Tilting at windmills.

• Author: Peters, Charles

Market Chic * Meritocratic Mating * Refinancing the Redskins 43's 42 percent * Sitting Around Soda Fountains.

THE OWNERS OF THE WASHINGton Redskins appear to be exploring the frontiers of capitalism in a way that does not seem sporting. They are refinancing $500 million in club debt with a $700-million loan. Why should I object? After all, they are probably seeking lower interest rates, just like thousands of other Americans. True, but it's the explanation of the increase from $500 to $700 million that I find a bit dicey. "The difference between the old debt package," we discover in the ninth paragraph of a story about the transaction in The Washington Times, "will go to [Dan] Snyder and his investors--father Gerald, sister Michelle, and [U.S. News & World Report publisher] Fred Drasner--as personal Loans." Ppersonal loans for the owners! Wouldn't it be better for fans if the $200 million was used to lower the painfully high ticket prices they pay to see the Redskins?

THE FIRST BUSH ADMINISTRAtion was controlling the White House press corps' agenda, deciding what issues were to be emphasized each day and relegating to the back burner all other matters, however important they might have been. So wrote James Bennet, now of The New York Times, in our November 1991 issue. The article caused enough embarrassment in the media that it almost immediately ceased to be true, and remained untrue during the last year of Bush I and the entire Clinton presidency. But its validity resumed under Bush II and gained strength from the surge of patriotism in the media after 9/11. This spring, however, stories of corporate malfeasance began to threaten the White House's control. You can imagine Karl Rove's worry when stories began to focus on participation by the president and vice president in questionable business practices. So they have given us Iraq, which has proved to be gloriously successful in pushing everything else off the front pages, including pressing domestic problems that desperately need the nation's attention. As we go to press, some Democrats seem to be catching on to what's happening, but it remains to be seen whether or when the press and the public will wake up.

WE THOUGHT WE HAD FOUND the last of the great expense-accounters with the Petrus gang featured here last month, but just after we went to press, we learned about Michael Murphy, a lawyer in Coral Gables, Fla. He is accused of spending $111,000 on prostitutes and, according to The Washington Post, billing them to a client as "routine litigation expenses."

"A CIGARETTE IN THE HANDS OF a Hollywood star onscreen is a gun aimed at a 12- or 14-year-old," writes Joe Eszterhas, a prominent screenwriter who started smoking at 12 because he "wanted so very much to be cool" and whose recent throat cancer cost him much of his larynx. When smoking is written into or made a part of a scene by a writer or director, it is justified on the ground of "creative freedom" and "artistic expression," writes Eszterhas, who then nails the real reason on the head: "laziness." I've made this point before, but Eszterhas makes it better, and he speaks with the authority of an insider and former sinner. "The truth is, there are 1,000 better and more original ways to reveal a character's personality."

HAVE YOU NOTICED THAT THE word "capitalism" is now back in vogue? It had nearly vanished when the "market" was chic. It appears that people like to use "capitalism" when they're attacking the system and "markets" when they're advocating or defending it.

IN THE COURSE OF DOING research on a book about events that took place in 1940, I have been delving into newspapers of the era. Not surprisingly, I found a good many examples for the How Times Have Changed Department. One example is...