Mr. Safire is an editorialist.  He writes opinions.  He will be the first
one to tell you that he is in the opinion business, and in his opinion, he
found Hillary to be truth-challenged. An "inveterate liar" is indeed what
he called her about 9 months ago.  I watched the Sunday morning talking
heads that weekend, and he was on one of the shows.  He said that he was in
the opinion business.

When one needs a press release from a company, one tends to believe it.
 After all, they can and have been called on the carpet when they make a
false statement.

When one reads a report in a news magazine/paper/web page, one reads what
the reporter opines about the story, not the facts.  Facts checking and
reporting parted ways a long time ago.  I believe the company press
releases before I believe some reporter's version of the events.

I enjoy reading the opinions of selected editorialists in the computer and
the political arenas, but they are just that, opinions.

Just like was my current post is.  It's my opinion on news reporting.  The
only fact I present here, is that William Safire is an editorialist and he
has reservations about Hillary's truthfulness.

In closing, here is another fact.  The Compaq press release states the
following:
Compaq to Acquire Digital for $9.6 Billion. Creates the Second Largest
Computing Company in the World.

If this is incorrect, it will soon be set straight by somebody.  (Eh, maybe
it depends on what you mean by "largest company".)

Kind regards,

Denys. . .

Denys Beauchemin
HICOMP America, Inc.
(800) 323-8863  (281) 288-7438         Fax: (281) 355-6879
denys at hicomp.com                             www.hicomp.com


-----Original Message-----
From:   Wirt Atmar [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Monday, January 26, 1998 3:01 PM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: Compaq buys DEC

Denys asks:

> Now I am really confused.  What does The New York Times have to do with
> reporting facts?  :)

A couple of years ago, William Safire of the New York Times called Hillary
Clinton an "inveterate liar" in one of his opinion pieces in the Times. I
suspect that we all are going to find out the veracity (factual-osity) of
his
claim in the next few days :-(.

Wirt Atmar