by Gene Lyons

About the author: Gene Lyons writes a column for the Arkansas Democrat- Gazette and reviews books for Entertainment Weekly. He is the author of Widow’s Web, a 1993 book about a celebrated murder in Arkansas.

The Great Whitewater Political Scandal and Multimedia Extravaganza has always played very differently here in Little Rock than in, say, Washington, New York, or Los Angeles. To read the great metropolitan newspapers, observe the grave demeanor of network TV anchors, and heed the rhetoric of the politicians and radio talk-show hosts who have made the issue their own, one would gather that the republic teeters on the brink of a constitutional crisis. The dread “gate” suffix of Nixonian legend has been applied. Melodramatic charges of bribery, corruption, cover-up, even of suicide and murder...