Nice Try
The White House has screamed about alleged leaks from special prosecutor Ken Starr's investigation for months. Now Clinton lawyer David Kendall wants a leak of his own: in a letter to Starr, he calls it an issue of "fundamental fairness" that the President receive his own private copy of the Starr report one week before it goes to Congress. This would give Clinton's legal team a chance to pen a reply that might serve as a sort of appendix to the official report. It would also give them an entire week to devise a media spin strategy.

Ken Starr has now given the White House the brush off it deserved. Set aside the fact that nobody associated with President Clinton has any business invoking the words "fundamental fairness," especially as they relate to Starr's inquiry. There's a graver issue at stake here. Starr's report will likely contain grand jury testimony. This material can be divulged only to Congress, and even then only with Judge Norma Holloway Johnson's permission. Kendall's request would have required Starr to break the law in precisely the manner he has faulted Starr for allegedly doing in the past.

The Clinton drones eventually will see the Starr report, just as we all will. They can concoct a response then, full of cute phrases such as "legally accurate" and "didn't volunteer information." Maybe Clinton's handlers will even come up with a slogan as inspired as "controlling legal authority."

Until the day we all see the fruits of Starr's labors, however, it is fitting that the White House be left in the dark. That's where the Clintonites deliberately kept the rest of us for seven months.

Nice Save by Roth
As America waits in anticipation for Mark McGwire or Sammy Sosa to break the baseball home run record, controversy erupted on Tuesday (9/8) over the IRS's stake in this landmark event. In an Associated Press story, IRS spokesman Steven Pyrek explained that the fan who catches historic dinger #62, and gives it back to the man who hit it, might face a monster tax bill. Some have estimated that the ball could fetch as much as $1 million on the open market. "The giver is responsible for paying any applicable tax on any large gift," said Pyrek.

In what may prove the only tax cut initiated by Congress this year, Senate Finance Committee Chairman William V. Roth, Jr., (R., Del.) in a phone conversation Tuesday morning prevailed upon IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti to resolve the home run gift tax problem. Within an hour, the IRS had ruled out the possibility of this penalty on spirited baseball fans, clarifying that "the fan in these circumstances would not have taxable income." Would that it were always so easy to restrict IRS overreach.

As for McGwire and Sosa, let's hope they both break 70.