WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House concedes it deleted the word
``lie'' four times in issuing a sanitized electronic version of a
press release attacking a critic of President Clinton's health
plan.
  ``We reserve the right to edit,'' said press secretary Dee Dee
Myers after another official at first denied a change had been
made.
  The alteration has angered at least one computer buff,
California attorney Justin Roberts. He suggests the White House
isn't being completely honest on the subject of lies.
  ``Let's not use the information superhighway to distort public
documents,'' he said in a phone interview.
  Roberts said he was surprised when he dialed up White House
documents on his computer and found a watered-down version of a
press release denouncing New York scholar Elizabeth McCaughey for
an article she wrote on the health-care plan in The New Republic
magazine.
  The original 10-page White House press release had used the
phrases ``blatant lie'' and ``yet another lie'' to dismiss her
criticism of the plan and was widely distributed in Washington.
  The episode created something of a tempest, giving the article
far wider attention than it would have otherwise received.
McCaughey defended her views in a succession of newspaper and
television interviews.
  The version available to subscribers of on-line computer
services around the nation was far milder -- replacing ``blatant
lie'' with ``that is wrong'' and other less controversial language.
  Roberts said he sent electronic mail to the White House to find
out why the press release had been altered -- and was told it
wasn't.
  ``You should know that we do not edit or alter documents posted
to (the computer service),'' Jonathan Gill, who oversees the
computer mail operation, wrote to Roberts in e-mail.
  Roberts made a copy of the exchange available to The Associated
Press.
  ``It would appear that the reporter in question may have
obtained an unpublished, earlier draft with a different vocabulary.
Again, we do not alter documents,'' the White House official wrote.
  But the press release was altered, White House officials
conceded on Thursday.
  ``We certainly don't deny that we put out the original
document,'' said Myers. ``There's a different version running on
the computer service.''
  She said Gill should have checked with her first but, ``I don't
think there's anything sinister out there.''
  Gill said on Thursday that he didn't know about the earlier
version -- and didn't mean to misrepresent the White House position.
  Roberts, an attorney in Lafayette, Calif., said he doesn't think
the White House should put out one version of a press release in
Washington then alter it for computer distribution.
  ``The White House explanation is not satisfactory,'' he said.
``The integrity of the information that is available by on-line
access is what is at issue here.''
  Jeff Eller, White House media affairs director, said the newer,
milder version is the one he prefers.
  ``The one that went out with the word lie, inadvertently went
out. It was a mistake. It was my fault.''
  Originally, the White House branded as ``a blatant lie''
McCaughey's assertion that escaping the Clinton health care system
and paying a specialist out of pocket for tests would be ``almost
impossible.'' The altered version says instead: ``that is wrong.''



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