Less Than Breathless Here In The Boondocks

It was an urgent phone message, and I jumped. When you get a call from "This Week With Cookie and Other Washington Media Pundits Whose Speaking Fees Start at $25,000," you jump. After all, what they say on TV one night pretty much becomes fact the next morning.

Cookie was impatient. In 10 minutes, she was going to be on the air with another assessment of "The White House In Crisis."

She snapped, "Here's the deal. I live in the Washington that's the political center of the universe. You live in the Washington that's out there in the boondocks, wherever it is, north of San Francisco, or something. Your idea of excitement is watching fir trees grow. Me, I mingle with all kinds of movers and shakers.

"I'm calling because I need a quick perspective from the boondocks on `The White House In Crisis.' How come you people aren't acting like it's a crisis? How come you haven't stopped everything in your lives because of this national emergency? I've heard that people still are going to see their kids play basketball, still are going to Home Depot to buy stuff for a remodel. Unbelievable!"

Well, Cookie, of course we think we're in a national crisis. Every television network is telling us it is.

"So how come Clinton's popularity is the highest ever? I mean, 70 percent! That's not what I had predicted!"

I guess the president's high opinion-poll numbers are partly because folks feel sorry for him. How would you like dozens of FBI agents and prosecutors with an unlimited budget investigating your private life? And I suppose that most people think that despite Mr. Clinton having a problem keeping his pants zipped up, he's done pretty well for the country. He's helped the economy, he tries to figure out ways to help working families who can hardly afford daycare, that sort of thing.

Cookie cut me off.

"I am, frankly, more than a little disappointed with the American public. It's as if . . . as if they haven't been paying attention to anything that's been analyzed on `This Week With Cookie.' Let me read you a transcript from my Jan. 25 show, when I had my good friends Sam Donaldson and Bill Kristol as pundit guests:

" Sam: `Mr. Clinton, if he's not telling the truth and the evidence shows that, will resign, perhaps this week.'

"Bill: `I don't think he can survive.'

"Cookie: `OK, so he is out. So then what happens next?'

"Sam: `What will President Al Gore do then?'

"Bill: `He'll select a very respected figure as vice president, and he will have a big honeymoon.' "

I remember watching that show, Cookie. You had Clinton's political career dead and buried, and there he still is, meeting with mayors, acting presidential in deciding whether to bomb Iraq, presenting a comprehensive State of the Union address. Boy, you Washington pundits must have been embarrassed.

"Perplexed is more like it. At every cocktail party in Washington, the talk is about how you people in the boondocks just don't seem to get it. We pundits declared Bill Clinton `finito,' and you acted as if our opinions didn't matter!"

Maybe people decided to be forgiving because so many adult Americans fool around, or know somebody who's fooled around. Check around any corporate office. Plenty of people are having illicit affairs. There are surveys showing that half of husbands, and 30 percent to 40 percent of wives, have fooled around. And these days, the percentage of wives fooling around is getting close to that 50 percent mark.

To be sure, we're not talking about rampant fooling around, maybe once or twice, usually as the marriage is about to break up, anyway. Still, with that high a percentage, fooling around hits close to home. You know how that saying goes, about those without sin casting the first stone.

Cookie sighed in frustration.

"You certainly haven't been of help. But at least you gave me an idea for my next `This Week With Cookie.' I'm inviting Sam Donaldson back to analyze, `The crisis of Washington pundits who talk about crises.' What will the country do if it suddenly stops paying attention to us pundits?"

No comment, Cookie, no comment.

Erik Lacitis' column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Friday. His phone number is 206-464-2237. His e-mail address is: elac-new@seatimes.com