Tonya Harding

Plea bargains are practical solutions to legal problems but unsatisfactory endings to moral fables. So figure skater Tonya Harding's guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to hinder prosecution cannot satisfy the cravings of millions of spectators of courtroom sport for an acceptable conclusion.The bargain was consummated on a day of crucial testimony to an Oregon grand jury considering more serious charges against her, in the Jan. 6 beating of fellow competitor Nancy Kerrigan in Detroit.

In what can only be described as an amateurish, journalistic hatchet job, The Sun managed to insult the intelligence of any fact discerning reader, regardless of political affiliation, in its Nov. 17 article " Rep.-elect Harris in Health care mini-flap by Paul West. I had to read the article three times in an attempt to separate the few cogent facts in the article from the many conjectures, opinions and incoherent leaps of logic. Unfortunately, the article was a weak attempt at an editorial slam that took Rep.-elect Harris' comments and legitimate questions and forced a non-existent attachment to the national health care debate.

Not long ago, talk about values was mainly left to politicians on the far right and to fundamentalist Christians, most of whom were dismissed as zealots and demagogues. Now that the issue of values is coming into the mainstream, there seems no shortage of examples illustrating a need to retrieve the Golden Rule.The Tonya Harding case, fascinating potboiler that it is, is all the more interesting for the tug-of-war it represents between crass commercialism and good sportsmanship, not to mention plain right and wrong.

What would a figure skating championship in Portland, Ore., be without a mention of Tonya Harding, the local legend who put the ax in triple axel? More specifically a plastic baton wielded by a friend of her then-hubby, Jeff Gillooly, he of wedding night video fame, to kneecap Nancy Kerrigan at the 1994 championships. Well, Harding, 35, isn't here. She's on her way to a nightclub outside the City of Brotherly Love for a professional boxing match Wednesday against a woman who agreed to a $1,000 paycheck in return for attempting to beat the tar out of Tonya.

LILLEHAMMER, Norway -- Tonya Harding, the legal pit bull of the U.S. Olympic Team, said thanks to God for answering her prayers and giving her the chance to compete in the Games of Lillehammer.Alberto Tomba, the famously nocturnal Italian skier, said that he had brought his own condoms from home.Tonya Harding said that she believed most of the people in the United States were cheering for her.Alberto Tomba said that he hoped the parties in the Olympic village would start getting better soon.

If everyone is entitled to a fair trial, does that include Tonya Harding?London Fog is moving to Connecticut. It rains more there.Actually, Bill will settle for any health plan at all. It won't work and the next decade will be spent improving it into what is politically unobtainable now.We don't need two Preakness parades. We need two Preakness horse races.

The Olympic competition between Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan starts for real tomorrow -- but tonight it starts for fake, thanks to a 300-second quickie, tongue-in-cheek Comedy Central telemovie, "Spunk: The Tonya Harding Story," starring Tina Yothers of "Family Ties" in the title role. "At a full five minutes," says Comedy Central executive Ken Olshansky, "we think the movie gives the story all the attention it deserves." Watch for it, and watch it, on tonight's "Short Attention Span Theater."

Fans who wanted to see a showdown between Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding within the larger competition of Olympic ladies figure skating are obliged. The gods of modern Olympus are letting the skater skate and be judged on skating merit. Those who wanted Ms. Harding banned are disappointed. The controversy distracted from the glory earned by U.S. skier Tommy Moe and the pathos of U.S. speed skater Dan Jansen.The U.S. Olympic Committee backed down from regulating ethics under a menacing lawsuit.

There's a bright side to everything, even the decline and fall of network news-show standards. The August Vanity Fair features a hilarious story about bagging the big ones: the lengths to which TV anchors go to snare interviews with caning victims, felonious figure skaters and other "geeks of the week" whose tawdry tales constitute current events for many TV watchers.The anchors are million-dollar women -- Walters-Chung-Sawyer-Pauley-Couric. Their spiritual leader is Barbara Walters. Connie Chung (CBS' "Eye to Eye")

In what can only be described as an amateurish, journalistic hatchet job, The Sun managed to insult the intelligence of any fact discerning reader, regardless of political affiliation, in its Nov. 17 article " Rep.-elect Harris in Health care mini-flap by Paul West. I had to read the article three times in an attempt to separate the few cogent facts in the article from the many conjectures, opinions and incoherent leaps of logic. Unfortunately, the article was a weak attempt at an editorial slam that took Rep.-elect Harris' comments and legitimate questions and forced a non-existent attachment to the national health care debate.

