Caveat lector

Impeachment Day dawned bright and unclear:

Our current howler (12/30/98)
Tom DeLay’s secret evidence pretty much stayed that way, thanks to a trio of major newspapers.

Our current howler (12/23/98)
David Broder found an improbable saint amid the Washington rubble.

Life in this celebrity press corps (12/22/98)
The celebrity press corps will not report what led to that GOP vote.

Our current howler (12/20/98)
As Republicans praised the rule of law, a few scribes dealt in rank innuendo.

Life in this celebrity press corps (12/18/98)
As anguished Republicans turned back from censure, one question was not asked-and-answered.

Life in this celebrity press corps (12/28/98)
CelebCorps wants to shun Larry Flynt. Sic semper with elites who hold power.

Life in this celebrity press corps (12/27/98)
Crotchety, grumpy old Howell Raines attacked Larry Flynt on the day before Christmas.

A pair of poobahs were naughty, not nice, in the week before Santa's big sleigh ride:

Minor mishaps #2 (12/24/98)
Even Tom Brokaw starts to say naughty things when he shows up with Chris to play Hardball.

Minor mishaps #1 (12/21/98)
Sam Donaldson (who else) had the dumbest remark on this week’s Sunday chat programs.

Press corps tells Clinton to say that he lied! The Howler looks on in amusement:

Smile-a-while (12/17/98)
The loud, sweaty lynch mob pursuing Vile Clinton keeps revising the words he must speak.

Life in this celebrity press corps (12/16/98)
Amid calls for the quarry to say that he lied, Elizabeth Drew got it right.

Our current howler (12/15/98)
Three leading pundits were thoroughly puzzled when Vile Clinton wouldn’t say he had lied.

Smile-a-while festival! Pre-impeachment vote fun!:

Smile-a-while III (12/14/98)
A tabloid talker joined Vile Clinton in telling a few lies about sex.

Smile-a-while II (12/13/98)
At the Post, Mike Espy’s acquittal was much bigger news than the end of the Whitewater story.

Smile-a-while (12/10/98)
Sally Quinn must be living in the far distant north, she seems so out of touch and so snowblind.

From our varied collection of blunders and mishaps:

Our current howler (12/11/98)
Majority counsel David Schippers was mixed up on that one basic fact.

The Howler addendum (12/11/98)
A pair of scribes at the New York Times corrected the grumpmeister’s blunder.

Outrage! Horror! Threat to the republic! Press corps repelled by those 81 answers:

The Howler epilog (12/08/98)
The pundit dean implied Gore’s guilt in a set of insinuative comments.

A Daily Howler ongoing probe (12/07/98)
Bob Novak pretended to show what was wrong with Clinton’s 81 vexing answers.

A Howler summations (12/06/98)
We finally saw why the celebrity press corps so hated those 81 answers.

Our current howler (12/05/98)
Cal Thomas complained about Clinton’s bad memory. But he had a few lapses himself.

Life in this celebrity press corps (12/04/98)
It’s a law: pundits are required to get perturbed at everything Vile Clinton does.

Our current howler (12/03/98)
Don Lambro said Clinton was disingenuous. He was also describing himself.

Life in this celebrity press corps (11/30/98)
One paper’s resident panel of poobahs produced a big turkey just four days too late.

A Howler follow-up (12/02/98)
If Bill Bennett would just tell the truth himself, his trademark outrage would be a bit more persuasive.

The Howler review (12/01/98)
Ol’ Cranky, Bill Bennett, helps to show why most people don’t think that impeachment makes sense.

Life in this celebrity press corps (11/23/98)
The press corps yawned when Whitewater died. But Walter Shapiro got it right.

Our current howler (11/22/98)
When Whitewater finally came to an end, the press corps just furthered Starr’s spin.

Our current howler (11/19/98)
Bill Safire just keeps wishing and hoping that Ken Starr will turn up with the goods.

Life in this celebrity press corps (11/19/98)
NBC’s Lisa Myers is always right there to vouch for accusers’ stories.

Finally! A book so short even we can read it! Our review of The Clinton Enigma:

The Howler review (11/18/98)
It’s what we call “the press corps enigma.” Why would David Maraniss simply assume an accuser is telling the truth?

The Howler review (11/13/98)
Clinton said it had been a “politically inspired lawsuit.” David Maraniss didn’t try to find out.

The Howler review (11/10/98)
In its strongest sections, The Clinton Enigma shows where the discourse about Clinton should be headed.

The Howler review (11/09/98)
A little book by David Maraniss that takes an hour to read reveals the press corps’ entire world view!

From our varied collection of blunders and mishaps:

A Howler update (11/16/98)
Linda Tripp’s grand jury testimony on Willey and Clinton has now disappeared from the Washington Post.

A Howler update (11/10/98)
Hay-yo! The jut-jawed host of a comedy show got a famous young intern’s age right!

A Howler update (11/09/98)
The New York Times still won’t let readers know that Linda Tripp has impeached Kathleen Willey.

Smile-a-while (11/09/98)
The press corps just keeps missing the age of that apocryphal 21-year-old intern.

