for 30 September 1998. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Presidential Miss
Understanding

1. Which president smoked
marijuana with a nude
playgirl while he joked about
being too wasted to "push the
button" in case of nuclear
attack?

2. Which president allegedly
had affairs with both a
winner AND a finalist in the
Miss America pageant?

3. Which president made love
to one of his secretaries
stretched out atop a desk in
the Oval Office?

4. Which president allegedly
had an affair (as well as
children) with a slave who
was his wife's half sister?

5. Which president called his
mistress "Pookie"?

6. Which president married a
woman who hadn't yet divorced
her first husband - and was
branded an "adulterer" during
his reelection campaign?

7. Which future president
wrote love letters to his
neighbor's wife while he was
engaged to someone else?

8. Which president had a
torrid affair with the first
lady's personal secretary?

9. Which president made love
to a young woman in a White
House coat closet - at one
point, while a secret service
agent prevented the
hysterical first lady from
attacking them?

10. Which president made love
in a closet while telling his
lover about the other
president who made love in a
closet?

11. Which vice president was
cheesed off because he felt
that his record of sexual
conquests was more impressive
than the president's?

12. Which future president,
while a college student,
loved showing off his manhood
(which he named "Jumbo")?

We don't know, but whoever he
is, can we make him president
for life?

Please, please, please,
pretty please address Salon's
latest venture into stupid,
sophistic "political
analysis." I'm referring to
their editorial justification
for their Henry Hyde
exposé, specifically,
to their theory of the nature
of lying and how grand juries
unfairly violate the nature
of illicit activity and can't
rightly expect honest answers
to direct questions.

Tom Castle

<tom@asizip.com>

Short answer: Nope.

Longer answer: I used to read
Salon every few days for the
entertainment value - it was
a bit like browsing through
the tabs while in line at the
supermarket checkstand. But
now it just gives me the
creeps. True believers,
unite! Blech. You go beat up
on them some more. It's your
turn. I pass the torch.

Chris

EDITOR'S NOTE: Or check in on
last Friday's feature: "Why
We Didn't Run the Henry Hyde
Story."

Filler: Virtual Friends

Subject: The Virtual Suck
Reader

Filler-activated, it responds
to each condescending bon
mot, each ironic smirk, each
self-deprecating jibe.
Responses are approving but
desperately clingy, so that
your columnists can keep
writing endless
self-referential prose
without interruption, thereby
freeing up your time for
important things, like
venture capitalists with poor
judgment and a love of diaper
jokes!

The Virtual Suck Reader has
four appropriate modes: Au
Contraire, Old Guard, Navel
Gazer, and Riff-o-matic.

Au Contraire
- Things aren't really that bad.
- You think you're so cool.
- I don't know what you have against
Canadians.

Old Guard
- I was here, man, before Wired ...
- Where are the diaper jokes?
- Bow down before me, for lo, I
am Kornheiser.

Navel Gazer
- That was a great article! It
reminds me of a story.
- I wish I was your friend.
- Please help me find a mate.

Riff-o-matic
- No, let me take that one step further
and run it into the ground.
- If Terry drew this idea I
had, it would be real funny.
- Here's a watered-down
rip-off of a Suck article I
liked.

Special note: Do not put the
Virtual Suck Reader into
direct contact with the rest
of the Virtual Family, as it
will make fun of them until
they beat it up, and then
they will go on to lead
happy, fulfilling lives while
the Virtual Suck Reader
languishes in its own virtual
bile.

Love you!

chris m
<ChrisMohney@SunGardEBS.com>

Thanks for putting so much
hard work into your letter.

Keep this up, and it'll get
you a steady unpaid gig here.

Polly

Dire Wolff

Good take today on Michael
Wolff. As a former editor of
NetGuide (the magazine), one
small correction. You list
the ill-conceived NetGuide
search engine among Wolff's
manifest sins. I'm about the
next-to-last to defend Wolff,
but that one wasn't his
disaster. Wolff had long
since sold the NetGuide
trademark and (worthless)
database to CMP, which was
responsible for the search
engine. (An aside: although I
gave the thing its code name
of Gulliver, the idea of a
reviews-based search engine
came not out of any editorial
dream, but from the suits,
who had a wicked case of
Yahoo envy. Most of this
story was pretty well told
about a year ago in the SF
Weekly:
http://www.sfweekly.com/
extra/webe1-1.html)

One more thing: I'd never
seen the Suck survey of net
mag titles you linked to in
the story. Glad you liked
NetGuide (the issue you
reviewed was my third). Sorry
the party didn't last longer.

best, Dan Rosenbaum
<dan@3ships.com>

Point taken. Correction made.
However, while NetGuide
online (still apparently
being updated after all this
time) may have been more
"inspired" than "invented" by
Wolff, the equally
ill-conceived NetClock
seems to be genuine Michael.

