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If you’re a Clinton-Lewinsky junkie and find the all-news channels and nighttime talk shows just don’t fill you up, you should power up your computer and head for the World Wide Web. It is Monica-land.

There are now countless sites devoted to Lewinsky herself, including one called “Monica Lewinsky Photo Heaven,” (www.bossdog.com/java-photo-lab/monica-heaven.html). It is filled with nothing but computer-altered versions of that famous full-face still photo that has by now appeared nearly everywhere.

There is a special site devoted entirely to Linda Tripp (www.Lindatripp.com), which includes an extensive roundup of news stories and documents that have been made public. If you want to read the famous “talking points” Lewinsky allegedly gave Tripp to guide her testimony in the Paula Jones case, this is the place to find it. You’ll also find the statement Tripp released Jan. 29 explaining her role and her motives.

If you are interested in tracing the timeline of this case to see how these events may be related, you could try the remarkably comprehensive site maintained by the British Broadcasting Company (www.news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/special_report/1998/clinton_scandal/). It includes an extensive summary of the case illustrated with color still photos drawn from that celebrated videotape of the president hugging Lewinsky during the South Lawn welcoming ceremony the day after the election in 1996.

The sheer extent of the BBC Lewinsky coverage suggests that the phrase, “No sex please, we’re English,” no longer applies, if it ever did. There are summaries of Clinton’s alleged relationships not only with Monica Lewinsky, but also with Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers, Kathleen Willey and others. In addition, there are audio clips from BBC reports on the case, including one from BBC correspondent Jon Sopel, who airs sound bites from students at Lewinsky’s high school who say she “had a bad reputation … she was called a slut.”

Her lifestyle in Beverly Hills, Sopel says, was “not so much silver spoon, as 24-carat gold.” Sopel supports this with a visit to “the subterranean world of the Los Angeles County archives opposite the courthouse” where he claims the Lewinsky lifestyle is “laid bare” in the papers filed in Lewinsky’s parents’ divorce case.

Sopel takes at face value the estimates her mother filed of her expenses and financial needs. Such estimates are invariably hugely inflated, but Sopel recites them as if they were gospel: $1,800 a month on psychiatrists, $720 a month for tennis lessons, $260 a month for hair and nail care.

It may be exaggerated, but it makes for interesting listening, not least as an example of the sensationalism of British journalism, even as practiced by the supposedly staid BBC.

The Lewinsky case has been a boon to political cartoonists, and some of the best examples are found at a site called simply “White House Sex Scandal Cartoons” (www.cagle.com/scandal/), where the work of such notables as Jeff MacNelly and Jim Borgman can be found. There is an especially amusing MacNelly drawing of the State of the Union Address being delivered by a circus clown, with the speaker of the House pictured with a bag over his head and the vice president with his head face down, buried in his hands.

Lewinsky jokes are a prominent feature of numerous sites, with an especially nasty set available at what is called simply “Clinton/Monica Lewinsky Jokes” (www.byrum.org/the.web.walker/tasteless/monica15.html). When you log on, you find that’s not the real title of the site, which instead is “Monica Lewinsky: White House Trailer Trash Soap Opera.” This is a decidedly anti-Clinton site, though almost no one gets a free ride in the jokes collection.

If you’re looking for a comprehensive site with links to other sites, you should start with the one maintained by Yahoo, the search engine and all-purpose Internet service. The Lewinsky page is called “Full Coverage, Clinton Intern Investigation” (headlines.yahoo.com/Full_Coverage/US/Intern/). Perhaps the best thing about it is that it keeps its news summary up to date, even on weekends.

On the weekend of Feb. 15, for example, by midafternoon, it had links to news stories reporting what had been said about the case on the Sunday morning political talk shows. These were headline summaries, with links to news service sites where more details could be found. There is also an extensive list of links to other Lewinsky Web sites, and to related sites, such as reports on the Paula Jones case and the main Whitewater investigation. This is an excellent starting point.

T.R. Reid is Rocky Mountain bureau chief of the Washington Post. Brit Hume is managing editor of Fox News in Washington. You can reach them in care of the Washington Post Writers Group, 1150 15th St., Washington D.C. 20071-9200, or you can e-mail T.R. Reid at [email protected], or Brit Hume at [email protected].

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