December 26, 1998 -- St. Paul, Minnesota -- All right, David Broder. You've been asking for it for months, if not years.

And your latest column, upholding Bob Livingston and bashing Bill Clinton, was the last straw.

Your perspective has been so warped by hobnobbing with the other Beltway Bozos that, regardless of whether they started out as your ideological enemies, you can now find them more palatable than an outsider from Arkansas who - horrors! - has young, active staffers that - gasp! - have been known to spill soft drinks on the White House furniture!

EEEEEEEK! Impeach him NOW!

Reagan NEVER did anything so AWFUL!

Ronnie-kins kept his coat on in the Oval Office, even as he was plotting with Ollie North how to sell to the Iranians the cocaine-financed combat weapons North got as part of his "fundraising" activities, so that Ollie could then take the proceeds and give them to Central American mass murderering fascists like Roberto D'Aubuisson.

Even Ronnie's dictatorial control of the White House press corps was more classy than the hicklike freedom offered by that - that HILLBILLY Clinton! (My goodness, HRH Nancy even got the White House press corps to wear red - so much so that press conferences looked more like Avis conventions than anything else.)

"But -- but -- but", I hear you say, your thick lenses steaming up, "Clinton committed adultery in the White House!"

And your boss, Ben Bradlee, committed adultery with Sally Quinn as she executed her scheme to "work" her way to the top back in the late 1970's.

So what if it meant ruining Mr. Bradlee's marriage? She was going to make him divorce his wife and marry HER! And if the previous Mrs. Bradlee wasn't tough enough - or young enough, or glamourous enough - to hang onto her man, well, that's just tooooo bad.

And in 1995, another WP insider, in the throes of an adulterous affair with another WP staffer, chose to ax the then-blossoming story concerning GOP Presidential candidate Bob Dole's many affairs as old news, even as they found no story about Democratic Presidential candidate Bill Clinton too "old" or unlikely to publish. (That Post insider is now married to his then-lover.)

But, of course, it isn't really about sex - right, Mr. Broder? If it were, the WP masthead would be chock-full of hypocrites, wouldn't it?

But, Mr. Broder.... there would have been no reason for Bob Livingston to resign, if it wasn't "just about sex", right?

Actually, in Livingston's case, it wasn't just about sex: It was about money, too.

According to a report last night by my local UPN affiliate, Channel 9 News, Larry Flynt has discovered that Rep. Livingston was having sex with lobbyists - which, by the way, is grounds for impeachment and removal from Congress.

Livingston's strong desire to leave Congress, as he had planned to do for months prior to being tapped for Speakerhood, had nothing to do with nobility and everything to do with a desire to make more money on the lobbyist circuit - which he can't do if he's convicted and impeached for having sex with his future co-workers and competitors while a sitting Member of Congress.

But I digress.

If you and your paper are as unstained and moral as you like to pretend, then neither you nor any of the Post's bigwigs should have any trouble at all agreeing to take the following pledge:

"My news organization has NEVER signed any confidentiality agreements with Kenneth W. Starr, or with any of the members of his Office of the Independent Counsel (OIC), concerning the concealment of information leaks from Kenneth W. Starr or his OIC staffers."

If you and your paper are truly unbiased --

-- if neither the temptations offered by Ken Starr's leaky OIC, nor the sense of obligation the Post feels to him for going to bat for them in an 80's court case, has caused either your or your paper to sign away your integrity by covering up Starr's illicit activities in exchange for a never-ending flood of illegal "background" leaks from his grand juries --

-- then taking this pledge shouldn't be any problem at all for you or your paper.

Oh, and by the way:

I have a web site, The Pledge for Free Inquiry, devoted to this very topic.

Those media outlets/papers/networks/etc. that take the pledge will be listed on it.

As will those papers/networks/etc. that fail to take the pledge after having been asked to do so, by me or by anyone else who notifies me that they have asked the media organ in question to take the pledge.

I'll be awaiting your response.

Sincerely,

Tamara Baker