People in the News for May 4, 1998

Stop the presses, we have late-breaking fluff! Hillary Clinton doesn't want to be president! "God, no!" she replied when told that a new Democratic women's group in Boston had selected her as the most viable female presidential candidate. The group, calling itself Why Not a Woman?, held a mock election, the ballot of which named several potential candidates for Miss White House -- Hillary not among them. However, thanks to a strong write-in effort, she won anyway. Although flattered, Mrs. Clinton insisted she has no intention of joining the prez corps. Undaunted, the group -- made up of 75 of the Democratic party's most powerful female donors, organizers and soliciters of soft money -- is hammering out a plan to get a woman to head the presidential ticket within a decade.

Miscellany

Press "stop"! Too late, here's late-breaking prattle about Phil Donahue defending Jerry Springer: Speaking at some ceremonial dinner in Peoria, Ill., the other day, Donahue warned that Big Brother clamping down on the show's hair-pulling, fist-fighting antics would be a grave offense to freedom of speech. Anyway, it's just a fad! "Trash TV will fold," he said. "It is professional wrestling in a way. I went too far occasionally, myself." Springer, meanwhile, says now he won't honor a no-violence agreement his producers reached with "Jerry Springer Show" opponents. "I'm not going to buckle," he says. Whoa, this guy is bonkos!

Compiled by Scott Dickensheets

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