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      The Year We'd Rather Forget
      Daniel Kurtzman
      Friday, January 1, 1999
      ©1998 San Francisco Chronicle

      URL:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/01/01
/ED30719.DTL

      WHAT A TWISTED ride it's been. If they can ever bring themselves to
stop laughing, historians will almost certainly look back at 1998 as the
year that Washington officially took leave of its senses.

      It wasn't simply all the to-do about one man's Monica. It was a
pattern f lunacy across the political landscape that transformed the
capital into its own theater of the absurd.

      In a year of standout performances, competition was fierce for the
following awards and honorable unmentionables.

      Most incongruous congressional act. Republicans outvoted Democrats to
rename Washington National Airport in honor of Ronald Reagan, the man who
fired 11,000 striking air traffic controllers. ``I'd rather have a hot
poker in my eye than have an airport named after him,'' complained Randy
Schwitz, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association executive vice
president.

      Best theatrics on the campaign trail. In a private meeting with
Jewish supporters, New York Senator Alfonse D'Amato called his opponent,
Democratic Representative Charles Schumer, a ``putzhead.'' D'Amato then
referred to the heavyset Representative Jerry Nadler as ``Congressman
Waddler'' and proceeded to waddle around the stage like a duck. D'Amato,
defeated for re- election, now does the lame duck routine.

      Most expensive identity crisis. Former Representative Michael
Huffington revealed in Esquire that he spent $28 million on a 1994 Senate
bid in California which he hoped he would lose. The one-term congressman,
who almost won, further confessed that he's gay, has no real political
convictions and is not sure he's a Republican anymore. The empty suit said
he got into politics to avoid confronting his sexual identity problems.

      Give her a pair of commemorative kneepads. Nina Burleigh, former
White House correspondent for Time, confessed that she enjoyed having
Clinton check out her naked legs after they played a game of hearts aboard
Air Force One en route to Jasper, Ark. ``If he had asked me to continue the
game of hearts back in his room at the Jasper Holiday Inn, I would have
been happy to go there and see what happened,'' Burleigh wrote in
Mirabella. Elaborating for the Washington Post, she said, ``I'd be happy to
give him (oral sex) just to thank him for keeping abortion legal.''

      Most unnecessary confession. Bob Dole's admission that he
participated in the test protocol for Viagra.

      Best line about Clinton's predicament. Asked what he would do if he
were in the president's shoes, House Majority Leader Dick Armey said, ``If
I were, I would be looking up from a pool of blood and hearing (my wife
ask), `How do I reload this thing?' ''

      Most blatant pork ploy. Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy sneaked in a
rider conferring Great Lake status on little Lake Champlain. (Leahy hoped
to capture research dollars for his state, which borders the lake.)
Lawmakers later downsized it back to non- greatness after protests from
outraged atlas and encyclopedia publishers. If Lake Champlain ended up a
Great Lake, remarked Representative Steven LaTourette, it should be renamed
``Lake Plain Sham.''

      Thanks for the irony. Two years after banning pornography and other
indecent material on the Internet, Republican lawmakers burned rubber in
their rush to post the steamy Starr report online.

      The Strom Thurmond Award for Denial of Biologic Reality. House
Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde asserted that an illicit affair he
carried on in the late 1960s was a ``youthful indiscretion.'' Hyde, now 74,
was 41 and married when he began the five-year affair with a married mother
of three.

      Most ethically challenged journalist. Stephen Glass, a writer for the
New Republic, was fired for making up just about everything he wrote over a
period of three years. Glass also contributed his undeclared fiction to a
variety of other publications, often going to great lengths to deceive fact
checkers with forged notes, fake press releases, even a bogus Web site.
(One notable fabrication recounted a visit to the ``First Church of George
Herbert Walker Bush Christ,'' whose members were said to believe that the
former president is the reincarnated Jesus.) Glass is said to be pursuing a
career as a lawyer, which may say something about the legal profession.

      Biggest beneficiaries of product placement in the Starr report. The
Gap, Revlon, Banana Republic, Hershey's Kisses, the curiously strong mint
Altoids and one prominent cigar.

      Then again, perhaps she could have served Congress well. Jacquelyn
Ledgerwood advanced as far as a runoff for the Democratic nomination for
the U.S. Senate in Oklahoma despite being deceased. Although she died of a
heart attack six weeks before the primary -- too late to be struck from the
ballot, the 69-year-old homemaker still won more than 20 percent of the
vote. That was enough to qualify her for a runoff against air conditioner
repairman Don Carroll, who bested her in the end.

      Most graceful in the media spotlight. Former White House Press
Secretary Mike McCurry deftly deflected scandal questions by stating that
he was ``double- parked in a no-comment zone,'' by invoking the exploits of
Stonewall Jackson when asked if he was stonewalling, and by offering such
quips as: ``I'll refer you to my transcript yesterday, which referred to my
transcript the day before.''

      Most surreal impeachment-related scene. In an apparent salute to
America's commander in chief, Iraq launched two separate bursts of
anti-aircraft fire over Baghdad immediately after the House approved two
articles of impeachment.

      Most amusing example of life imitating art. Fred Tuttle, an 80-year-
old retired dairy farmer in Vermont, spent all $16 in his campaign war
chest to defeat millionaire businessman Jack McMullen for the Republican
nomination to the U.S. Senate. The scenario was eerily reminiscent of
Tuttle's starring role in the low- budget film ``Man With a Plan,'' in
which he plays a retired dairy farmer who runs for the House of
Representatives because he's spent too much time in the barn and now wants
``to spend a little time in the House.'' Conceding that he would be in big
trouble if he won, the real-life Tuttle endorsed his opponent.

      Most disturbing example of life imitating art. The attack on Iraq
bore an uncanny resemblance to the depiction of a president's handlers
inventing a war to divert attention from a sex scandal in the hit film
``Wag the Dog.'' The jury remains out on whether President Clinton can be
sued for copyright violation.

      The Joseph McCarthy Lawmaker of the Year Award is to be shared by all
21 Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee, with special honors
going to Representative Bob Barr, who authored an impeachment resolution
two months before the Lewinsky scandal broke. Following the impeachment,
Barr said with a completely straight face, ``I think the American people
can be proud of what they've seen on the (House) floor for the past couple
of days.''

      ©1998 San Francisco Chronicle  Page A21


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