The Clintons' legal-defense fund mailed a pitch to Dr. Bernard Lewinsky. His daughter gave at the office - school vouchers; updates on presidential and congressional candidates; Religious Liberty Protection Act; other issues

National Review, Sept 27, 1999

The Americans with Disabilities Act has probably generated more weird lawsuits than any other piece of legislation in history, but this is one of the silliest: A disabled woman shopping for a new wheelchair recently sued a small business in Lake Worth, Fla., for failing to offer handicapped parking. The store, Action Mobility, sells and services wheelchairs, and the couple who own it are both disabled. "Nearly everybody who comes here is handicapped," Donna Batelaan told the Cox News Service. Her husband, in fact, is a consultant to other businesses that try to comply with ADA regulations. The Batelaans added special parking spaces in August to avoid a court battle, and now will likely have to pay the plaintiff's attorney several thousand dollars in legal fees. The disabilities act continues to cry out for reform.

In East Timor, gangs of armed men are running amok--the very word comes from that part of the world. The Indonesian military arms and incites these gangsters, and has been doing so since 1975, when Indonesia forcibly took over the country from the departing Portuguese. When the local people claimed a right to independence, the Indonesian army and its surrogates rounded on them. Over the years, 200,000 are estimated to have died, in a population of 800,000. B. J. Habibie, the Indonesian president, recently offered a referendum with a choice between independence and autonomy. The East Timorese chose independence--an outcome the Indonesian military is manifestly unwilling to accept. Civil war looms, and massacre. As a Portuguese colony, East Timor was sleepy, but at least there was nobody to burn out the bishop's house, to hack bystanders to death with machetes and stick severed heads on posts. European colonialism used to be considered some ultimate wickedness, but at times it appears like benevolence itself.

Silvia Baraldini is the very model of a modern terrorist, an Italian who joined a group in the U.S. to destabilize society through terror. She was involved in, among other outrages, a robbery that left two policemen and a security guard dead. Caught, she was sentenced to 43 years. But she was a Communist. In a backroom deal, the Italian government under former Communist Massimo D'Alema has now negotiated her release. She flew in triumph from New York to Rome, to be greeted by Oliviero Diliberto, the minister of justice, and a jubilant crowd throwing flowers. She is supposed to stay in a Rome prison until 2008, but Diliberto and the government are happy that at least she can now be close to her mother. Armando Cossuta, the head of the Italian Communists, reported, "I hugged her with joy and intense emotion." As for Baraldini herself, she shows no remorse, saying, "I have never repented for what I have done in the past." Why isn't she just jobbed straight into the Ministry of Justice?

Ehud Barak came into office with a supercharged roar. He was the man who was going to fix Israel's historic quarrel with the Arabs, and by this autumn too. Deals with Yasser Arafat, deals with Hafez Assad, you want them, he has them. In sober fact, he has only put his seal on what his predecessor, Bibi Netanyahu, had already signed for. Last fall, Netanyahu agreed in principle to withdraw from the West Bank and to leave some 40 percent of it in Palestinian hands, only to stall in practice in the face of terrorist attacks. He also pressed for "final status" negotiations, which are to deal head-on with the issues of Jerusalem, the return of refugees, settlements, water, and so on. Here is the grand old bazaar technique of selling the same carpet twice. The Arabs do not quite know what to make of it, and have coined a word: Barakyahu. The deal was forged to begin with because U.S. administrations always find it easier to bully Israel into concessions than to irritate Yasser Arafat. The deal recently reaffirmed in Egypt may be an unwise one for Israel, but it is certainly-- media hosannas notwithstanding--not a new one.