Zealots

PHILADELPHIA -- The Eagles violated the first commandment of football last night:Never give hope to the hopeless.But the Birds let the dispirited, punching-bag Washington VTC Redskins hang around and hang around and hang around, and, sure enough, it was the Eagles who very nearly ended up getting hanged.They promised us they were past this.They promised the days of playing down to the level of the competition were over. They promised they were different now. They were done with letdowns following huge wins.

FROM THE tobacco companies' standpoint, settling litigation filed against them by states and individuals is an economic imperative -- even if it costs $300 billion or more. But a settlement is an even more urgent imperative for public officials intent on gaining monetary relief for smokers whose health has been damaged by tobacco as well as curbing youth smoking.Negotiations under way between the largest tobacco giants and state attorneys general could lead to a proposed settlement that would put an end to tens of thousands of lawsuits.

FROM THE tobacco companies' standpoint, settling litigation filed against them by states and individuals is an economic imperative -- even if it costs $300 billion or more. But a settlement is an even more urgent imperative for public officials intent on gaining monetary relief for smokers whose health has been damaged by tobacco as well as curbing youth smoking.Negotiations under way between the largest tobacco giants and state attorneys general could lead to a proposed settlement that would put an end to tens of thousands of lawsuits.

IT TAKES neither genie nor wise man to be wary of coming attractions this January.In this new year, may sane and sensible minds in the Senate accede to the urging -- no, the demands -- of the American people who desperately desire a quick end to the national nightmare called impeachment. Otherwise, it is going to be a long, cold winter and national discontent may reach the boiling point.The first major event of January, the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton impacts the month's second important congressional attraction -- President Clinton's State of the Union Address.

WHAT LEGAL consequence befalls John Walker Lindh will properly be decided in a federal courthouse. But how the nation comes to terms with this puzzling young man is a more complex matter. He's a 20-year-old, middle-class kid who seems more confused than malevolent, more daffy than threatening. The accent he feigned when he was captured and the silly bravado he has exhibited since betray an immaturity that is eerily common among this country's young adults. And yet Mr. Lindh took up with a very dangerous enemy, and involved himself in a violent religious movement that took a staggering number of American lives.

IT TAKES neither genie nor wise man to be wary of coming attractions this January.In this new year, may sane and sensible minds in the Senate accede to the urging -- no, the demands -- of the American people who desperately desire a quick end to the national nightmare called impeachment. Otherwise, it is going to be a long, cold winter and national discontent may reach the boiling point.The first major event of January, the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton impacts the month's second important congressional attraction -- President Clinton's State of the Union Address.

BILL CLINTON and Newt Gingrich just have to go through with it. The speaker just has to send veto-bait fiscal measures to the White House to assuage Republican legislators he has fired up to fever pitch. And the president just has to veto these bills to retain any credibility whatsoever with the Democratic rank and file.If carried to their illogical conclusions, these confrontations would be very bad for the country and wouldn't say much for the politicians involved (add Bob Dole to the list)

WASHINGTON -- I refuse to make this one of Those Stories. You know the type. Those moist, somehow facile, stories about absolute good wrested from the heart of incomprehensible evil. Those heartwarming stories that speak of brotherhood, that make you hopeful, that point toward God, abiding. Nothing wrong with those stories. I just don't want this to be one of them. And that will be difficult because the facts certainly bend themselves in that direction. Recently, Jonathan Jesner, a 19-year-old Jewish kid from Scotland, was critically injured on a bus in Tel Aviv by a Palestinian suicide bomber.

CHARLES MOOSE, the police chief in Montgomery County, thinks it was unwise for the governor of Maryland to call the sniper a coward, apparently because such public name-calling is counterproductive in the delicate "dialogue" the police are trying to establish with this killer. "The governor's training is not in the law enforcement field," Moose said. "I am convinced the governor will never do that again." And he hasn't. But I wouldn't knock him if he did. Really. What's more cowardly than what this sniper has been doing?

AS SOON as I heard that a doctor who performed abortions had been murdered in Florida, I felt a sinking sensation in my stomach. I was sorry for the doctor and his family, but also, I knew that the media were going to have a field day.I couldn't have imagined how bad it was really going to be.First came the parade of kooks. The major networks poked around in the fever swamps looking for "pro-life" spokesmen who would condone the murder. They found some. These zealots -- usually inarticulate boobs representing pro-life organizations few have heard of -- were pitted against mainstream pro-choice spokesmen.