Private Life

A FRIEND OF mine, taking note of the great American sexual landscape -- countless skin magazines, amateur porno videos for sale, naked pictures on the Internet -- figures there must be nude photos of every single person in America, if we look thoroughly enough. I've seen my own. I'm lying there on a rug, in the summer of 1945, and I'm as cute as a button. But I don't think that's what my friend is talking about.She means everybody's got something to hide, including not only Bill Clinton but such congressional swingers as the "youthfully indiscreet" Rep. Henry Hyde (five-year affair with a married woman that destroyed her marriage)

BOSTON -- What then is the most surprising discovery as we go spelunking down the endless caverns of this tawdry scandal?That Dick Morris actually hypothesized "what if" Hillary Rodham Clinton was "not necessarily into regular sex with men"? No, that's standard Morris procedure.That Penthouse magazine offered Monica Lewinsky $2 million to pose partially nude? That's Penthouse being Penthouse.That another couple, the Bleilers, were forced to display their tattered marriage on television? No one ever doubted that the dirt would spread like the spot in "The Cat in the Hat."

Good evening.This afternoon in this room, from this chair, I testified before the Office of Independent Counsel and the grand jury.I answered their questions truthfully, including questions about my private life, questions no American citizen would ever want to answer.Still, I must take complete responsibility for all my actions, both public and private. And that is why I am speaking to you tonight.As you know, in a deposition in January, I was asked questions about my relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

I think our president needs to set a new course for the rest of his life. Maybe he could grow tomatoes. If nothing is more important to him than family - isn't that what he said Monday night? - then he should take the rest of his presidency off and, with his wife, move to California, where they'd be closer to their daughter while she attends college. The Clintons could put out a shingle - Clinton & Clinton - and practice a little law, spend their weekends in seclusion for a while, mending and healing, maybe take up some hobbies.

Let's hear it for the zealous journalists of the Washington press corps. In recent weeks, they've become fierce watchdogs in pursuit of President Clinton's evasions about his private life.But hold the applause. Because for years, when Clinton served up evasions and distortions on important public policy matters, these same journalists often performed like docile lap dogs.Which raises the question: Shouldn't reporters be more aggressive in pursuing dishonesty in Clinton's public life than in his private life?

My roommate in college, Joe Dipersio, came from Aberdeen, a pleasant Harford County town, but escaped as soon as he could. He always said nothing ever happened in Aberdeen. A lot he knew. Joe took off for a more glamorous life. He found Cincinnati. Right now, all of his neighbors are probably asking him, "Was Aberdeen always that wild?"Like this? Never. Joe used to claim the most exciting thing in town was strolling down to the bakery to smell hot bread. The big entertainment was the high school basketball team.

"Alfred c. Kinsey: A Public/Private Life," by James H. Jones. Norton. 937 pages. $39.95.The birthplace of the sexual revolution is not New York or Paris, but a small college town in the middle of Indiana. Almost half a century ago a professor at the state university in Bloomington scandalized the world by publishing the first of his Kinsey Reports on sexual behavior.His research collection of detailed sexual histories gathered from thousands of men and women revealed, among other things, that masturbation was universal, extramarital affairs were common, and homosexuality was widespread.

A QUARTER OF a century ago a rare and brilliant gentleman, my mentor George Armstrong Kelly, regaled me with a late-night tale of a play he was writing to divert himself from his heavy and consuming scholarship (on the French Revolution).The drama opened with a male and female character in the nude, seated in a comfortable living room. The man was lounging on a sofa, reading a newspaper, and yawning from time to time. The woman was curled up, polishing her nails, also plainly bored. Then one of the two arose and casually put on a piece of clothing.

BERNARD Nussbaum invoked executive privilege when, as White House counsel, he denied Justice Department investigators access to some of Vincent Foster's papers after Foster committed suicide.When Mr. Nussbaum testifies before the Senate Whitewater committee, perhaps next week, he should be pressed to explain why he thought that response was justified.If the White House had no grounds for invoking executive privilege across the board before, it has none now in its negotiations with the Senate committee on access to Foster's private files.

Who is Juliana Hatfield, really?That's not as easy a question as you might think. Caught onstage with her band, the Juliana Hatfield Three, she seems focused, energetic, in command; seen in a video or photo shoot, she can be glamorous, confident, alluring.But put her in an interview situation, and she appears awkward and uncomfortable, more like a self-conscious schoolgirl than an established rock singer. Her voice trails off to near inaudibility at the end of sentences, and she often answers questions by talking to the floor, distractedly picking at loose threads in her battered jeans.

