It would actually be a very funny story except for two things:

(1) That was our President speaking. Mr. Clinton, can you spell "credibility." It should be a vital resource of your office.

(2) Both speeches had a lot of media people in attendance. The ones from the United States, all of them, missed the significance of the remarks. The story only came out because the correspondent for a European newspaper reported it back to his paper, and then the story came back from Europe to the U.S., where it caused a big flap.

-- Peter Errington (petere@ricochet.net), October 30, 2000