News From the Briefs Bunker

0 Comments | Insight on the News, July 17, 2000 | by John Elvin

Thanks to a reader in Arizona for sending a clip about "Hillary's hidden agenda." The item notes that Hillary Clinton's public schedule neglected to mention her attendance at a private fund-raising reception at the Washington home of Hani Masri -- described as a close associate of Yasser Arafat -- and then at another fund-raising event at the Virginia home of Rafat Mahmood, a Pakistani-American real-estate developer. Noting that the events were closed to the press, our correspondent wonders, "What does she have to hide?" In the course of hunting up explanations for that inquiry, we found that Clinton had, in fact, been questioned on the matter of Pakistani-American contributions to her campaign when her husband was planning a trip to Islamabad. She responded: "If anybody thinks they can influence the president by making a contribution to me, they are dead wrong, and I think there is no evidence of that."

* Having a publicly posted address and e-mail allows this column to receive an interesting array of pitches, in addition to notes from readers. Everything gets read, of course, and probably an inordinate amount of time was recently devoted to perusal of a booklet touting the virtues of "Vitamin O," a substance previously unknown to us here in the Briefs Bunker. Lo and behold, along came a letter about "Vitamin O" from a reader in Washington state. The reader, who had tried the product, enclosed a clip about a settlement the manufacturer recently reached with the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC. Seems the FTC decided that the alleged "dietary supplement" was essentially salt water sold at $25 per bottle and that consumers were due a $375,000 refund. Apparently the manufacturer was profoundly impressed by this censure. The booklet we received lists the new price for the product as $30 per bottle.

* And last, a note was received from the folks at the Department of Defense, or DoD, interservice working group on harassment of service members based upon perceived sexual orientation. The note made reference to a question submitted by this column quite a while ago. We've scoured the far corners of the bat cave that passes for a columnist's brain and can't find a clue regarding what question we had asked. But, anyway, here's the answer from DoD: "The group will not be addressing the Homosexual Conduct Policy enacted by Congress."