Topical Take
The Fourth of July and Dominion Day
INDEPENDENCE
from The Face Of The Tiger
Mark Steyn
July 7th 2004
ON THURSDAY, to celebrate America’s Independence Day, I celebrated America’s independence – not just from George III but from the rest of what passes for the civilised world. You only have to listen to a couple of minutes of any BBC current affairs show or glance at the front pages of any Continental newspaper (or even, on particularly bad days, read selected Telegraph columnists) to realise that America is the western world’s odd man out, and has been increasingly since September 11th.
Personally, I couldn’t be happier about it. I’m delighted the United States is “out of step” with, say, Belgium. Not because I’m Belgophobic. If the Belgians want to support the International Criminal Court, keep Saddam in office until his nuke arsenal is ready to fly, and continue subsidising Yasser Arafat’s pay-offs to the relicts of suicide bombers, that’s fine, go ahead, you’re an independent nation.
Unfortunately, on the European side, it’s the very concept of independence that’s at issue. The Rest Of The West disputes not America’s positions so much as their right to have positions. To do so is “unilateralist” – which is, when you think about it, just another word for “independent”. When your positions are as independent of the global consensus as those of Mr Bush then you must be – all together now – “arrogant”. Or so we are assured by such famously modest types as John Simpson, the liberator of Kabul, and his anonymous interviewee in these pages last week, the “leading British civil servant” who complained about the President’s “arrogance” while describing him as “a bear of very little brain”.
One sympathises with Sir Hugh Sless-Auld-ffarquahar, GCMG or whoever it was. Obviously, the Presidency of the United States has never attracted the same calibre of talent as the Deputy Permanent Under-Secretaryship of the Ministry of Car Parks. But I wonder if this is quite the way to ensure Britain’s voice is heard in Washington. In their haste to line up at the Eurinals and spray their contempt over Bush, the Smug-ffarquahars of the world have settled on the line that Mr Bush is presuming to “announce to the Palestinians who should and shouldn’t be their leader.” Actually, that’s not what the President said and, in fact, it’s the Euro-elite who tell people who they can vote for. In February, Louis Michel, the Belgian Foreign Minister, speaking on behalf of the EU, threatened sanctions against Italy if they voted for Umberto Bossi’s Northern League. Nothing “arrogant” about that, apparently.
In other words, the Michels and Pattens and Smug-Pratts are indulging in what the psychologists call displacement. Mr Bush is a polite, modest fellow. He speaks softly because he carries the world’s biggest stick. Conversely, the Europeans speak ever more shrilly because their twig is even tinier than Osama bin Laden’s notoriously small penis. If they wanted to, they could make the twig bigger, by spending more on defence. But they’ve made a conscious decision not to: the EU has embarked on a unique scheme for world domination dependent on hectoring the rest of the planet into submission. If Mr Bush is allowed to go his own way, the European strategy of noisy impotence – all mouth and no trousers – will be exposed as a sham.
But America is also an historical anomaly: the first non-imperial superpower. It has no colonies and no desire for any. For almost 60 years, it’s paid for the defence of the west virtually single-handed while creating and supporting structures – the UN, Nato, G8 – that exist only to allow its “allies” to pretend they’re on an equal footing. For “allies”, read dependencies: it’s because the US provides generous charity defence guarantees that the European governments have been free to fritter away their revenues on socialised health care and lavish welfare and all the other entitlements the Euro-progressives berate America for not providing for its own citizens. The non-arrogance of Washington is unparalleled in human history: it’s American muscle that tames Bosnia but it’s the risibly pompous Paddy Ashdown who gets to swank about the joint playing EU viceroy.
In Washington, meanwhile, cooler assessments are being made. America knows now what multilateralism boils down to: There’s no point pooling resources with people who have no resources to pool. There’s no point getting together and forming a whole that’s less than the sum of your individual part.
If that sounds “arrogant” to Europe, well, do something about it. You don’t want Bush to topple Saddam? Fine. Sign a mutual defence pact with Baghdad. You like Yasser that much? Send your mythical Rapid Reaction Force to guard Ramallah. That’s what real powers do. But sneering civil servants being patronising about colonials isn’t going to cut it. That argument was settled in 1776.
YOUNG IN PARTS
Happy Canada Day. In the United States, they have Independence Day; in Ireland, St. Patrick’s Day; in France, Bastille Day; in Serbia, Genocidal Whacko Appreciation Day. But here in Canada we need a Day to remind us that we’re in Canada.
