Alan Simpson has written an entertaining, irritating, intellectually sloppy memoir of his clashes with the news media during his eighteen years in the U.S. Senate. It is by turns perceptive and obtuse, persuasive and illogical -- all true to form for Washington's most impulsive and mercurial press-basher: the man reporters love to hate because of his stinging diatribes against the coverage of Robert Bork, the gulf war, and Anita Hill; the critic at whom (as Simpson delicately recounts) National Public Radio's Nina Totenberg shouted in a parking-lot confrontation after their joint appearance on Nightline: "(Sex act) you! You big (body part)! You are so full of (human by-product)!"

The newly retired Wyoming Republican is most readable in confessing his own goofs and excesses in pressing for journalistic virtue. There was the time, for instance, when he lashed the press corps for invading Gary Hart's privacy in the matter of his dalliance with Donna Rice, and for forgetting that everyone has his flaws -- even, presumably, Jesus Christ: "Where was he from the age of twelve .. . until the scribes picked him up again when he was about thirty? Likely . . . doing all the things we ever did." The comment created such a public furor that Simpson was forced to issue a clarification: "No possible extension of my remarks could be seen to equate Jesus to Gary Hart."

On a more serious note, he admits to error in lambasting CNN correspondent Peter Arnett, whom Simpson accused of biased reports that made him an Iraqi "sympathizer" during the gulf war. On a tip from an anonymous newsman, Simpson also charged that Arnett had been pro-Vietcong when he was covering Vietnam. This created a furor, and Simpson admitted he could not back up the accusation. He apologized for using the word "sympathizer." As he writes, "I had done exactly what I often criticized the media for doing: I had taken the outrageous claims of an anonymous source and published them without first checking their veracity."

Still, Simpson pulled a similar stunt a few months later during the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings, raising unsubstantiated charges about her ethics and credibility; in his book, Simpson remains unrepentant over this, writing "I wouldn't take back a word of it."

Consistency has never been Simpson's strong suit. He harps in the book on the need for journalists to report only facts, not opinions, and to produce bias-free news. Yet he also argues, quite incongruously, that in time of war American journalists should be "citizens first and reporters second" -- which is to say, biased.

On the plus side, the book is often on target as it skewers the press corps for a prevalent meanness of spirit, a reluctance to acknowledge mistakes, a penchant for laziness, hypocrisy, and cynicism. This critique is hardly original, but Simpson puts it across with a folksy, frequently perverse sense of humor and a barrage of incensed personal anecdotes that might well keep journalists turning pages and chuckling ruefully:

¥ Are we prone to be conveniently gullible when a touch of skepticism might spoil an entertaining story? Among other cases, Simpson recounts the story from the Philippines of a nurse who had both male and female sex organs and was six months pregnant. This phenomenon was reported to the world by Reuters in 1992, and picked up by, among others, USA Today, The Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, the Memphis Commercial Appeal, and the Today show. The alleged hermaphrodite turned out to be a hoaxer.

¥ Are we sometimes cynical about professional ethics? Consider the response to Simpson's habit of brandishing a copy of the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics while faulting reporters for what he regarded as violations. As he recounts in the book, his constant harangues got many D.C. journalists into a lather. Joel Achenbach of The Washington Post ridiculed the code in a Style section piece, concluding: "The truth is, this Code of Ethics is a load of malarkey. Whatever malarkey is. No self-respecting journalist would be caught near this thing. Sure, most of it's fine . . . . But it never gets specific enough -- it ought to say things like 'Journalists should never use the scientific name for snot when they can just say snot.'" It is true that journalists work in gray areas where the ethical course is not always obvious. But by jeering at the very idea of a code of ethics, Achenbach gave Simpson an opening to hammer him and his colleagues as arrogant rogues.

¥ Do reporters shade the facts when they want to stick it to their critics? Consider Simpson's account of his treatment by The Washington Post shortly after he had enraged the media by attacking their coverage of Hill-Thomas. At a birthday lunch for his wife he had made a few bantering remarks -- for example, "I would never have dreamed when I married at twenty-two that I would ever sleep with such a beautiful sixty-year-old woman." To which Barbara Bush jokingly rejoined, "Oh, Al! You are a fright!" Later he encountered feminist Betty Friedan, who refused to shake his hand. A few days later, getting into his car after a White House reception, a demonstrator yelled: "I curse you in the name of Jesus Christ!" Simpson replied: "What a terrible name to use to put a curse on someone." Here's how The Washington Post summed it up: "Capping an active week in which he offended both Betty Friedan and Barbara Bush, Sen. Alan Simpson . . . was seen leaning out of his chauffeured car, shaking his fist and trading epithets with a man carrying an anti-Thomas sign."

Simpson's reaction: "First, I did not offend Betty Friedan; she offended me. Second, I most surely did not offend Barbara Bush, who is my friend and who knows a joke when she hears one. Third, I did not shake my fist or use any epithets. . . . I was portrayed as someone who goes around randomly offending people, and who then goes berserk when approached by a mild-mannered citizen exercising his right to protest . . . . To the newspaper, the story was just a 'cute' item . . . . To me, it was character assassination."

It's easy to gloat that Simpson had it coming. But his complaints should give one pause. At times, we are surely as nasty and biased as he says we are.

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