This is a special Catt s Claws for 08-18-2000

Maureen Dowd said in a recent New York Times column, speaking of Bill & Hillary & Al & Tipper:

"This quartet represents the most extraordinary collection of festering resentments and seething jealousies and co-dependent plotting that has ever darkened the White House -- with the possible exception of when Richard Nixon dined alone."

An unsigned Arkansan on an mail discussion group to which I belong wrote:
      "Somehow I knew this was a paraphrase of something I had heard before. Well, I found it... Here is the original, spoken by JFK:
      "At a dinner for Nobel Prize recipients, John F. Kennedy said that his guests were

" 'the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.' "

One must wonder in how many other columns Ms. Dowd has used plagiarized material. Less powerfully connect people get fired for such things.

Of course, Pulizer Prize winner (?!) Ms. Dowd is the consummate Washington, D.C. insider who dines regularly with such people as Ken Starr. Her attacks on Bill and Hillary Clinton have been particular vicious.