Life in this celebrity press corps (10/22/98)
It wasn’t easy to get straight on the Paula Jones case, thanks to weak work by a pair of top hosts.

Extra! The press corps accusers!

Life in this celebrity press corps (11/06/98)
Sally Quinn didn’t seem to get the point when she was asked about Ken Starr on C-SPAN.

Life in this celebrity press corps (11/04/98)
Finally! Sally Quinn is fighting back hard, defending the views of the press corps.

Life in this celebrity press corps (11/02/98)
A passel of pundits rushed to judgment when Kathleen Willey first appeared back in March.

Our current howler (10/30/98)
Margaret Talbot has found some creative new ways to prove you can trust those accusers.

Life in this celebrity press corps (10/29/98)
A closer look at the fabulous person we now know has told us the truth.

Life in this celebrity press corps (10/28/98)
The press corps claims that it loves the truth. But it doesn’t seem to get too upset when it’s lied to by presidential accusers.

Our current howler (10/27/98)
Before the grand jury, Linda Tripp hammered Kathleen Willey’s Sixty Minutes account. But only the Post let you know it.

We're forced to tell you we were right all along:

A Howler postscript (10/22/98)
Every time we look around this week, our past judgments are being supported.

A Howler postscript (10/21/98)
We pooh-poohed the talk of a government shutdown. It’s now clear: we were right from the start.

The press corps reports on impeachment:

Our current howler (10/15/98)
This week, Michael Kelly was at it again, this time venting on hate-crime legislation.

Our current howler (10/14/98)
Michael Kelly got huffin’ and puffin’ on impeachment last week. Who will stand in the winds that follow?

Life in this celebrity press corps (10/14/98)
Any time there’s a bad argument floating around, you’ll hear it first--and best--on Hardball.

Smile-a-while (10/14/98)
A TV jurist appeared on Hardball--and experienced a few technical difficulties.

The press corps reports Reno's new probe of Gore:

Our current howler (10/09/98)
The press corps tried to cover Reno’s new probe of Gore. They got the names right--and not too much else.

Life in this celebrity press corps (10/09/98)
Editorial writers at the Post and the Journal got their news on the probe somewhere else.

Smile-a-while (10/09/98)
Only the little, hard-scrabble, weekly The Hill got the story on Reno’s probe halfway right.

Our current howler (10/05/98)
William Safire picks and chooses the material he likes when he tells us all about Kathleen Willey.

Life in this celebrity press corps (10/01/98)
Dick Morris admitted he didn’t know what he was talking about. Three TV hosts kept right on pretending.

Life in this celebrity press corps (09/29/98)
Sometimes it’s hard to believe your eyes when you read the New York Times op-ed pages.

Our report on Howard Kurtz's twin Spin Cycles:

Life in this celebrity press corps (10/01/98)
William Safire somehow thinks he knows what happened between Clinton and Willey.

Our current howler (9/30/98)
Howard Kurtz has given dueling accounts of what Kathleen Willey told Newsweek. The press corps didn’t notice either time.

Smile-a-while (9/30/98)
One little, penny-ante, woebegone local rag did notice Spin Cycle’saccount.

The Today Showpuzzles out Clinton's video:

Our current howler (9/25/98)
We hate to stay on the Big Dog’s case, but Tim Russert gives miserable paraphrase.

Smile-a-while I (9/25/98)
Katie and Jack had a novel critique. They thought Clinton didn’t lie quite enough!

Smile-a-while II (9/25/98)
Friday morning, Matt Lauer was still lambasting those mixed-up American people. Would you believe it--Bob Dolecheered him up!

Life in this celebrity press corps (9/15/98)
The psychiatrizers were out in full force in the wake of Ken Starr’s Big Report.

Smile-a-while (9/15/98)
Gail Sheehy made one of her classic wrong turns when she tried to explore Clinton’s passages.

Life in this celebrity press corps (9/11/98)
We deserve real debate about U.S. policy in Iraq. The Washington Post can’t quite seem to provide it.

Smile-a-while (9/10/98)
Peter Ferrara, in the Washington Times, has a whole new approach to quotation.

Our current howler (9/08/98)
A shutdown on good common sense.

Editor’s conclu to four minor mishaps (9/06/98)
When it comes to fibbing-to-prove-Clinton’s-a-fibber, Hardball’shost is still King of the World.

Minor mishaps, Volume I (9/05/98)
What Clinton said wasn’t exciting enough. Tim Russert did a little reinventing.

Minor mishaps, Volume II (9/05/98)
Michael Kelly has a whole bunch of real big complaints. He just doesn’t want to waste his time proving them.

Minor mishaps, Volume III (9/05/98)
Somehow, Clifford Alexander knows what Bill Clinton felt back when Clinton was still just a teen-ager.

Minor mishaps, Volume IV (9/05/98)
At least one scribe at The New Republicmay still have a flair for good fiction.

Editor’s intro to four minor mishaps (9/04/98)
We offer a rare HOWLER word of praise (for Joe Klein, who’s now asked the right question).

Life in this celebrity press corps (9/01/98)
The pundit dean has changed his view on who caused those government shutdowns.

