BILL CLINTON used to run but...what's up with this?

There was some mumbling about that on Imus today, I didn't hear all of it.

Maybe just another GOP fable?

"Boston Phoenix"? What the hell is that?

There are two articles at

www.mediabistro.com

one dated today and one dated March 22 on this. The guys' name is spelled B-u-r-k-l-e by the way and the stories essentially works out to what the first poster said: a reporter learns about this Burkle allegedly guy procuring young women for the former POTUS.

Nasty.

Dirty.

But, this could just be NYC media p*ssing contest, too.

Who knows?

The Phoenix is a tabloid that runs weekly in Boston and its' immediate suburbs.

To be honest they do have some decent local reporting on

current events, politics, film and literature but are more known for their...ahem...ADULT pullout section.

Caveat Emptor.

The Phonex may once have been a free weekly, I'm not too sure about that. I believe it gets distributed later in the week.

A former Page Six freelancer who was cleared of trying to extort supermarket magnate Ron Burkle sued him and the Daily News yesterday for allegedly conspiring to libel him.

"I've said from Day One that this was a set-up and a smear campaign," said ex-Post contributor Jared Paul Stern.

Stern, 36, alleges Burkle and his agents orchestrated a scheme to taint him - and, by extension, The Post - in order to "destroy" the newspaper. And he charges the Daily News "was thrilled" to abet Burkle's plot by libelously suggesting in several stories last year that Stern tried to shake down the billionaire for $220,000 in exchange for killing negative stories about Burkle.

Stern is seeking unspecified damages in his Manhattan Supreme Court suit.

He also has named Bill and Hillary Clinton as defendants, saying they allegedly helped their buddy Burkle in his purported scheme as a means to neutralize The Post as a potential stumbling block to Sen. Clinton's presidential aspirations.

Michael Sitrick, both Burkle's spokesman and a defendant in the suit, called it "preposterous."

He noted that Stern's lawyer, Larry Klayman, "is the founder and former chairman of Judicial Watch, which attained notoriety primarily through the initiation of lawsuits against President Clinton and the Clinton administration."

"We are confident that we will prevail in this action," Sitrick said.

Spokesmen for Bill Clinton and the Daily News declined to comment, and Hillary Clinton's spokesman did not immediately respond

Bay Stater wrote:

The Phonex may once have been a free weekly, I'm not too sure about that. I believe it gets distributed later in the week.

still is. they like to rabblerouse. there could be something to it. it's not exactly a rag, but it's not the highest level of journalism, either.

Gossip hound Jared Paul Stern seems determined to wring some cash out of Ron Burkle. A year ago, supermarket tycoon Burkle accused New York Post freelancer Stern of shaking him down for $220,000 in exchange for protection from Page Six, the Post's dishy gossip column, where Stern was a frequent contributor. The FBI and the U.S. attorney's office set up a sting but failed to assemble evidence proving extortion. Stern denied Burkle's accusation, but the Post cut him loose. According to Stern, Burkle had been trying set him up by offering to buy him off. Now Stern is suing Burkle, Burkle pal William Jefferson Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Post rival the New York Daily News, which covered the story with un-self-conscious glee. (Additional defendants are an "ex-secret service agent," a rival reporter, and a "disreputable private investigator.") For sample pages from Stern v. Burkle et al., see below and the following seven pages. (For the entire gossipy 27-page verified complaint, click here. For gossip about the complaint, click here and here.)

The "Factual Allegations" of Stern's claim read like Page Six copy. "Burkle, a powerful, politically connected billionaire who … carries on sexual liaisons with fashion models, some of whom are under the age of consent, ... was concerned ... information about his acrimonious divorce would hamper his ability to ... engage in unsavory and illegal conduct with impunity" (Pages 2 and 3). Burkle tried to "entice, entrap, cajole, browbeat, trick or otherwise coerce" him "into making incriminating statements," and proposed "an investment" in Stern's fledgling prep-chic clothing company, Skull & Bones. But Stern "declined." Burkle then "decided to plant stories" (Page 5).

As his lawyer, Stern has enlisted perpetual litigant and veteran Clinton-hater Larry Klayman, which may account for paragraph 43 (Pages 7 and 8): "Defendant Clinton and his wife, Hillary Clinton … also have a reputation for using such smear tactics, as evidenced by … Monica Lewinsky, Whitewater, Filegate, Chinagate … that embroiled their administration in one scandal after another from 1992 to 2000."

We've finally had a chance to read former New York Post reporter Jared Paul Stern's lawsuit against shopping-market magnate Ron Burkle, filed today. One of Stern's lawyers for his new lawsuit, Larry Klayman, has already sued the Clintons endlessly—some say crazily!—so it's no surprise that there's tons of anti-Clinton stuff in JPS v. Burkle and everyone else. But what else is the truth, according to Jared Paul Stern's filing today?

1. Frank Renzi, former Secret Service, later head of security for Burkle's company Yucaipa, in cooperation with P.I. Richard Di Sabatino, ran surveillance and "dirt-gathering" on Richard Johnson, his family, and other Page Six staffers.

2. Tom Harvey, New York lawyer, is a frequent source on his own clients for Page Six.

3. Publicist Michael Sitrick pimped all the Burkle info to the NY Daily News, telling them Stern was about to be arrested for extortion after a recorded meeting between Stern and Burkle.

4. Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton helped in the schemes!

5. Reporters disturbed Jared's dog!

6. Ron Burkle owns Radar.

7. Radar called JPS "extortionate."

8. The Clintons have more than 40 scandals, including Whitewater, Filegate, Travelgate, and Chinagate. (Which one was Chinagate?)

9. Then Pellicano shows up in the mix! Is that thing still going on? Pellicano is like Hitler: Once you mention his name, all rational conversation stops.

10. Burkle pays Bill Clinton $12 to $15 million a year.

11. Burkle's house is a scene of numerous debaucheries!

12. Our favorite New York Post cartoonist Sean Delonas gets a mention!

13. And to the six counts! Libel, emotional distress, interference in business relationship, injurious falsehood, abuse of process, civil conspiracy. Of course, a call for jury trial.

Point taken.

No argument about the Phoenix' philosophy or journalistic ethics. Thanks for clearing up the "free paper" question in my mind by the way.

What's the old saying? You get what you PAY for.

This ought to be entertaining in a typically Clintonish way.

Those two just draw the lightning.

I'd like to have Hillary give me some pointers on commodities trading.

What is it about guys named Stern? They always seem to be involved in muck of one type or another.

Chinagate was either

1. selling the satellite naviation systems on some US missles to the PRC.

Yes, selling missle info to China.

I recall it being some cancerous outgrowth from the "if they have the same missle technology for their nukes as we have then we won't bomb each other" or some 'let-us-all-hold-hands-and-sing-kumbaya' school of thought that comes out of the Left side of Yale and Columbia.

or

2. The Buddhist Temple money donation imbroglio in which the Clinton Administration got a pass from the press. I have a vague memory of Gore saying there was "no controlling legal authority" to which he or Clinton had to answer to in re the reporting of some large campaign fund contribution made by 'buddhist temple(s)' on the Left Coast.

this upcoming campaign will be the nastiest, dirtiest most embarassing of all time

I can't wait

Sorry ZaZOOm but what's so wild about a sex scandal involving Bill Clinton in any capacity? We should be used to that by now.