Having written and/or published here on the 'Net for almost four years, I knew that I was taking a risk by asking for reader response to yesterday's Day One article. Worse still, because of an experiment I made in staging the poll on a form which proved not to work, I launched last night's issue later than has generally been my habit since we resumed publishing daily. I launched at approximately 11:00 p.m. (PDT)

Thus I was pleasantly surprised this morning at 9:30 a.m. , when I opened the magazine's e-mail box and found eight responses to the Monicagate Poll. I had been very willing to let the poll run until the end of the week, in order to get any response. As the day wore on, and more responses trickled in, I actually decided to promote it with our internal mailing list.

Should G21 begin Monicagate coverage? Send us your opinions by taking part in our Reader Poll.

So today I'd like to share with you some of the comments YOU, our readers, have written on the subject of Monicagate coverage in general, and G21 taking part in particular. I'll close with the poll results as of 5:00 p.m. (PDT) when we went "to press."

Dan L. [No City or State Provided] wrote in:

"If the level of examination, exposition & discussion is kept at a level several steps above what is currently available in the media, then I think this would be a worthy topic. "The legal, constitutional & political issues this entire Burma raises will be very significant in the years to come."

Gail S.[No City or State Provided] had this to say:

"No, no, no. Monicagate is a waste of time, newsprint, and our tax dollars."

And this from frequent Loyal Rooter, Darryl C. of Hershey, PA:

"Rod,

You should only cover the story if you and your writers are committed to writing about this matter from a perspective that is markedly different from what we have been receiving from the mainstream press and the the so-called alternative mainstream press. That is, a no holds-barred look at this entire menagerie of players. None of these people - not Clinton, Lewinsky, Starr, Linda Tripp, Paula Jones et al. - are either honorable folks or properly aggrieved parties and none of them deserve a nickel's worth of reverence or sympathy. Although I believe that the charges against Clinton are a crock, I believe that any adult who would willfully lie about whether or not he had ever taken a toke on a joint of weed has probably lied about so many things that sooner or later his bad karma has to catch up with him."

Then there was this from Laurie[No City or State Provided] over on AOL:

"Hi,

"Personally I think that everything that could have been said about Monica Lew..... has been said and even every little "gory detail" surfaced per the apologetic embarrassment of many reporters! Enough is enough! Boy if we (American's) don't look like the backside of a horse's ass to other countries because of this nonsense! I for one ( and probably many) will be glad when this ridiculous dribble ceases to invade our sensibilities via every avenue of news reporting!"

And my old friend, and fellow-writer, Yona R., San Francisco, sent in this:

i say yes.. let it ripp. how much fun do you want to miss by being so damn pc. i mean really. dissin' bill and monica is fun!! well at least if your a bit bored it is... yo

But Joseph V. of Columbus, OH. had this to say:

"Dear Editor,

"I really would like for the national media to do as you do and that is - - virtually ignore Monica. Two nights ago, we tuned CNNs World News program and after 15 minutes of the 30-minute program devoted to Monica, we turned them off. We only stayed that long hoping we would get some real `world news.' Media should get a life!

The only thing all this coverage proves is that: "It is possible to get sex from Aides!"

Regards JLV

So there's a representative sample of what the G21 E-Mailbag has been like all day. Obviously, I can't quote each and every e-mail in this limited space, but suffice it to say that after watching the scales move all day --- from 3:1 AGAINST our doing Monicagate, to 4:1 against, then back to 3:1 at press-time --- your message seems loud and clear.

I have been learning a lot over the past four - five months about the "new" demographic of this magazine. Over the course of this year, two facts have emerged: 1) A larger share of our readership accesses this site from the office, and 2) you're a literate lot with well-honed senses of humor who don't fit into what the Spin Doctors and professional Political Consultants define as the model for "liberals" or "conservatives."

Two examples to close this article:

• You continue to read and care about a magazine with a very diverse and electic staff. 20% of the writers here are self-acknowledged Libertarians, while the Publisher is a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat who has spent the last three-plus years of his 'Net writing career producing (sometimes vitriolic) criticism of the Democratic President.
• I was reminded of that latter today when, also in the e-mail bag, was a missive from a couple who had stumbled upon a scathing "rant" I wrote for nrv8 in June of 1996. (I was castigating Dollar Bill on his record as regards labor issues, and organized labor for pandering to a candidate who had reamed them at every significant turn.) They wanted to know the derivation of paraphrase I used in the article. ("Are you gonnah believe me or your lyin' eyes?") I thanked them for reading and taking the time to write me about the article, one of many I had long-since figured NO ONE ever saw. (Yes, I also shared the Richard Pryor joke.)

I mention these examples because, I would like to believe, while my 'Net writing and publishing has been edgy, it has also been substantive.

Note that I am leaving the Poll active until the end of this edition, on Saturday. I believe, in fairness to the 50% of the writers here who support Monicagate coverage, that's the only way to get a guage of reader sentiment.