Question

To Muckrake or Not to Muckrake? 1. Recently you interviewed a close friend of a well respected U.S. senator. You were told that the senator has a sérious gambling problem, is an alcoholic, and often cheats on his wife. Do you publish this story? Why or why no?

Answer 1

No not as it stands. It is so one sided that it is not worth reading. This man is a senator. Out of 330,000,000 people only 99 others can make that claim. What I want to know is, how well does he do his job. He has tremendous power and I don't want to waste my time reading about his affairs. If his wife can tolerate him, so can I.

That was the Problem with Bill Clinton. Thousands of line inches were written about Monica, almost nothing about the fact that he was the last president to consider balancing the budget. That's what we need every President to do -- his job. And we need to be interested when such a story appears.