T H E C L I N T O N C R I S I S Have you Yanks gone crazy? By Jurek Martin A British Journalist decries the media-whipped frenzy over President Clinton's private life (01/28/98) A full list of articles - - - - - - - - - - T A B L E_T A L K Explore California's Highway 1 with Wanderlust readers in Table Talk R E C E N T L Y Passages By Ralph McCarthy Four views of the expat's life in Japan (01/28/98) Paradise found By Tracy Johnston An unspoiled oasis in the Egyptian desert (01/27/98) Neglected Classics By Pete Hamill Erico Verissimo's extraordinary "Mexico" deserves to be republished (01/26/98) Mondo Weirdo By Tim Wall Bad trip: The pilots locked themselves out of the cockpit! (01/23/98) Passages By Christopher Hunt Waiting for Fidel (01/22/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Your virtual travel agency - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Passages archives		BY DAVID DOWNIE | An unseasonbly warm January breeze billowed the awnings at the Primula cafe on Camogli's sunwashed seafront promenade. Billowing in counterpoint were dozens of Italian newspapers spread like sails, blocking the Riviera view -- with the faces of President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. "Sexygate," screamed one title. "Pantyville," echoed another, drawing a parallel to Italy's long-running Bribesville political corruption scandal. The regatta of colorful articles in the newspapers Corriere della Sera, Il Sole 24 Ore and Il Secolo XIX ranged from "No Sex with Monica" to "Puritan Allergies," "Caught Red Handed" and "The Risk of Being Ridiculous." Jazzing up the layouts were political cartoons, pie-charts, diagrams and photos (such as "The Metamorphosis of Monica" -- a series showing her at various ages, from awkward-looking teenybopper to unlikely femme fatale). Italy, it seemed, had caught Clinton-Lewinsky fever. Snickers, scoffs and imprecations smote the air of this tranquil seaside resort. "False moralists!" snorted one sporty senior as he rolled up his Corriere and struck at a pigeon. His markedly younger companion dipped her spoon into chocolate ice cream, careful not to drip it on her mink coat, and arched an elegant eyebrow. "He drops his pants and the dollar falls with them," barked a businessman into his cellular telefonino. "When the dollar drops, caro, my prices go up, and my exports go down, and we all earn less. So basta with this comedy!" A nearby table of locals, possibly in real estate or tourism, wondered worriedly when America would declare war on Iraq as an anti-Sexygate diversion, and how many fewer turisti would show up as a consequence. I sighed, bought a bushel of newspapers from a stand in the port, and began preparing myself psychologically for the inevitable battery of questions from friends and colleagues. Americans living abroad are expected to shed light on the mysteries of their country -- in this case the mores and morals that made Sexygate possible. An arduous task indeed. As I headed home, amorous couples mauled each other, balanced precariously on benches overlooking the beach. Kids practiced soccer acrobatics on a playground surrounded by battered fishing boats. Flocks of designer-clad peacocks strolled back and forth, arm-in-arm, chatting contemporaneously and answering their chirping telefonini. The bell of Camogli's gold-encrusted baroque church called in the faithful. I glanced west, toward the land Columbus -- a Genoese -- blundered upon. A land as distant and baffling to Europeans today as it was 500 years ago, despite airplanes, the Internet, globalization and the universal popularity of pesto and focaccia. Over dinner with a group of friends from Genoa and Milan, Sexygate reared its head. "I understand there has been a rush of conversions," said one friend. "Conversions?" I asked. "Yes -- Italian men by the million are becoming Baptists. It's something about great oral traditions ..." When they had wiped the tears of laughter away, one of them soberly paraphrased the doyen of Italian journalism, Indro Montanelli, who in a front-page Corriere della Sera editorial on Jan. 27 wrote of the "grotesque distinction between sex and oral sex" reportedly put forward by the Clinton camp. "A distinction," noted Montanelli, "that would shame even the most obtuse and medieval-minded Inquisitor of the Holy See, provided you could find one these days." From the Italian point of view, the tragedy of Sexygate-Pantyville is not that Clinton may have cheated on his wife, and not even that he or Lewinsky allegedly lied under oath. The real tragedy is that the scandal could happen at all, and make everyone -- from the president on down -- look ridiculous and hence lose legitimacy and power in this mono-Superpower world. Italians, like most Europeans, simply do not care about the private lives of their politicians, and certainly don't consider adultery a just cause for impeaching a president, particularly a popular and effective one. "When it comes to a politician lying," added a Milanese woman friend as she savored her antipasti, "we are so used to that, that I think we would be startled if they told the truth. Besides, it wouldn't be very polite, or gallant, for any man or woman to speak openly about a lover. It's only natural for Clinton to expect Monica to remain silent." Unless Americans really are hypocrites and neo-Puritans, and Clinton a consummate bungler in things amorous, the only explanation, it seemed to my friends, was a plot. The whole affair simply must be a right-wing conspiracy, they said, to remove the liberal, libertarian and possibly libertine Clinton and his long-suffering wife, who were foolish enough to propose sweeping social reforms in a profoundly anti-government country like America. In such a scenario the real culprits, according to the conspiracy theorists, would be Kenneth Starr, in concert with Big Business and vengeful Republicans still embittered by the fall of Richard Nixon. "One thing is sure," concluded my journalist friend, "this could never happen here, no matter how much our society comes to resemble America. Across the political spectrum, no one would be foolish enough to tar a rival over adultery or peccadilloes, oath or no oath, no matter how vulgar, unaesthetic or downright stupid the people involved." We moved from trenette with pesto to Ligurian rabbit fricasséed with pine nuts and herbs, the wine flowed and the mood grew increasingly vaporous. Someone remarked that it would be a miracle indeed if any of Italy's current or former leaders could be so lucky as to attract the attentions of a young lover and stir the passions of a nation. The land of Latin Lovers? Prime Minister Romano Prodi is nicknamed Mister Mortadella; President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, a pious-looking septuagenarian, speaks in a lispy whisper; and former Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti (under investigation for alleged links to the Mafia) is known as the Hunchback or the Big Spider. N E X T+P A G E | The French are amused and disgusted