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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jlallen who wrote (39229)	3/18/1999 10:37:00 AM
From: DMaA	Respond to of 67261

Phony "Drifters" raise money for party of phonies. Inside Politics News and political dispatches from around the nation By Greg Pierce THE WASHINGTON TIMES Impostors The word "irony" was invented for days like Tuesday, when legendary rock 'n' roll performers descended on Capitol Hill to complain about impostors ripping off their music and their names. Only hours later, President Clinton was serenaded in Florida by a group that claimed to be the Drifters. "They are bogus, that's for sure," a congressional source said of the rock group that played for a $500,000 Democratic National Committee fund-raiser in Stuart, Fla., attended by the president. Two members of the real Drifters -- Charlie Thomas and Bill Pinkney -- were in Washington that same day to lobby for legislation sponsored by Reps. Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio Democrat, and Charlie Norwood, Georgia Republican, that would amend copyright law to give musical performers more protection from impostors. Meanwhile, the performers at the DNC fund-raiser sang the Drifters' hit "Stand by Me," leading Mr. Clinton to remark that he couldn't help but think "about how the American people stood by me through thick and thin." "This country has got to get over believing that our political life is about beating each other up and hurting people instead of lifting people up and bringing them together," he said. Mr. Norwood, at the Tuesday press conference on the Hill, said impostors had performed at Mr. Clinton's inaugurals in 1992 and 1996. "When rock 'n' roll fans pay for the original Drifters to play for their reunion, they ought to have some kind of assurance that the group that shows up is the group they paid for," Mr. Norwood said. A spokeswoman for the DNC said yesterday that the group that performed at the fund-raiser was booked through a publicist hired by trial attorney Willie Gary, at whose home the event was held. "I did hear that they were very entertaining," said DNC press secretary Melissa Bonney Ratcliff. "I wish something could be done" about the impostor problem, Mr. Pinkney told this column in a phone interview yesterday, referring to rip-offs of his group and others such as the Platters, Coasters and Supremes.