(FORTUNE Magazine) – Sitting at the PC, one calls up the Lexis directory, selects Nexis as the database one most yearns to search, then hovers over any number of news stories and cackles triumphantly if and when the facts turn out as desired. As is occasionally hinted around here, your servant gets into this sequence quite a lot, and we were into it again in some recent Clinton-related searches. Here, served up at random, are some gleanings about Bill hot off the database. (1) If on July 27 you asked for all news stories in which the word ''Clinton'' appears within 20 words of ''broken promises,'' you are presented with 364 entries to choose from. (2) Clinton's U.N. ambassador, Madeleine Albright, got a laugh at the Gridiron Dinner by referring to presidential aide George Stephanopoulos as Stuffing Envelopes. (3) Jay Leno has a routine in which Clinton is an Indian named Broken Promises. (4) In May 1990, when he was a congressional staffer, Stephanopoulos was quoted in Newsweek as explaining why he watched the TV show Twin Peaks: ''Everyone at parties is talking about it.'' (5) The fractured commitments mentioned most often are the middle-class tax cut, the flip-flop on admitting Haitian refugees, the backing away from aid to Bosnia, and the retreat on gays in the military. (6) During last year's Democratic primaries, the Clinton campaign, of which Stephanopoulos was deputy manager, was famous for its ability to instantly clobber opposing candidates with ''negative research'' gleaned from, inter alia, computer files. (7) Stephanopoulos has a neat explanation for the negative reporting about Bill's promises. He says reporters today all have computers, which means they can look up promises too easily. His bottom line: ''We have become hostage to Lexis-Nexis.'' He may have a point, at that.