(Excerpted from True Lies newsletter, 09/24/98)

Two single-paragraph, "anti-prophetic" quotes are circulating by email this week, one supposedly dating from Bill Clinton's 1974 Arkansas campaign for the House of Representatives and the other attributed to Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr in a 60 Minutes interview from 1987.

Both quotes shed ironic light on the present actions and statements of their alleged utterers.

Clinton supposedly said (regarding Richard Nixon):

Yes, the president should resign. He has lied to the American people, time and time again, and betrayed their trust. He is no longer an effective leader. Since he has admitted guilt, there is no reason to put the American people through an impeachment. He will serve abolutely no purpose in finishing out his term; the only possible solution is for the president to save some dignity and resign.

Starr supposedly told Diane Sawyer:

Public media should not contain explicit or implied descriptions of sex acts. Our society should be purged of the perverts who provide the media with pornographic material while pretending it has some redeeming social value under the public's "right to know." Pornography is pornography, regardless of the source.

The jury is in on both statements.

Clinton did say words fairly close to those quoted, according to the Aug. 8, 1974 edition of the Arkansas Gazette (see reprint at http://www.ardemgaz.com/prev/clinton/clintongaz0874.html).

Starr, on the other hand, did not appear on 60 Minutes in 1987, let alone make the statements attributed to him, according to CBS.

It's likely the fictional Starr quote – which, on reflection, is too dead-on to deserve much credence in the first place – was invented by some Clinton supporter(s) in hopes of deflating the impact of the President-to-be's unfortunate statements.

And in a final bit of irony, Reuters says Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler magazine, offered Kenneth Starr a job yesterday.

"After a reading of the Starr report I am impressed by the salacious and voyeuristic nature of your work," Flynt wrote in a letter to the Special Prosecutor. "I congratulate you for having opened the doors of libraries and schools to pornographic literature."

Flynt noted in his letter that the Starr report contains 50 references to genitalia, while this month's Hustler only has 44.

To be fair to the report – not to mention those who've waded through that massive tome in search of the naughty parts – we're talking a mere 50 mentions in 445 pages of dense, unillustrated text.

Mostly boring text, I might add.

Flynt may want to reconsider the notion of hiring a lawyer to write porn for him.

Update: Media Sightings

• San Francisco Examiner - 09/23/98 - 'Back to our own irreality'
• Salon Magazine - 09/25/98 - 'Starr quote doesn't check out'

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