NAGANO, Japan -- And four years after Nancy Kerrigan got whacked on the knee...Figure skating is still big business and big box office, a sport and a show that commands top dollar and top television ratings.As Michelle Kwan, Tara Lipinski and the other top performers line up for today's women's short program at the Winter Olympics, a world audience continues to be intrigued by sequins, triples and teen-age skating stars.It wasn't so long ago that skating was a little mom-and-pop sport, run by volunteers, stage-managed by parents, and televised a few times a year by networks who needed some programming to brighten those dreary days of winter.

It wasn't such a bad year. Really. Some good things did happen. For example, a whole bunch of Historic Mideast Peace Accords got signed. I don't have the exact numbers, but it seemed as though every time you turned on the TV news, you saw a group of formerly hostile Mideast leaders historically signing some accord and hugging each other as though they'd just won the playoffs. Granted, the next day there were always fatal riots, but still.Another good thing about 1994 was that the Earth was not struck by a giant comet chunk, which is fortunate because, the way things were going, it almost certainly would have landed on the White House.

PITTSBURGH -- They are coming from different directions, but figure skaters Michelle Kwan and Todd Eldredge are trying to get to the same place.Kwan, barely 14 years old, is America's top-rated woman, but she has yet to prove it. Eldredge, 23, is a two-time defending national champion, but he wants to prove it again.They have come to Sudafed Skate America International at the Civic Arena to open the 1994-95 season and prepare for the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in February.No doubt, Kwan will be a solid favorite at the nationals in Providence, R.I., regardless of what happens here, but the circumstances of her No. 1 rating -- which came with the U.S. Figure Skating Association's decision to dethrone 1993 champion Tonya Harding -- will make it a hollow position until she backs it up with a first-place finish.

There's a bright side to everything, even the decline and fall of network news-show standards. The August Vanity Fair features a hilarious story about bagging the big ones: the lengths to which TV anchors go to snare interviews with caning victims, felonious figure skaters and other "geeks of the week" whose tawdry tales constitute current events for many TV watchers.The anchors are million-dollar women -- Walters-Chung-Sawyer-Pauley-Couric. Their spiritual leader is Barbara Walters. Connie Chung (CBS' "Eye to Eye")

Reading Time: Two Minutes.John McEnroe and Jim Courier will top the bill of Pam Shriver's tennis party benefiting the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation due at the Baltimore Arena in late September.* Games, rides, activities and fun for the whole family will be part of the 1994 NBA Draft Party, Bullets Division, next Wednesday at USAir Arena. Of course, there will be a $6 charge for non-season ticket holders, which is a good way to coax people to become plan holders, right?* While Sharmba Mitchell of Tacoma Park was losing only his second bout in 33 starts (both have been successive and by knockout)

On TV, it's a day where conversation reigns. One controversial celebrity, Mike Tyson, speaks from prison in a taped interview on "Larry King Live." Another, Tonya Harding, speaks to Rolonda Watts in a taped interview on "Rolonda." And in what, by comparison, is a breath of fresh air time, Charles Kuralt chats with Morley Safer in a taped interview for a highly recommended CBS special.* "Rolonda." (11 a.m.-noon, WJZ, Channel 13) -- Of all the talk-show hosts out there, how did Ms. Watts land Tonya Harding for her first extended post-Olympics sit-down?

They were both back on the ice this week, America's two women Olympic figure skaters, practicing for the first time since the advent of the Kerrigan-Harding saga.There on the East Coast was Nancy Kerrigan -- whose elegant style has drawn comparison with Katharine Hepburn -- managing to complete a half axel. And there on the West Coast was Tonya Harding -- who has compared herself to basketball's bad boy, Charles Barkley -- landing a perfect triple axel.Both back on the ice.But the question now is: Will they both stay on the ice?

Last year during the May sweeps, NBC presented such ripped-from-the-headline ripoff made-for-TV movies as "In the Line of Duty: Ambush in Waco," "Triumph Over Disaster: The Hurricane Andrew Story" and "Without Warning: Terror in the Towers" (about the World Trade Center bombing). Tonight, as part of this year's May sweeps, the same network presents another docudrama designed to cash in on the well-known misfortunes of others: "Tonya and Nancy: The Inside Story." If this keeps up, NBC ought to change its mascot -- from a peacock to a vulture.

Let me make a prediction.After you get done watching "Tonya and Nancy: The Inside Story" on NBC tonight, you're going to want to take a shower -- a long, scalding hot shower. And during the shower, you're going to scrub your body like Lady Macbeth was scrubbing her hands and screaming, "Out, out damned spot."But I guarantee you that all the perfume in Arabia (to borrow another of the lady's lines) isn't going to wash away the slimy feeling this little made-for-TV flick will leave you with.