MOUNTAIN VIEWS: THINK YOU KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT BILL CLINTON? THEN THINK AGAIN

OLEAN -- Quizzes are on my mind, having just completed final exams and commencement at St. Bonaventure University here. Modern college students for some reason seem particularly weak on current events and recent history.

So I thought I'd give you, dear readers, a short examination just for fun. I'll open up with some questions on former president Bill Clinton, who -- it won't surprise the more astute of you -- has just submitted a 900-page manuscript to book publisher Knopf to satisfy the $12 million advance he got for his memoirs.

Much of the information is from an excellent article by Robert Sam Anson in the current issue of "Vanity Fair" magazine. Answers can be found at the bottom of the column.

TRUE OR FALSE

1. If he wanted to, Bill Clinton legally could run for president of France, because he's a native of real estate (Arkansas) this nation acquired in the Louisiana Purchase two centuries ago.
2. The advance on his book (much of which covers his pre-presidential years) exceeds the previous non-fiction record for a biography of Pope John Paul II by $3.5 million.
3. Clinton now regrets his last-minute pardon before leaving office of fugitive billionaire and tax cheat Marc Rich, calling it "terrible politics" and not worth the "damage to my reputation."
4. Clinton made more than $9 million in lecture fees in each of the first two years, 2001 and 2002, he was out of office.
5. Clinton, while traveling -- as he almost always is -- phones his wife, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, at least six times a day.

MULTIPLE CHOICE

1. Bill Clinton, who has lost a bunch of weight recently, is on the following famous diet:
A) Atkins
B) South Beach
C) Yukon Carbo
D) Jenny Craig

2. Friends have described him recently as:
A) Losing his memory
B) Spouting facts and figures "like a walking Google"
C) Obsessed with conversation about the good old days
D) Depressed and sullen

3. When Clinton travels to Beverly Hills, he sometimes stays at the estate once owned by the late movie actor:
A) Gregory Peck
B) Harold Lloyd, silent-screen comedian
C) Peter Sellers
D) Groucho Marx

4. Clinton's purported come-on line to Paula Corbin Jones in Little Rock was:
A) "Sweetie, you are one red hot mama."
B) "You make my knees knock."
C) "Wanna see my etchings?"
D) "So how about those Razorbacks?"

5. At 54 years old, Clinton was the youngest ex-president since:
A) Warren G. Harding
B) Theodore Roosevelt
C) James K. Polk
D) Ulysses Grant

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING SENTENCES ARE TRUE?
(According to "Mother Jones" magazine.)

1. The company which maintains the Internal Revenue Service Web site is incorporated in Bermuda.
2. Fewer than 10 percent of the SUVs sold in this country would meet the fuel-economy standards proposed in China.
3. One in every 115 Americans works for Wal-Mart.
4. Americans who live in cities weigh, on average, six pounds less than those who live in the suburbs.
5. In the last year alone, American adults have gained an approximate total of 150 million pounds.

Speaking of quizzes, the White House and Pentagon should have conducted a few of their own before putting most of their hopes on the shoulders of Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi expatriate and former Middle Eastern banker who provided the federal government with much of the prewar intelligence that prompted the Bush administration to unilaterally invade his native country.

Some of the Iraqi defectors and refugees from Saddam Hussein's draconian rule who joined Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress were the ones who provided American intelligence agencies with assurances the bloody dictator's weapons of mass destruction would be easy to find. Yes, like a needle in a haystack the size of Mt. Everest.

The Pentagon, conservatives in Congress, and the White House of Bush the Younger, before the war were warned time and again by the State Department, the CIA and other intelligence sources that they should shy away from Chalabi and his boasts of support in Baghdad. Nonetheless, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz championed Chalabi.

Chalabi received in recent years $27 million in taxpayer money to use as he wished for his Iraqi National Congress, and he was paid, until last week, $335,000 a month from American taxpayers to operate out of posh personal headquarters in Baghdad after re-entering the city with U.S. troops and a 700-man personal militia last year. He was given an important post on the Iraqi Governing Council. All this for a man convicted 12 years ago in Jordan of embezzlement, breach of trust and fraud, and sentenced in absentia to 22 years in prison at hard labor. Chalabi claimed the conviction was politically motivated after his banks in Switzerland, Lebanon and Jordan failed.

Last week, Chalabi's home and offices were raided and trashed by Iraqi police backed by American military vehicles and American intelligence overseers -- a clear signal that he's fallen out of favor with the White House and Pentagon. An Iraqi judge said they were looking for eight members of Chalabi's operation wanted on charges of murder, torture and seizing government property.

CBS News said Chalabi had been passing highly classified U.S. intelligence to Iran. Not exactly the type of guy you'd like history to show was the person who talked you into a questionable war.

Answers to Quiz: True or False -- All answers are True. Multiple Choice -- All answers are B. Which sentences are true? -- All of them.

Niagara Falls Reporter

www.niagarafallsreporter.com

May 25 2004