To further insulate the campaign from a repeat of the ‘96 nightmare, Gore aides have set up an elaborate system for vetting volunteer fund-raisers. Names of prospective solicitors are run through public records and databases for transgressions that might disqualify them. If nothing turns up, they receive a mind-numbing briefing–either in person or by conference call–on the fine points of election law. Then they’re given a lengthy document to sign, acknowledging that they understand the rules. Only after all that are they sent out to put the arm on their friends. “We want to go above and beyond the spirit of the law,” says a Gore campaign spokesman.
CIAEthnic Spying?
Adam Ciralsky was a rising star at the CIA. Then the agency began to ask questions. Why hadn’t Ciralsky, 27, a Jew from Milwaukee, reported meeting an Israeli tour guide when he was 15, or having an Israeli professor in college? Ciralsky says he was interrogated repeatedly about his loyalty. After failing a polygraph, he was put on unpaid leave. Ciralsky, whose story was aired on National Public Radio last week, says he was a victim of anti-Semitism, and he’s hired a lawyer. NEWSWEEK has learned that a CIA-appointed panel, including Adm. William Crowe and financier Eli Jacobs, said Ciralsky’s questioners used improper language but exhibited no anti-Semitism. But one former spook says the agency is concerned about “ethnic espionage.”
VOTERSPost-Postmodern Politics
Campaign 2000 strategists are already angling for the new swing voters: teens. But “MillenGens,” more numerous than their boomer parents, are media-wise, spin-resistant, partyless–and like swing voters past, defined better by their dislikes:
TREATSAdding Pounds by the Pint
The skinny on ice cream is that fat is back. Sales of premium brands slumped in 1994, when nutrition labels, newly mandated by Congress, confronted consumers with the fat content–around 17 grams a serving–in their favorite flavors. But scooper shock has faded–Americans, say industry analysts, found cutting fat alone didn’t trim their waists–and gourmet brands have come out of the Deepfreeze swinging. In May, Godiva’s Belgian Dark Chocolate will go tub-to-tub with Starbucks, which adds six new flavors to its heretofore coffee-centric line, including one a company spokesman called the world’s chocolatiest. Peri’s call? It’s the fat, stupid: our tasters preferred Hagen-Dazs’s chocolate, the lipid leader at 18 grams per serving.
SPORTSBeyond Flip-Down Glasses: Baseball Goes High Tech
Major leaguers have long polished their form by studying themselves on video. But increasingly they study each other: three years ago, all clubs were furnished with DirecTV, making it easier to tape and scout upcoming opponents. Now the teams’ video coordinators are taking steps to imitate pro football’s 30-year-old system of exchanging game film. What took baseball so long? Tradition, says one insider: “They think if they change, they’ll die.”
FAMILIESA Mom’s Move
When two Virginia families found out last year their babies were switched at birth, the clans vowed to solve the dilemma amicably. But last week Paula Johnson, biological mother of one girl and custodian of the other, threatened to block a $1.7 million state settlement for her blood daughter and seek custody. Later she lowered her $22 million claim for her and her custodial daughter to $2 million, but the grandmother raising Johnson’s biological daughter says she has lost sight of the girls’ welfare: “She’s doing something she told the world she’d never do.”
STAR WARSLooking for The Force? Get in Line.
“The Phantom Menace” opens May 19, but fans are already lining up for the long-awaited “Star Wars” prequel. Last week a group from the Web sitecountingdown.com started camping out at Mann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood. Equipped with computers, satellite TVs and beach chairs, they have a $1 million insurance policy and support from local businesses. Diehards in New York, San Francisco and Chicago will follow suit. A Peri survival guide:
DOGSHeroes of War
They fought bravely and saved thousands of lives. But most of the 4,000 German shepherds and Labradors that served the U.S. war effort in Vietnam as sentries, mine detectors and trackers were left behind as “surplus armaments.” Now Vietnam vets and others have raised about $1 million for two statues honoring the dogs. They hope to place one in California’s Riverside National Cemetery, the other near the Wall in Washington, D.C. “We came home; they didn’t,” says one vet. “They need a memorial.”
HAVE YOU READ?Humor Magazine Offers Laughs, Merchandise
Not content with its legions of Web fans, The Onion (www.theonion.com) now presents a book: “Our Dumb Century.” In its online and print forms, the weekly humor publication skewers newspapers with pitch-perfect, though sometimes formulaic, parodies of journalistic cliches–the useless advice column, the meandering editorial, the statistical poll of dubious relevance and the human-interest feature. “Our Dumb Century” turns this same cutting sensibility on 100 years of American history. Each page of the book features a parody front page, starting at the turn of the century and stretching to the near future.
The humor ranges from off-beat (1990: Iowa family blasted for lack of diversity) to off-color (1972: national guard closes Kent State recruiting office), while some relies on hindsight (1903: rail-road scientists say kitty hawk flying apparatus a hoax).
But the true pleasure for diehard newshounds lies in the details: the banner headline announcing WWII that’s so big it’s continued on the next page (wa-), the dead-on old-time editorial cartoons or the way the layouts morph from a quaint 1900s rag into a bustling 1980s McPaper. All in all, a gem.
CRIMEDoctored Stats
After Jack Kevorkian is sentenced this week, Oakland County, Mich., will be safer–on paper. His handiwork accounts for 10 percent of the homicide tally there from 1990 through 1997, the last year statistics are available.
CONVENTIONAL WISDOMIt’s Only the Beginning Edition
As the refugee crisis deepens, the call for ground troops gets louder. Get ready for more euphemisms: International Peace Officers, Armed Humanitarian Aid Enforcers… C.W. Clinton = Echoes Bush’s “This will not stand” speech. Unless the polls change.
Slobo - Rolling out the “kinder, gentler” Slobo. But it won’t fool the CW.
Yeltsin - Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re gonna blow up the world. With what, vodka??
Albright - Her turn for the Washington whoopee cush- ion. But enough blame to go around.
Zhu Rongji = Modernized Chinese P.M. memorized Gettysburg Address. Try the Bill of Rights.
Baseball + Good to be back out at the ball game. But please, no ads on the sleeves.
