Short Cuts

How Slow Is It? The answer is a tired punch line - so slow they've started digging up Jimmy Hoffa. Seems a bored inmate with an old track record for tipping the whereabouts of dead bodies has sent Michigan authorities out to dig up a backyard swimming pool. May we suggest Geraldo's press agent is behind this and expect to see him standing at the edge of the excavation site at some point today? There's a rumor that there may only be a briefcase down in the hole but who cares? Geraldo can explain it all by drawing pictures in the mud until some real news comes along.

Sanity: Ed Koch, who used to be Head Yenta of New York City, is about as staunch a party democrat as can be found. His take on 16 Wordgate is such a cool, calm, fair minded voice of reason it is hard to realize what a club house hack he used to be. This is comforting to read and makes one wish, nay, pray, he'd run for mayor again. Such a reasonable man would let us smoke and drink beer on the beach.

Picture This: International con men, sharp Italian suit jackets draped over their shoulders, huddle in a dark Milano cafe. The one with the Snidely Whiplash mustache says to the one with the stacked heeled boots, "Here's the deal. I've got a way to work a line into Bush's State of the Union speech. Trust me, just one line and we're in Fat City." That is what is being suggested as the FBI now moves in to investigate Sixteen Wordgate. Here, Mike Isikoff and Mark Hosenball at Newsweek continue to punch away at this impenetrable story.

Erin Go No Deal: This is all very confusing. Last week we learned that BJ Clinton had purchased a snitzy million dollar duplex in an exclusive Irish golf enclave that we could call Mulligan Arms. Now his spokesnoid says it isn't so. He hasn't bought anything. He doesn't intend to buy. Presumably this comes as a shock to the guy who thought he had a deal. Note that we learn this right after the call from David Kendall saying the attempt to get us to pay for the Whitewater investigation didn't fly and the Clintons still owe millions.

-Your LComStaff