Notebook

By Georgia Harbison, Ian Judson, Daniel S. Levy, Jodie Morse, Michele Orecklin, Alain L. Sanders and Joel Stein

WINNERS & LOSERS

[WINNERS]

NO ONE Sadly, there are no winners when the nation endures a crisis like this one. We Americans all suffer when the office of the President undergoes a failure of trust.

O.K., ALL RIGHT. THE PRESS Man, we are just having a field day with this thing. And as soon as it started getting boring, the President sings like a canary. Vive le scandale!

[& LOSERS]

BILL CLINTON The master of disaster finally lost his touch. Failing to be either sympathetic or apologetic, he didn't come close to matching the Hugh Grant speech. Nice tie.

THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT Time was, being the President meant dealing with unemployment and foreign enemies, not cheap sex. So how do we become President?

RATING THE NEWS NETWORKS' SORRY COVERAGE

Game day in battle of the networks: Out came the big guests, the big anchors and Orrin Hatch's family-values tie. Since the President's address was only four minutes long, the nets had a lot of time to fill, and it showed. Continuing our highly praised, service-oriented journalism, Notebook critiques the performances.

NBC Rating: [3 Monica Lewinsky heads]

Points for that graphic featuring Washington's grandeur, replete with phallic imagery. Misguided post-address panel included Ellen Levine, editor of Good Housekeeping, and novelist Jacquelyn Mitchard.

ABC Rating: [4 1/2 Monica Lewinsky heads]

Caught in a testosterone battle between football and sex, ABC punts Prez, returns to a pre-season game in Mexico 23 minutes after the address and a brief commentary from studly historian Michael Beschloss.

CBS Rating: [3 1/2 Monica Lewinsky heads]

Bold graphic but lacked clout in getting exclusive post-address guests, who popped up everywhere else; in fact, Orrin Hatch showed up dead last, after sharing his views on other networks--even Fox News.

Fox News Rating: [2 1/2 Monica Lewinsky heads]

WWF-inspired "Showdown" graphic promised punchiness. But panel weakened with lopsidedly conservative guests. Points for pushing Senator Hatch into his most agitated state of the night.

CNN Rating: [4 Monica Lewinsky heads]

Curious coverage early in the day featured a graphic ticking off the minutes of the President's testimony. Swell guests: Dee Dee Myers and James Carville, who had been at the White House earlier that day.

Telemundo Rating: [4 Monica Lewinsky heads]

Maybe it helped that the telecast was in Spanish and we didn't understand much, but Telemundo's coverage seemed muy bueno, indeed. One complaint: no lusty GOOOOOAL! after the tawdry admission.

CHECK THAT

Those few years being an assistant football coach in the Big 10 at the very young age of 24 or 25 were a tremendous advantage to me in understanding how to win." --Yankees Owner George Steinbrenner

Steinbrenner's assistant-football-coach record:

COLLEGE YEAR WINS LOSSES TIES NORTHWESTERN 1955 0 8 1 PURDUE 1956 3 4 2

THE LIST

Things We're Looking Forward to Making Fun Of:

--Vanilla Ice's new album --The team that wins the American League wild card --Coverage of the anniversary of Di's death --Film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme as a fashion designer --Y2K --UPN show about Lincoln's butler --More millennium lists --The inevitable Ben Affleck-Gwyneth Paltrow breakup --Dan Quayle's next campaign --The new Olsen twins show --Bo Derek playing the widowed mom of surfer brothers on NBC --Footloose: the Musical

THEN & NOW

YASGUR'S FARM, 1969 Woodstock's fans, bummed by weather, chant, "No rain! No rain!"

YASGUR'S FARM, 1998 Parched fans, bummed by lack of booze, chant, "We want beer! We want beer!"

MARS & VENUS

ABS VS. ORGASMS So men are preoccupied with sex, and women with their bodies, right? Better take note: a tally of articles on sex and fitness in the past four issues of Men's Health and Cosmopolitan suggests otherwise:

[Men's Health] ABS ORGASMS 17 6

[Cosmopolitan] ABS ORGASMS 4 10

NUMBERS

4 minutes Length of Clinton's apology speech

50 minutes Average length of Clinton's speeches to the nation

67.6 million Viewers who watched Clinton's apology speech

60 million Viewers who watched Nixon's resignation speech

$5.95 Admission to the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace

$10 Admission to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum

8 days Time it took millionaire balloonist Steve Fossett to sail 15,202 miles on his failed attempt to circle the earth

28 months Time it took Lewis and Clark to cover 8,000 miles across the North American continent

$350,000 Estimated cost of Fossett's trip

$380,000 Estimated cost in 1998 dollars of Lewis and Clark's expedition

Sources: The National Journal; Nielsen; CNN; ABC; Washington University in St. Louis; USA Today; Historical Statistics of the United States