Washington Post:
Defense: Impeachment Is Not Warranted
In a last-minute effort to head off impeachment, the White House will call more than a dozen witnesses before the House Judiciary Committee beginning today to argue that President Clinton's offenses do not compare to Watergate and do not warrant his removal from office.
The president's lawyers will neither introduce new exculpatory evidence in their two-day defense nor question any of the players in the scandal, including Monica S. Lewinsky herself, even though they had previously complained that they never had a chance to cross-examine the grand jury witnesses whose testimony provided the basis for independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr's report to Congress.
Instead, the White House recruited 14 prominent former prosecutors, constitutional experts and Watergate veterans to "deconstruct the allegations," as one aide put it. Rather than challenge the facts collected by Starr, they plan to challenge his interpretation of them. And while some witnesses plan to criticize Starr's investigation, the White House abandoned plans to present a panel of witnesses devoted to accusing him of "prosecutorial misconduct."
The two-day defense case beginning at 10 a.m. today will open the final stage in the Judiciary Committee's historic inquiry as Clinton aides scramble to avoid only the second impeachment of a president. With the panel scheduled to begin voting perhaps 24 hours after the Clinton team wraps up tomorrow, committee Republicans met yesterday to prepare three or four proposed articles of impeachment.
The real audience for the Clinton lawyers, however, will not be a committee that appears already to have made up its collective mind to approve impeachment along party lines, or even a general public that already has made its opposition to removing Clinton from office clear in opinion polls. The targets of the presidential entreaties will be about two dozen moderate House Republicans who will be critical to any vote on the floor next week.
Out of camera range, White House allies and some of those key members continued discussions about a possible alternative punishment that would involve a congressional censure of the president combined with some sort of voluntary fine by Clinton. One congressional source said presidential aides had expressed a willingness to accept a $300,000 penalty, though the White House denied shopping any censure or fine proposals.
Cognizant of the sentiments of those Republican moderates who have groused about what they see as a defiant defense strategy, the White House yesterday reiterated Clinton's contrition for having misled the nation about his affair with Lewinsky and aides held open the possibility that he might speak out again on the subject in the coming days.
"The president is second to none in recognizing what was wrong in his behavior and apologizing to those who he has affected and hurt," said White House press secretary Joe Lockhart. "There has been some speculation that that is no longer the case, but I can tell you with great certainty that it is, that he is . . . keenly aware of what he has done wrong."
But preparing for the worst, the White House also laid the groundwork for a possible constitutional challenge to an impeachment vote. Among the witnesses for this morning will be a law school professor who plans to testify that articles of impeachment approved by a lame-duck House would be invalid once the next Congress takes office in January.
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/impeach120898.htm

Washington Post:
AOL Seeks Boost Via Phone, TV
America Online Inc., in a bid to broaden its popular online service, is preparing two new ways of connecting with consumers: through their TV sets and via specially equipped phone lines that will greatly speed access to its content and the Internet.
The two initiatives, under development for months, represent the Dulles-based company's most ambitious efforts to enhance the basic equipment behind its service. Almost all of AOL's 14 million customers now reach the online service, and through it the Internet, using relatively slow dial-up phone modems. And all of its subscribers view the service on a personal computer.
AOL is "in active development" of AOL TV, which would enable a user to display AOL and Internet content on a television screen, but has not set a launch date, said Barry Schuler, president of AOL's interactive services division. AOL TV will utilize a set-top box similar to that sold by Web TV, a Microsoft Corp.-owned company that provides access to the Internet through televisions. The company has begun talks with manufacturers to make its box, Schuler said, declining to identify them.
Separately, the Dulles firm is negotiating with several regional phone companies, including Bell Atlantic Corp., to offer AOL-branded high-speed Internet access using the companies' phone lines, sources said. Bell Atlantic and other local carriers already are beginning to offer so-called digital subscriber line (DSL) service, which offers a variety of access speeds that are 11 to 250 times faster than traditional phone lines.
AOL and the phone companies have a common rival: cable TV companies, which are gradually upgrading their lines to offer similar high-speed Internet services using cable modem technology. The cable industry is promoting its At Home modem service, which offers both exclusive content and Internet connections in competition with AOL and the phone industry, respectively.
AOL has urged federal regulators not to approve AT&T Corp.'s planned purchase of cable TV giant – and principal At Home investor.
– Tele-Communications Inc. unless the merged company makes its high-speed cable lines available to competing Internet providers, such as AOL.
