Misanthrope's Corner.(Congressman Gary A. Condit)(Brief Article)

I've been sitting here trying to calculate how many times I've seen Gary Condit run down the Capitol's back stairs.

I tried multiplying the number of days since the story broke by three (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News), and then multiplying by three again for the number of times a day I watch the news. But wait. What about all the talk shows? Some have been using the stairway clip as a lead-in, repeating it after every commercial break, while others have been putting it in a miniature box in a corner of the screen where it plays over and over during updates, often in slow motion. How could I get an accurate count of that?

It was no use. The only thing I could be sure of was the wisdom of America's leading cliche: It was time to put it behind me and move on, so I turned off the calculator, turned on the TV, and promptly saw Condit running down the stairs again.

Writing about breaking news for a fortnightly publication is risky, but several aspects of the Chandra Levy case have taken on enough permanence to allow for commentary, and one in particular is already etched in marble. I refer to the unidentified "law-enforcement source" who told reporters from the Washington Times that Condit had as many as six other women on the string, adding, "They are all types and ages."

Has inclusion come to this? Chandra is Jewish and Anne Marie Smith appears to be a WASP. Who else will surface? Maybe Condit studied the new Census form and went down the list so he would have one of each . . . Pacific Islander, Inuit, Nordic-Cambodian, Hispano-Amerind, Other. Men used to have a "type" and talked volubly about the distinctive charms of "my kind of woman," but if diversity gathers any more steam they'll soon be walking on eggs about what will no doubt be called the "bedmate community."

One thing you can say for discrimination: It reduces the scoring to manageable proportions. A baseball love life is one thing, but it sounds as if Condit has been playing midnight basketball.

A little discrimination might have kept Chandra out of his orbit. One of the few personal facts to emerge about him is his attachment to his Harley. Here we come to an example of the power of reasonless, rockheaded prejudice in all its vainglory. Chandra's mother, being Jewish, Californian, and younger than I, probably rejects this kind of thinking, but I was raised on it.