A day after becoming the first Baltimore mayor to be indicted, Mayor Sheila Dixon maintained a public schedule designed to show her steely backbone and close connections with the community - donning boxing gloves at a gym in West Baltimore and later giving heartfelt advice to underprivileged girls at a Boys and Girls Club in Brooklyn. "If you make a mistake today, you can get up the next day and keep focused with what you need to do," Dixon, a Democrat, told the Brooklyn group. She could have been talking about herself.

BETTIE PAGE, 85 Pinup girl helped set stage for sexual revolution Bettie Page, a legendary pinup girl whose photographs in the nude, in bondage and in naughty-but-nice poses appeared in men's magazines and private stashes across America in the 1950s and set the stage for the sexual revolution of the 1960s, died Thursday in Los Angeles. Ms. Page, whose popularity underwent a cult-like revival in the last 20 years, had been hospitalized for three weeks with pneumonia and was about to be released Dec. 2 when she suffered a heart attack and lapsed into a coma.

The Sun's Olympic correspondents, Rick Maese and Kevin Van Valkenburg, are blogging to each other at baltimoresun.com/olympicsblog . An excerpt: Maese, et al., Subject: Private lives and private eyes Fame is a strange beast, my friend. The world of gossip journalism is freaking out right now, trying to figure out whether Michael Phelps has a girlfriend. He is, in some ways, the David Beckham of the sporting world at the moment. The British tabloids are basically making things up about his private life (big surprise there!

My Best Friend, like so many French farces, tries to conjure a laughing soul from a comedy machine. Happily, even when the machine breaks down, the soul remains. Patrice Leconte's wide-screen situation comedy about a self-centered art dealer, Francois Coiste (Daniel Autheil), who bets his business partner, Catherine (Julie Gayet), that he can produce a best buddy in 10 days, has an enveloping friendly spirit that fills the cracks when the plot breaks into smithereens. Even the setup contains irritating flaws: For example, Catherine sets the wager in motion because Francois has never asked about her private life - she jolts him when she introduces him to her attractive lesbian lover.

BOSTON -- I don't need to give the "D.C. Madam" story a whole lot more attention. I try to heed the words of the mother-of-us-all when judging the private lives of public people. Susan B. Anthony once said, "If a man's public record be a clear one, if he has kept his pledges before the world, I do not inquire what his private life may have been." But I do think even she would give me a dispensation on the subject of Randall L. Tobias. The deputy secretary of state resigned last week after admitting he was a client of the service described on the Web as "a high-end adult fantasy firm which offered legal sexual and erotic services."

RANDOM THOUGHTS on the passing scene: Nolan Ryan's baseball career was so long that he struck out seven guys whose fathers he had also struck out. (Barry Bonds and Bobby Bonds, for example.) Why do some people use a fancy mathematical term such as "parameters" when all that they really mean is boundaries? Teresa Heinz Kerry's latest loony statement - that pro-Bush hackers could have gotten into the electronic voting machines during last year's election - gave me my first misgivings about having criticized her. She may not be playing with a full deck.

FRESH STARTS, second chances, cleaned slates; they aren't always given their due. For President Bush, though, this is a sublime moment. After four tumultuous years, he has won a new lease on the White House with enough political capital left over to leave a legacy that could commend him to history. Fate is also intervening to supply Mr. Bush with a new cast of supporting players for his second term who can help bring some of his toughest tasks within reach. No one expects the president to abandon the conservative posture from which he campaigned so successfully for re-election - especially now that he is backed with larger Republican ranks in Congress.

HILLBURN, N.Y. - Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin P. Clark had warned his family there would be controversy. After Clark took over as the city's top police officer last year, he began making major staffing changes to the department's leadership. That, his son says, is when Clark called and told him to be prepared. "He told me don't be surprised if I hear rumors. It's probably from someone who is not going to be happy with what he's doing," said Kevin Clark Jr. during an interview here yesterday.

FREDERICK -- Like a burlesque-show dancer, a local prostitution service's "black book" of customer names is providing this city just enough information to tantalize, but not enough to get anybody in trouble. At least not yet. After losing an open-records battle in court, the city released 82 pages of a call-girl operation's business records this week. The documents, a hot commodity as they were handed out yesterday at City Hall, contain hundreds of men's first and last names, many beside such women's names as "Angel," "Jade," "Dani" and "Nikki."

ALTHOUGH Gov. Parris N. Glendening and his staff have mastered the art of concealing important events in his life, word eventually spills out. When the governor and former wife Frances Hughes Glendening divorced in November, they were in and out of a Prince George's County courthouse without notice. Reporters were clueless that a court date had been scheduled. When he was remarried 11 days ago, to former aide Jennifer E. Crawford, a civil ceremony was held inside the governor's mansion three days before the news surfaced.