Klein Sued Over 'Primary Colors'
Spy Ames Raps CIA For Bureaucracy
Klein Sued Over 'Primary Colors'
WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Feb. 19) -- A New York City educator is suing "Primary Colors" author Joe Klein for libel and seeking $120 million, claiming that Klein portrayed her in the novel as a character who has sex with a character based on President Bill Clinton. The portrayal, says Daria Carter-Clark, is "humiliating." Carter-Clark runs a Harlem literacy program that Clinton visited during the 1992 campaign; "Primary Colors" begins with a similar visit by its "Clinton" character, Gov. Jack Stanton. Libel suits are very hard to win when they involve works of fiction. Plaintiffs must essentially prove that "that character is me," yet "that character does things I would never do."
Spy Ames Raps CIA For Bureaucracy
WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Feb. 19) -- Convicted spy Aldrich Ames says that if the CIA had had a "serious... counterintelligence, counterespionage capability" it could have caught him years earlier. Ames, a former CIA counterintelligence officer caught in 1994, is serving a life sentence in Allenwood, Pa. Ames, in an interview aired Tuesday night on ABC's "Nightline," characterized the intelligence agency as "bureaucratic" and rife with turf wars. He also says he thinks the agency should be smaller. If it were, he said, "Personal loyalties with colleagues would probably have been stronger."
Money Transfers 'Proper,' D'Amato Says
WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Feb. 19) -- Sen. Alphonse D'Amato (R-N.Y.) on Tuesday defended his actions in transferring millions of dollars from the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which he heads, to state and local candidates in New York during the 1996 election season. "It's proper, it's legal, and it was done publicly," he said. D'Amato insisted that federal election law required him to transfer 35 percent of his money to state and local races, an interpretation rejected by a Federal Election Commission official interviewed by The New York Times.
N.D. ACLU Head Backs Off 'Outing' Threat
BISMARCK, N.D. (AllPolitics, Feb. 19) -- Keith Elston, head of the ACLU in the Dakotas, has backed off his threat to 'out' gay state lawmakers who vote against a gay marriage bill after national ACLU director Ira Glasser refused to back him up. Glasser said the threat ran counter to ACLU policies.