Wednesday, January 6, 1999 -- St. Paul, Minnesota -- I was reading the Howell Raines riff which ran the week before Christmas in the New York Times on how "real" journalists don't pay their sources -- a jab at Larry Flynt.

But, as Mr. Flynt pointed out, he made sure that what his sources told him was true, something most of those looking down their noses at him -- such as Raines' good buddy and fellow Timesie Jeff Gerth -- didn't always, or even very often, bother to do.

In fact, offering payment for information was the only journalistic rule Larry Flynt has broken -- which is more than can be said for his critics in the White House press corps.

So let's review a couple of fundamental concepts of journalistic conduct for the benefit of Messrs. Raines and Gerth:

"Real" journalists don't let their desire for a story -- or feelings of indebtedness towards an individual -- cause them to overlook items very, very important to the story, such as the reckless wrongdoing of a chief source.

"Real" journalists also don't get so dependent on one source -- or so determined to cover up that their one source gave them bogus information 90% of the time -- that they willfully ignore all but a few facets of the story.

In addition:

Clinton's enemies have spent hundreds of millions -- if not BILLIONS -- of dollars, public and private, over the past seven-odd years, solely to destroy him. And every single one of their attacks has been shown to be based on bogus information.

Meanwhile, in the space of two months and with a million dollars, plus whatever he's paying his private-investigator firm, Larry Flynt has come up with enough bona-fide, cast-iron info to bring down twelve Congressmen -- one of whom has resigned (as he had been planning to do anyway) to avoid a certain conviction on sex-with-lobbyist charges that would have kept him from the lucrative career of lobbying that he himself seeks.

Let's make this reaalllllly simple now.

Seven years, and billions spent on Whitewater, Filegate, Travelgate, Jonesgate, Menagate, and all the other faux-gates -- and the best the GOP could do was to use the bogus Jones case to create a perjury trap that even the House Republicans knew was weak (which is why that particular article of impeachment failed to pass the full House: something Clinton's lawyers will use if Klayman's Judicial Hogs dare sue the Prez after January 2001).

Two months, and perhaps a million and a half spent, by Larry Flynt -- less than half the money, certainly less than half the time, spent by just the Arkansas Projecteers alone on trying to bring down Bill Clinton -- and he gets the goods, REAL, verifiable, career-ending goods involving on-the-job malfeasance, on twelve hypocritical Members of Congress.

What does this tell you?

It tells me that the folks in mainstream media have been spending too much time on fake scandals while they ignored the real ones.

-- Tamara Baker