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Draft 4/23/97 ~ m 0PRESIDENT WILLIAM J. CLINTON

WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS DINNER f ~ IT- J.

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A press corps travel manifest for Stage Coach One.And there are artifacts of contemporary Washington journalism as well:

The stack of Bibles upon which Joe Klein swore.Johnny Apple's expense reports.A transcript ofAnn Rice's interview with Bob Novak.The contract where Bob Woodward stipulates the casting ofRobert RedfordA recent recording ofJim Lehrer moderating the dispute between Dan Rather and Tom

Brokaw now that's hard newsAnd a haunting photograph of a young Brian Williams shaking hands with Anchorman

Chet Huntley at the 1961 White House Correspondent's Dinner.And there was a whole wing dedicated to historic scoops. For instance, did you know

that Helen Thomas broke the story about the Lincoln Bedroom . . . while Lincoln was stillsleeping in it

My favorite part of the museum is an exhibit that poses a fascinating question that is bothcontemporary and historical: how would current White House correspondents and the mediahave covered other presidential administrations? Have you seen it? It's incredible

According to this exhibit:Everyone in the current press corps would have made fun ofMillard Fillmore for his~ n a m e Well, everyone except WolfBlitzer: . ...,.. ),

. p ~ ~ ~Maureen Dowd would v e ~ d i s m i s s e d the first election as "politics as usual."Sam Donaldson would have completely ignored the obvious fact that George Washington

wore a w1g Barbara Walters would have asked the father our country, if you could chop down any

kind oftree, what kind of tree would it be?"_r_HMTonight on Crossfire: from the {gt Alexander Hamilton. And from t h ~ left, Aaron Burr.And here's David Brinkley's assessment of the Gettysburg address: "Lincoln is a bore.

Always has been. Always will be."

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The L.A. Times would have uncoveredthe fact that Lafayette was French.cvJ .-

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And most recently, the computer. Yo ~ a y not know this, butwe now have the first computer in And just last e e ; , : ; ~ ice President and I u s e ~ part of our radio dress. dv J?. P L c O r f ~ . c J.L

I believe we are once again at the threshold of a new era that will forever change the way u \P.residents conduct matters at h orne and abroad. As ofthis week, I ve been working around the . :.oClock, trying to balance the budget with Quicken. . e

-. . / n ;1 '\;,s: 6 1 ~Connecting directly to the Kremlin's website via the red modem. / v v r :v L--U Ladies and Gentlemen: I believe that in the post-Cold War era, the introduction of a

computer in the Oval Office begs the question: whose finger do you want coritrol-alt-deletebutton?

But do you know what my favorite button on the computer is? F-2. Search and replace.I can t tell you how much more I ve been enjoying the daily press clips now that I read them online and I ve learned about "search and replace."

After all, your news reports are just a rough first draft of history. I m just using theF-2key to do a little editing. '

Let 's take all the news stories you've written in the past month. F-2 Search for: "budgetstandstill." Replace with "peace at home and abroad."

See, isn' t that better?F-2. Search for "political turmoil" Replace with .... "sustained economic growth."F-;LSoar