The mother of all Fellatio Alger stories

Yeah, it's all smoke with precious few substantive facts to back up the sordid allegations being bandied about in Washington. Still, your superior correspondents' "shit detectors," as Ernest Hemingway would say, sense that there is just too much acrid smoke here to dismiss the likelihood of a fire.

All the spinning and "parsing" and all the discussion of, in the words of Hillary Rodham Clinton, "the vast right-wing conspiracy" do not detract from the fact that the Head of State is unwilling and seemingly incapable of explaining himself. As a result, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that, indeed, the President of the United States has been cadging blowjobs in the Oral Office.

And as the scandal continues to unfold, a battle ensues in newsrooms throughout the nation: should we go with Zippergate or Fornigate? Then there's the BeloJo, which has been struggling with its own questions -- namely, which headline writer was drinking what when the name "Lewinsky" became "Walinsky" in a page A-9 headline on Saturday.

It's an indication of the rapidity of Information Age technology that in less than a week, an unknown former White House intern, Ms. Monica Lewinsky, has become the most famous person in the world. Unfortunately, our fab technology also has encouraged such formerly esteemed journalistic traits as reflection and fastidiousness to be tossed out the window in favor of leaked rumors and shakily sourced gossip. The new Walter Lippmann is Matt Drudge, while the new Edward R. Murrow is Jerry Springer. Needless to say, Phillipe & Jorge rule.

Regardless of how this story plays out, the media undoubtedly will be a big loser in all of this. Despite a flimsy attempt to appear thoughtful, their feeding-frenzy mentality is blatantly obvious. Indeed, the Kenneth Starr photo op last week bore an uncanny resemblance to an outtake from The Day of the Locust.

But hey, the media will be only one of many big losers here. Everybody, absolutely everybody, will be trashed. In particular, all the principals are obviously toast. Here's just a partial list of losers:

Bill Clinton -- uncontrollable libido boy

Hillary Clinton -- either "in denial" or so bent on holding on to power that she just tosses unacceptable behavior into a distant compartment

Monica Lewinsky -- unofficial recipient of this year's White House Endowment Fund award and affection-starved naif whose every foolish act in 24 years is headed for the microscope

Linda Tripp -- disloyal friend with an ax to grind

Kenneth Starr -- fixated on "getting" Clinton, engaged in highly questionable tactics, and leaking like a sieve to the press

Whatever the outcome, feminism also will be a loser. If it turns out that Monica is making this all up, it surely will reinforce the impression among a number of people that women often make up stories to "get men." If Clinton is found guilty, women will lose one of their greatest allies.

But the biggest losers of all, of course, will be the American people. This whole spectacle only furthers the notion that "the truth" means nothing, that the judicial system is just a game in which strategies are devised and explanations oh-so-carefully made so as not to enlighten, but to enhance "wiggle room."

Some who support Clinton and desperately want to believe him have even gone so far as to say in the endless polling and frantic televised "person in the street" interviews that "this is a matter between the president and his wife." It's as if they're saying that the widely reported claim that Clinton has been known to make a distinction between oral sex and adultery actually has merit. Hey, that means there is no real perjury, because Bill actually believes this. Give us a break!

And, of course, we all know that, in the course of being repulsed by this whole nasty episode, we are drawn to the stories and the rumors and the innuendoes. We can't get enough about dresses with DNA-testable stains and Secret Service agents stumbling onto groping sessions.

When this whole thing is over, your superior correspondents get the feeling that this long national nightmare concerning the "blowjob that shook the world" will need to be followed by a long national shower.

Thank$ for the memorie$

Glad to see that University of Rhode Island president Bob Carothers weathered the storm of paying poetess Maya Angelou $35,000 for a poetry reading in Kingston last weekend.

P&J had our usual backstage passes for the event, and we happened across a scrap of paper that Maya evidently had used to jot down some verse while waiting to go onstage. We thought we might share this undoubtedly priceless part of her poetic legacy in the Biggest Little:

Ode to URI

As the caged bird sings,
My cash register rings.
URI's prez thinks he's a poet,
Though he doesn't show it.
So I'm jacking up the charge,
To 35 large.
And while I've got him by the scrotum,
How 'bout accepting Odom?

Kudos and congrats

. . . to the Arabic press, who apparently have been reporting that the whole Clinton/Lewinksy scandal is a "Zionist plot" to derail the peace process in the Middle East. Talk about self-absorption!

. . . to our gal pals Wendy and Slater at the fabulous Lucy's restaurant on Atwells Avenue in Providence. Lucy's was recently voted the 5th-best eatery in the nation in a top-ten review that appeared in the San Francisco-based Girlfriends magazine, an arbiter of lesbo-chic in the US. Wendy and Slater will celebrate this skirt-raisin' rave review with a special party on Friday, February 6 (and, yes, Cha Cha will be hostessing!). Make those reservations quickly.

. . . A huge salute to our old pal Mark "Handicapped Zone" Weiner, the formerstate Democratic Party honcho and Dick Oster's head cheerleader. When P&J encountered Mark at a fashionable Jamestown bistro over the weekend, he was looking splendid, and his lovely wife explained to us that she was forcing him to spend the weekend with her, without the usual phone calls related to business or politics. But, alas, this was probably as easy as getting Keith Richards to go cold turkey, given Mark's close association with the Clinton administration, Slick Willie's recent woes, and Weiner's propensity for pontificating. (Whoops! Just as we go to press we see that Weiner has written an op-ed piece in the BeloJo defending Clinton. Guess he couldn't hold out after all.)

. . . No need for us to doff the beret and sombrero for a fellow journalist. We'll just grease the door jambs so we can squeeze the Urinal's M. Chuckie Bakst's ego into the room. Appearing on Channel 6's Sunday morning chatter show, Bakst and his fellow panelists discussed whether the Clinton media feeding frenzy had distracted public and press attention away from more substantive matters, such as Roe v. Wade's 25th anniversary. Agreeing with his colleagues that it had, Chuckie then alerted avid viewers that, "I have an excellent column on [Roe v. Wade] in today's paper." If he does say so himself. We looked for the self-deprecation, but couldn't find it. We guess it's an honor to know you, Chuckie.

. . . And P&J simply adored the way Department of Administration director Bob Carl got his nine-percent raise last week. The Unclassified Pay Board passed it thanks to a vote by accounting-challenged Dante Buffoon, the former DOT boss who left his department in a financial shambles when he was booted out by Governor Bigfoot. Buffoon is now a Department of Administration employee, and he was asked by Carl to replace him for the meeting since Carl, a board member, couldn't vote on his own raise. (Well, he probably could have, knowing how the State House works, but they're trying to keep up appearances these days.) What a surprise when Buffoon voted for Bob's salary hike, considering Carl was the guy who'd given him both a job and a raise after becoming the DOA chief. Can you say, "butt boy," Dante?

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