XXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXX THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1998 23:22:04 UTC XXXX NEW YORK TIMES: WHITE HOUSE OPTIMISTIC IT CAN DEFEAT IMPEACHERS The White House is expressing growing confidence that it can defeat proposed articles of impeachment on the House floor and is quietly exploring with Republican leaders a deal under which President Clinton would accept a punitive censure to escape impeachment, the NEW YORK TIMES is set to report in fresh Friday editions. CLINTON CALLING MEMBERS Clinton himself spoke to a "handful" House members this week to try to answer their concerns, a White House official told the paper on Thursday night. The official would not provide the members' names. [Clinton called outgoing Sen. Alfonse D'Amato late Thursday to thank him for his statement earlier this week opposing impeachment.] "Presidential aides have contacted 45 potentially persuadable members of Congress in the past few days to offer further evidence or explanation in the president's defense and to urge them to vote against impeachment," reports the NEW YORK TIMES. Three undecided House members, Lazio [R-NY], Forbes [R-NY] and Fox [R-PA] are scheduled to travel with the president on his trip to the Middle East on Saturday, giving Clinton more personal time to make the case. "One senior administration official said privately Thursday that the White House was engaged in wishful thinking and predicted that the House would vote to impeach Clinton next week," says the report. But at least four moderate Republicans that the White House is actively courting will announce on Friday that they will vote to impeach. IT'S ON HIS FACE People close to President Clinton say they see the toll on him. "I thought I saw it in the president's face," one insider tells the DALLAS MORNING NEWS in quotes being readied for Friday editions. "He is very focused on it," a high-ranking administration official, who recently spoke with Clinton, tells the paper. "But there's not a lot he can do about it. That's the problem with this thing... He looks pretty tired. I think this has got him... This is history. This is history." X X X X X 60 MINUTES: IT'S THE PEOPLE, STUPID **Exclusive First look** Why did President Clinton use the word 'private' six times in his four-minute speech admitting his relationship with Monica Lewinsky? It's because the public responds to that word positively, Clinton's own former strategist Dick Morris tells 60 MINUTES this Sunday in a deep report that offers a rare glimpse into the focus groups that are the heart of politicians' ultimate weapon -- polling. "President Clinton uses polls as often as he breathes," Morris tells 60 MINUTES reporter Steve Kroft. "I don't think there is a single area of American life that he's not polled on." In a rare look at a part of that polling process called instant response, a 60 MINUTES camera rolls through the two-way mirror as St. Louis focus group respondents use hand-held electronic devices to gauge their reactions to video of Clinton's public pronouncements. The reactions are then fed into a device that can superimpose lines over the video that shoot upward for positive and downward for negative responses. No word if the devices gauge perspiration, but Republican pollster Frank Luntz tells 60 MINUTES that the polling machines "get inside your heart and inside your head." "We know how they're reacting to every word, every phrase, every facial expression, reveals Luntz. Luntz gauged the reactions of the St. Louis residents who were of all political stripes to the phrases in Clinton's speech admitting the Lewinsky affair. "Answered questions truthfully, nobody believes him. Answered questions about his private life and it goes positive," he demonstrates to Kroft. "It's almost like an EKG." Clinton's current pollster, Doug Schoen, who would not allow 60 MINUTES cameras into Democratic-sponsored opinion research sessions, believes pollsters haven't manipulated the public, rather the public has spoken on the issues. "It is about sex and sex alone," Schoen explains, who was temporarily unhooked from the machine. X X X X X ON EVE OF VOTE, BOB BARR SCORCHED IN WASHINGTON POST On the eve of the Judiciary Committee's impeachment vote, the WASHINGTON POST hits member Rep. Bob Barr [R-GA] in Friday editions, a prerelease was obtained by the DRUDGE REPORT. "A spokesman for [Barr] acknowledged Thursday that he was a keynote speaker earlier this year at a meeting of the Council of Conservative Citizens, an organization promoting views that interracial marriage amounts to white genocide and that Abraham Lincoln was elected by socialists and communists," writes the paper's Thomas Edsall. Edsall quotes from the internet Web site of the Council of Conservative Citizens, noting the site "is dominated by material portraying the 'white race' as under seige." "A council columnist described only as 'H. Millard' writes: 'Take 10 bottles of milk to represent all humans on earth. 9 of them will be chocolate and only one white. Now mix all those bottles together and you have gotten rid of that troublesome bottle of white milk. There too is the way to get rid of the world of whites. Convince them to mix their few genes with the genes of the many. Genocide via the bedroom chamber is as long lasting as genocide via war." "Barr spoke at the organization's semi-annual convention on June 6 in Charleston, S.C," reports the WASHINGTON POST. "His presence was cited by Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who testified against the impeachment of President Clinton at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee." X X X X X LEWINSKY TAKES BREAK FROM BOOK, GOES FOR WOODY ALLEN LOS ANGELES -- Monica Lewinsky caught a screening of Woody Allen's CELEBRITY the other evening in Santa Monica. The former White House intern took a break from her frantic book-talking schedule. Lewinsky is busy throwing together her tell-all book that must be in the hands of her American publisher, ST. MARTIN's PRESS, before the Barbara Walters interview airs on ABC-TV. Lewinsky and her pal/writer Andrew Morton have promised a Feb. 1 delivery, according to an insider. "But we are going to have to push." X X X X X HOLLYWOOD PLANNING 'DRUDGE' SITCOM? A newly unearthed confidential memo from PARAMOUNT TELEVISION outlines what appears to be a 'DRUDGE REPORT' sitcom now in the early planning stages -- a sitcom that came as a complete surprise to this reporter! A pitch meeting was set for Noon Thursday in Los Angeles, according to the confidential memo, which was obtained late Wednesday and is now linked at http://www.drudgereport.com/411.htm . The show is being shopped under the auspices of sitcom king Barry Kemp, creator of such hits as COACH. Hey Kemp, I missed my invite! ---------------------------------------------------- Filed by Matt Drudge Reports are moved when circumstances warrant http://www.drudgereport.com for steaks and breaks (c)DRUDGE REPORT 1998 Not for reproduction without permission of the author