Life in this celebrity press corps (8/29/98)
We hadn’t watched Chris Matthews lately. Guess what? Things have just gotten worse.

Smile-a-while (8/27/98)
We couldn’t help chuckling when a three-scribe panel made us marvel at Ken Starr’s “reams of evidence.”

Our current howler (8/26/98)
David Broder’s been changing recent history around in the effort to dump on Bill Clinton..

A Howler follow-up (8/25/98)
Remember how Big Bill Was Signaling With Neckties To Monica? At Newsweek, they got the tale right.

Smile-a-while (8/23/98)
Those (de)constructive editors at the Post Outlook section really know how to tear up a text.

Life in this celebrity press corps (8/22/98)
A bright, blinding necktie seemed to dazzle the press corps--and sent some signals about theirlack of character.

Life in this celebrity press corps (8/21/98)
Mark Twain’s famous lynch mob had nothing this week on the work of this celebrity press corps.

Life in this celebrity press corps (8/20/98)
In discussing the way that the president lied, the press corps chose to keep things real simple.

Life in this celebrity press corps (8/19/98)
How does the press corps prove Clinton’s a liar? All too often, by fibbing themselves.

Life in this celebrity press corps (6/12/98)
What is truth? Sages long have inquired. And--at least to one TV tabloid talker--truth now seems to be whatever might help his inventive show’s burgeoning ratings.

Life in this celebrity press corps (6/11/98)
Curtis Wilkie, on Hardball,made no sense at all. But then when peddling tales to this celebrity press corps, making sense is no longer required.

Life in this celebrity press corps (6/10/98)
Jim McDougal’s memory “got better with age.” This and other true-to-life tales from an accuser’s best friend, James B. Stewart.

Life in this celebrity press corps (6/08/98)
Curtis Wilkie “decided” Jim McDougal was credible. But just how credible should we find Curtis Wilkie?

Smile-a-while (6/02/98)
When AP’s Walter Mears joined the Chris Matthews gang, he didn’t know how today’s Hardballis played.

A Howler postscript (5/29/98)
When Dee Dee Myers tried to spell out the facts on the China allegations, a tabloid talker didn’t much seem to care.

Life in this celebrity press corps (5/28/98)
When Chris Matthews speaks, his journalist guests listen. At THE HOWLER, we can't figure out why.

A Howler follow-up (5/27/98)
Three days before Mona Charen did China, Paul Craig Roberts also strangely arranged to reverse the direction of time.

Our current howler (5/26/98)
How strong was the influence of Chinese money? Mona Charen (inscrutably) would have you believe it caused events that had already happened!

Howler (5/22/98)
Georgie Anne Geyer is an expert on Bill Clinton's character. She might want to work on her own.

Smile-a-while (5/22/98)
When sports writers tell us what Michael Jordan says, they're careful to get it just right.

Howler (5/19/98)
We've heard that dead men tell no tales. But, at least in the case of Jim McDougal, they do seem to traffic in howlers.

A Howler postscript (5/19/98)
Jim McDougal's still crazy after all these years. But on Hardball,stuff like that doesn't matter.

Smile-a-while (5/19/98)
Even Walter Shapiro had to change his view when a tabloid talker didn't hear the right answer.

Our current howler (5/18/98)
It's time to move on to other stories. But first, we summarize the embarrassing mess that was the coverage of the Webb Hubbell tapes.

A Howler retrospective (5/15/98)
We always like to apply what we've learned. And so we look back at Sue Schmidt's Day One story about the Hubbell phone calls.

A Howler postscript (5/14/98)
Nightlineviewers could believe what they pleased when the transcript and the tape didn't match.

Smile-a-while, part I (5/13/98)
The Post "corrected" the Burton transcripts. Their corrections were all mixed up, too!

Smile-a-while, part II (5/13/98)
If the networks are going to edit the tapes, is there some reason why they can't even tell us?

Our current howler (5/12/98)
David Bossie should have just released the full tapes. Lisa Myers clips ’n snips by herself.

Our current howler (5/03/98)
NBC embarrassed itself with its reviews of the Hubbell prison tapes.

Smile-a-while (4/27/98)
Maureen Dowd made up some Viagra jokes. The whole gang at This Week was watching.

Life in this celebrity press corps (4/26/98)
Richard Cohen took on the Gores’ tax records. He proved he’s no average tax analyst.

Life in this celebrity press corps (4/25/98)
The New York Times--they cracked Whitewater, you’ll recall--were stumped by the world’s simplest tax matter.

Life in this celebrity press corps (4/15/98)
An imaginative writer found a novel new way to work “Wag the Dog” into one of her stories.

Life in this celebrity press corps (4/12/98)
Three NBC pundits told the story they like when they discussed what Clinton said about Flowers.

Our current howler (4/10/98)
When it comes to the problem with Social Security, Reader Goldberg can’t really be sure.

Our current howler (4/08/98)
Why is the public "uninformed" about Social Security? Two journalists should review their own work.

Life in this celebrity press corps (4/01/98)
It just didn’t sound like David Maraniss. We looked it his book. It wasn’t.