Around the Nation

Clinton feels more free to do his job

"I feel now that I'm freer to keep doing what I'm supposed to be doing," he said. "It removes whatever obstacle this case would have been to my giving everything to this job for the next two years. Every hour, every minute I spend diverted on these questions is disserving the American people."

In an interview in this week's issue of Time magazine, Clinton said the ruling by U.S. District Judge Susan Wright "exposed the raw political nature" of the long-running sexual harassment case and he again denied that he made unwelcome advances to either Jones or former aide Kathleen Willey. The president declined to accept any responsibility for his troubles and refused to talk about the criminal investigation by independent counsel Kenneth Starr.

Still, the comments were the most extended public reaction offered by Clinton since Wright threw out the case this past Wednesday. The judge concluded that even if he did make a lewd proposition in a Little Rock hotel suite in 1991, as Jones charged, such "boorish and offensive" conduct would not constitute sexual harassment under the law.

Liquor industry wins ght over standards

Such laws should be left to the states, not Washington, says the Republican committee chair whose panel kept the measure off the House floor. But its Democratic sponsor says the committee action proves unmistakably that "the liquor lobby ... put profits ahead of people's lives."

The legislation was an amendment to a highway spending bill that would have taken highway money away from states that don't enact .08 percent blood alcohol content levels for drunken driving.

It is shaping up as one of the most hard-fought drinking issues since the drive more than a decade ago to make 21 the national legal age for drinking.

A month ago, the Senate passed such an amendment to its highway bill by a strong 62-32 vote, and President

Clinton has endorsed a national .08 percent standard that already is in force in 16 states.

Few of richest are top political donors

That's the conclusion drawn by the National Taxpayers Union, which cross-checked names on the Forbes 400 list with Federal Election Commission records to determine how much the country's wealthiest people gave to political parties, political action committees and congressional and presidential candidates from 1993 through 1997.

The study determined, among other things, that only 38 members of the Forbes 400 are on the list of the 400 biggest federal campaign contributors. Of all the contributions recorded by the FEC during the 1995-96 election cycle, only about one-half of 1 percent came from Forbes 400 members.

04-06-98