AOL's efforts to find a place on the TV screen have potentially wide-ranging implications. The TV, after all, is in 98 percent of all U.S. homes; personal computers are in only about 40 percent.
AOL TV would provide a "navigational" tool for viewers, enabling them to find upcoming programs of interest, as well as TV-oriented World Wide Web sites. It would also be a means for users – or "viewsers" in industry parlance – to communicate with each other instantly about TV programming, Schuler said. It could also "point" viewers to online ads and services.
Early efforts to blend the Internet and television have been underwhelming. WebTV has fallen well short of expectations, selling just 500,000 units in three years, according to independent analyst Gary Arlen.
But with its well-known brand name and easy-to-use technology, AOL TV could be a hit, Arlen said. "With something like this," he said, "AOL is in a great position to exploit advertising and e-commerce with dozens, if not hundreds, of consumer products companies."
Talks between AOL and Bell Atlantic began over the summer, according to sources close to the conversations. Other Bells also have been discussing DSL marketing arrangements with AOL.
The structures of any arrangements with Bell companies are still under discussion, sources said. "It's encouraging. Things are headed in the right direction," one Bell company official said. "They'd get a new service to offer their customers. And we'd get their reach into millions of homes."
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/washtech/daily/dec98/08/aol120898.htm

AP:
Spacewalkers Finish Connections
— Spacewalking astronauts successfully hooked up 40 electrical connections between the first two pieces of the international space station on Monday, allowing power and data to flow from one side to the other.
To NASA's surprise, the critical wiring job took less time than expected.
Jerry Ross, NASA's most experienced spacewalker, deftly snapped the connectors together as James Newman handed him the attached cables. They were impressed with the seven-story station towering above them.
``This is sure a beautiful piece of hardware,'' Newman said.
Ross worked nonstop from the end of Endeavour's 50-foot robot arm, starting at the bottom with the American-made Unity module. He attached jumper cables there before being hoisted more than 40 feet to the Russian-built Zarya stacked on top.
``Jerry, How's the view?'' Newman called out from below.
``Fantastic if I had time to look,'' Ross replied.
Ross and Newman completed the electrical connections four hours into their planned 6 1/2 -hour spacewalk, the first of three scheduled for this week. About 1 1/2 hours later, flight controllers turned on the power inside the fledgling station; electricity had been shut off to the cables before the spacewalk, for the astronauts' safety.
Endeavour's crew used the robot arm and thruster rockets Sunday to snap together Zarya and Unity, forming a 77-foot, 35-ton tower in Endeavour's cargo bay. Construction of the space station hinged on making the electrical hookups, said NASA's lead flight director, Bob Castle.
Unity, a connecting passageway, needs the solar power generated by the Zarya control module to survive. The computers, heaters and fans inside Unity began humming for the first time in orbit once the electricity started flowing from Zarya.
Working 240 miles above Earth, Ross and Newman had 135 tools at their disposal and a horde of engineers standing by in two countries to offer advice. The spacewalkers tied the most important tools to a pole that jutted from the top of the robot arm — a floating tool belt. Newman also strapped a set to his waist; the tools stretched out behind him as he used a newly installed slide wire to get from one end of the stack to the other.
Newman had the more unwieldy job, Ross the more hand-intensive.
It was up to Newman to unclamp the 20- to 30-foot power cables and hand them, one at a time, to Ross to link to the mate on the other side. At times, cables seemed to float every which way — an octopus, the spacewalkers laughingly called it. The colder the cables, the stiffer they became, making it difficult for Ross to join them.
Before locking the connectors together, Ross inspected each end to make sure the dozens of tiny pins inside were not bent or caked with debris. He handled the connectors gently so as not to damage them. Each was numbered so there would be no mistakes.
Despite the interfering cold, the work went quickly.
``Looking good, man,'' Ross told Newman, ``keep it coming.''
Each man's spacesuit was equipped with a mini jetpack in case their safety lines to the shuttle broke. Endeavour is so loaded that it would be difficult for it to dash after a runaway spacewalker.
NASA deliberately picked two pros for the job and, even then, had both men go through 200 hours of training underwater, the closest approximation to weightlessness on Earth.
Ross, 50, a husky Air Force colonel, has made four previous spacewalks and also has real construction experience. He worked in a steel mill and did highway construction work back in his college days.
The taller, thinner Newman, a 42-year-old physicist, conducted a station-practice spacewalk in 1993.
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