Notebook

Winners & Losers

To The Rescue

Steve Jobs

Mercurial founder is last hope to reboot Apple and stave off Microsoft's 1,000-year reign

Joe Lieberman

Democrat is Mr. Above-the-Fray in Donorgate hearings, inheriting Howard Baker mantle

Richard Jewell Reno apologizes to ex-Atlanta suspect: he was hoodwinked

... and Losers Hideki Irabu

Ira-bum, Ira-bust, Ira-bye-bye. The player who was named later goes from hero to zero in just 18 days

Dick Gephardt

Cranky minority leader gets only a quarter of fellow Dems to vote against love-feast budget

Tom Welch

Brought Olympic flame to Utah and then flagrantly flamed out

Forward Spin

There are no bad places to stump. So 1998 Republican Alabama Governor hopeful and Houston Rocket forward Charles Barkley, on trial last week for punching a guy in a bar (he won the case), used his time on the stand for gubernatorial trash talk. Among Sir Charles' policy statements:

-- In a bold move to mobilize black Republicans, he called his accuser a "drunk redneck."

-- Riding the anti-lawyer wave, he didn't mince words with prosecutors: "I think frivolous lawsuits--what you do for a living--are a scam."

-- When the jury was asked if "anyone had a problem with [the plaintiff's] being from around Rochester, N.Y.," he milked anti-Yankee sentiment by raising his hand. --By Joel Stein

Comparisons Are Odious

Senator Jesse Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, opposes Governor William Weld's nomination as ambassador to Mexico because he feels Weld is not "ambassador quality." As a public service, we hereby provide a comparison of Weld's resume with that of former Mexican ambassador John Gavin, who served under President Ronald Reagan and was confirmed by Senator Helms:

Weld: A.B. summa cum laude, Harvard University, 1966; J.D. cum laude, 1970; diploma with distinction, Oxford University, 1967. Partner, firm Hill & Barlow, 1971-81; associate minority counsel, U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Impeachment Inquiry, 1973-74; U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, 1981-86; Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Justice Department, 1986-88; Governor of Massachusetts, 1990-97.

Gavin: B.A., Stanford University, 1952; actor in feature films, 1956-81, including Four Girls in Town, 1957; A Time to Love and a Time to Die, 1958; Imitation of Life, 1959; Psycho, Spartacus, Midnight Lace, A Breath of Scandal, 1960; Romanoff and Juliet, Tammy Tell Me True, 1961; Thoroughly Modern Millie, 1967; The Madwoman of Chaillot, 1969; Pussycat Pussycat I Love You, 1970; History of the World, Part I, 1981; special adviser to secretary-general of OAS, 1961-74.

Verbatim

"I was told I should roar like a lion/ And wake the bad men from their sleep/ But I'd much rather/ Shop, flirt and curtsy/ At heart, I'm really/ Little Bo Peep."
Madeleine Albright, crooning her own lyrics to the tune of Don't Cry for Me, Argentina at a conference of Southeast Asian nations

"I don't do capillaries; I go for the jugular."
Alan I. Baron, minority counsel to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee investigating campaign-finance abuses, in the Washington Post

"It could be a land war, it could be an air war."
William Weld, on fighting to become ambassador to Mexico

The Scoop

Gore To Rebels: We're With You, Maybe

Last August, when Saddam Hussein's tanks crushed the Iraqi National Congress and blew apart a CIA support operation, embarrassed U.S. officials blamed INC infighting. True, a Kurdish INC faction did invite the dictator back into northern Iraq's no-go zone. But documents obtained by TIME suggest that by failing to match tough words with tough deeds, the U.S. helped bring on the rout.

Vice President Al Gore wrote to INC president Ahmed Chalabi on Aug. 4, 1993. He called INC leaders "spokespersons for millions," affirmed Washington's "solid commitment" to "your struggle" and pledged that U.S. officials "will not turn our backs." Chalabi used Gore's letter to rally anti-Saddam forces, only to have the U.S. refuse backing for an INC guerrilla offensive in March 1995.

Such mixed signals, Chalabi believes, caused fatal disillusionment and dissension. In the month before Saddam's assault, the Kurdistan Democratic Party wrote four letters to State Department and National Security Council officials asking Washington to condemn an Iranian incursion and attacks by a Kurdish rival faction. In its final missive, the K.D.P. warned of the "only option" left: turning to Saddam.

Worshiping At The Templesman

When senators of both parties questioned the special access granted big Democratic Party donors by the National Security Council, NSC boss Tony Lake pooh-poohed the charges. But last week the NSC admitted that the month beore last year's presidential election, Lake did meet with Maurice Templesman, the deep-pocketed Democratic donor who was the companion of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

Templesman, a diamond dealer with long experience in Africa, was seeking loans from the Export-Import Bank and loan guarantees from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation for a multimillion dollar diamond deal in Angola. After the meeting, a sympathetic Lake decided to intervene: he directed an NSC staff member, with approval from legal counsel, to call Ex-Im and OPIC. The message: Templesman's venture had "merit." But TIME has obtained the text of a recent letter from Angola's ambassador in Washington that bluntly asks the U.S. to stop attempts to broker a diamond deal and, in an apparent reference to Tempelsman, criticizes similiar attempts by "private companies." The Angolan letter, as well as Administration maneuvers on behalf of Tempelsman, have raised concerns among senior G.O.P. legislators--concerns discussed with the State Department. As for Ex-Im, a spokesman says that Tempelsman did meet with a mid-level official who informed him that backing for a project in war-torn Angola would not meet the bank's standards. Tempelsman was in Angola last week, conferrring with U.S. Ambassador Donald Steinberg and still trying to clinch a deal. He had no comment.