Things sure are topsy-turvy in the informed opinion business these days. Yet another Boston Globe columnist has been chucked out for inventing people and plagiarizing various non-invented people. Mike Barnicle has long been under investigation by other Boston publications for his "dubious sources," and in a recent column, he included unattributed material from George Carlin's 1997 book Brain Droppings. The Globe asked for his resignation quicker than you can say "Janet Cooke." [Does anyone get this? We had to look it up. Any alert reader who got it without typing in "Janet Cooke" at Yahoo! wins a subscription renewal and a 42-piece screwdriver set.]

Here at MWC, we'd like to assure our loyal subscriptorate that no such shenanigans will be tolerated in this publication. We will not invent people or steal material from others, or our name isn't Dave Barry. On this plagiarism issue: the MWC staff reads a lot of stuff, and sometimes, quite inadvertently, whole paragraphs will slip into MWC that have been taken verbatim from other columnists. Readers who notice such items should please let us know as soon as possible so we can stop you from notifying the rightful copyright owners.

In other news, certain allegations about a prominent American have recently come to light, and as a result, this person has been castigated by the media, which is not what it sounds like. That's right. When the news became public that St. Louis Cardinal Mark McGwire takes androstenedione, he was roundly criticized. Especially by the decidedly non-partisan Chicago media, who were relentless in their caviling (look, now we're George Will) that McGwire's chase of the home run record would be tainted, despite the very real possibility that this criticism would implicitly make Chicago slugger Sammy Sosa look good.

We at MWC are completely neutral on this issue, in the sense that we've spent several dollars on tickets for the September 19-20 Brewers-Cardinals games in Milwaukee and we'd really really really like to see home run number 62 at one of those games.

Androstenedione, which can very nearly be rearranged to spell "no need a steroid," potentiates testosterone, which, while it doesn't explain while McGwire will also break the major league record for walks, does lead us nicely into the President Clinton portion of our show, speaking of people who ought to be castigated. Even those of you who do still live in caves recently heard in the news that over the course of several months, President Clinton received from White House intern Monica Lewinsky thirty-seven [bad phrase] and a necktie. The nation was shocked by this news, because when the scandal broke last January, all the nation knew for sure was that President Clinton had received "about three dozen" [bad phrase] and a necktie.

[Note that by the phrase "bad phrase," we don't mean that either of the words of the phrase are bad alone, but rather that they're impolite when put together, much as in the case with the words "skin" and "flute."]

We're kidding. The nation is not shocked. The nation, by which we mean the 143 people not employed by the media, thinks the president should "be all he can be." In fact, the nation agrees with the words of the Chazz Palminteri character in the movie Faithful, who several times said, quote, "[Bad phrase] don't count." Has anyone seen this movie? Our point is, we were really pleased to have rented this movie to watch with alert readers My Mom, My Dad, and My Grandfather. Who would have thought you could go wrong with a movie starring Ryan O'Neal and Cher?

Republicans are outraged that the president received a definition of "sexual relations" in his Paula Jones lawsuit deposition and answered questions truthfully with regard to the definition. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) heatedly stated that in his administration, this wouldn't be a scandal, in the sense that if he were president, he would consider all the White House interns as his "other wives." House Majority Dick Armey (R-Texas) still bugs the hell out of us because he's a liar, he gives Ph.Ds a bad name, and he's bad for the country, but we haven't thought up a useful quote to attribute to him, so we'll have to leave that for now. When we think of one, you can bet it'll include neutered White House dog Buddy.

Even conservative media outlets are getting into the game. An August 19 editorial in the Chicago Tribune is titled "The scarlet presidency," which, we assume, is supposed to evoke the memory of The Scarlet Letter (as opposed, say, to the Daffy Duck cartoon The Scarlet Pumpernickel). The editors don't specifically say so, but we assume they mean President Clinton has, in a word that--in the context of this story--sounds much dirtier than it really is, besmirched the previously spotless name of the American presidency.

Does anyone else see any irony here? We mean, it's been a while since our junior English class was assigned to read the Cliffs Notes on Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic work, but we think there's another message here. We think Hawthorne wrote it to point out the inherent and inevitable hypocrisy of sitting in judgment of others. Also, because he knew that in the movie version, he'd get to see Demi Moore naked. Please note that this was much more of a novelty in the 19th century than it is now.

The editorial states that "if there's clear and convincing evidence that he [lied about his sex life under oath]..., he must go, if not by his own choice, then by impeachment." Let's put the Editor of the Tribune, Howard A. Tyner, on the stand and see if he tells the truth about his pre-Viagra sex life. We can only surmise that he's jealous. [In a story that's completely unrelated to Clinton-Lewinsky, Viagra has been associated with 69 deaths, which is absolutely not the sort of number on which MWC is going to comment.]

Better yet, let's put MWC on the stand and ask it about its sex life, if you want to hear some made-up stuff. "Oh yeah, we did that, sure. I don't know how the dresser got knocked over, though. See, the ceiling fan was getting jammed up--from the whipped cream, I think--so I lost track of the fire. Then things got weird when a Congressperson walked in and I had to say, 'But Majority Leader Armey, what are you doing to Socks the cat?' And, well, I'm really not ready to talk about the rest of it...."