But what about this
"Netanyahu"? Was Wolff behind
that project? If so, will he
pull the plug already?

yr pal,

Tim

Bartel,

My name is Jon Spooner
(-$2000 courtesy of
Wolffnewmedia). I just wanted
to thank you for writing such
a scathing and beautiful
column on M. Wolff. But I do
hope that this interest in M.
Wolff will cool off in the
future so his precious media
spotlight can be dimmed and
he can be left to his own
ineptitude and to his
scientological
Cruise-Kidmanesque "marriage"
to Alison. It is only off of
the controversy of his
dealings that he has gained
employment and once the hype
dies so does his career.

Thank you again,

Jon Spooner
netmix.com

I wish it were so, Jon. But
as of this writing the New
York press is planning to do
some sort of follow-up to my
article. I'd try and engage
them in a little confabulous
colloquy, the way Wolff did
with Brill's Content, but
they repainted the men's room
stall where I had Russ
Smith's phone number written
down.

In any event, don't kid
yourself. Michael Wolff will
be with us for a long, long
time.

yr pal,

tim

Your piece on Michael Wolff
was extremely gratifying to
me. After reading the book, I
came away with the intense
feeling of "what a cocksucker
Michael Wolff is." It's nice
to know I'm not alone.

Kevin Bertram

What's extremely gratifying
for me is to see that
"cocksucker" is still used as
an all-purpose insult. It's
not really a word I feel I can get
away with in an essay, but
when a reader uses it for
me, I just get a
special feeling inside.

yr. pal,

tim

I just wanted to let you know
that I greatly enjoyed your
Suck piece today. This is
from the perspective of
someone who is out of the
computer loop and had little
idea who Michael Wolff was. I
even checked every link.
Congrats!

Joe Garden Onion
Punch-Press Operator/Temporary

P.S. - I would like to say that
this does stand in stark
opposition to the anti-union
piece Suck ran, i.e., it's OK for
management to screw over
laborers but not workers in
the computer industry.
However, I don't think you
were responsible for that, so
I say it only as a general
kvetch.

Joe Garden
<j-garden1@nwu.edu>

You said it, Joe. I have no
idea who wrote that
piece, but I'll tell you,
he's the lowest shit-sucking
scum, and when I find out who
he is I'm going to give him
the kind of ass-kicking
that'll change his life!

yr pal,

tim

... loved the Michael Wolff
article - he's still a weaselly
SOB. I worked for
NetResponse, who did the tech
work, and still is
owned by Jon Rubin. Jon's
actually a good guy to work
for. He's easy to talk to,
treats employees pretty well,
and doesn't really hide the
fact that ultimately he's in
it for the money. Hell, it's
his money after all - when he
saw that Wolff was pissing it
down the tubes it's only
natural that Jon would try
and stop the bleeding by
taking over somewhat. Trust
me - by the time Jon really
got involved the whole thing
was already heading down the
crapper in any case.

How Wolff could not make the
whole scene work is just
fucking amazing. He had
arguably a site developer's
dream - a whole company of
techs (NetResponse) who were
at his disposal, more or
less, and in it pretty much
just for equity in the
company. Jon was paying the
bills at both, and WNM was
hardly billed at the
prevailing rate for the
top-notch tech work that was
received. Not to mention that
NR also did all of the
hosting for that damn site -
even after it ceased to be
updated for over six months,
we were still getting like
100 thousand hits

per week. It's a bitch
trying to sysadmin a box that
has no real owner but still
handles so much traffic.

I hope the little sonofabitch
gets sued for all he's worth.

Travis Dixon
<Travis.Dixon@cda.com>

Thanks, Travis. But what I'm
really waiting for is some
ex-Wolff employee to come
forward and say what a prince
he was. There must be some G.
Gordon Liddy figure out there
willing to take a bullet for
the boss.

Isn't there?

yr pal,

tim