We’ve had Canada Day for two decades now, and most Canadians will have no difficulty agreeing on which was the greatest Canada Day of all: July 1, 1989. It was 15 years ago today that Hugh Hefner, who’s always been partial to maple babes, wed Canuck Playmate Kimberley Conrad. Romance had sparked a few months earlier when Hef had come up to Conrad in the Playboy Mansion and said, “I looked at your data sheet, I think it’s wonderful.” If you’re a non-subscriber, the data sheet is on the reverse of the centre spread. It’s where Kimberley had listed her likes (blue jeans, midnight walks on the beach, G-strings) and dislikes (gossip, pretentious people).
Sadly, despite a wonderful data sheet, the landmark Canada Day marriage didn’t last. But then that too is quintessentially Canadian: Dominion Day didn’t last, the Red Ensign didn’t last, the Oath of Allegiance our new citizens will take today is good for maybe another half-decade … Last year, some professor proposed strengthening our heritage by renaming Victoria Day Heritage Day: we strengthen our heritage by obliterating it, by doing a Hef and turning it in for a younger model.
So, as every Canadian symbol is permanently up for grabs I’d like to propose - in honour of Kimberly, Shannon Tweed, Pamela Anderson and our other glorious centerfolds, changing Canada Day to Playmate Day. For what else is modern Canadian identity but a non-stop ongoing Playboy shoot? Once upon a time, we were a simple, wholesome farm girl, fresh-faced and freckle-cheeked. But then we were advised, if we really wanted to get on in the world, we ought to get some work done - a shot of collagen here, a little electrolysis there, and maybe change that clunky “Dominion” name to something a bit sexier. We had flag surgery in 1965, an anthem augmentation job in 1980, and of course, in 1982, those fabulous double C-cup implants – the Constitution and Charter. Like Kimberley we had fallen under the spell of a wrinkly old swinger (Pierre Trudeau). “Sure, an 1867 BNA size is fine if you wanna do wet T-shirt contests in Thunder Bay for the rest of your life,” he said. “But the guys won’t be able to take their eyes off your low-cut plunging Charter.”
But somehow it didn’t work out quite like that. They’ve leaked everywhere, the Quebec nipple is pointing in a different direction from the ROC one and, no matter what you do to it, it’s impossible to arouse. Occasionally, like Pamela, we look in the mirror and wonder whether we shouldn’t just have ‘em taken out. But once you start with plastic surgery, it’s hard to stop. We’ve reached that stage now where, when we’re filling in the data sheet, we fudge the age question. At the Jacques Cartier pier in Montreal a couple of Canada Days ago, I heard Lucienne Robillard address a group of new citizens: “Fifty years ago, we were British subjects,” she said. “We forget how young a country we really are.”
Do we? Actually Lucienne Robillard seems to have forgotten how old a country we really are. A few days earlier, the nation had marked the 500th anniversary of Cabot’s landing – half a millennium of history, centuries of constitutional evolution. But we persist in lying about our age. Like a professional virgin, we flutter our lids and tell Hef that sometimes we forget how young we really are.
“And how young are you?”
"Oh, sixteen going on seventeen.”
“And how long has that been going on?”
“Er, since 1497.”
Around the Cabot anniversary, my colleague Andrew Coyne wrote a paean to the mystique of our ancient kingdom. Excellent stuff - except that, in modern Canadian terms, Andrew sounds a bit of a nutcake. Ours is a present-tense culture: We have no use for the past, except to rewrite it: we declare Louis Riel a Father of Confederation, which is true in the sense that Sir John A. Macdonald was a trailblazing gay. Even those little lavishly funded “heritage minutes” they show on the CBC aren’t averse to peddling bunk. Take that one where Queen Victoria, on the eve of July 1, 1867, expresses herself amazed that her Governor-General will apparently be responsible to the Canadian Parliament. Give me a break: insofar as they were responsible to anyone, they were the representatives of the British government for the first half-century of Confederation.
There’s something a little totalitarian about this. In Cambodia, Pol Pot ushered in Year Zero: history began with him. But, in fairness to the old mass murderer, he did not intend to halt history itself, to deny the passage of time, to establish a permanent Year Zero. That’s been left to Canada the lo-cal, easy-listening “Cambodia of the frozen north”. The symbols of our national identity are banal and evasive, beginning with the federally funded cardboard hats emblazoned “La fete du Canada, affichez votre sourire!” – a message from “Patrimoine Canadien” which, roughly translated, means “Smile! You’re in non-candid Canada!”
So we have one of the most recognizable flags in the world, but, unlike other recognizable flags, ours says nothing: It’s a logo. By contrast, Britain’s and America’s flags say: this is whence we came and who we are. The Maple Leaf, unlike the old Red Ensign ducks that question. Admittedly, the Red Ensign was a boring flag, but one of the signs of a nation secure in itself is the confidence to have a boring flag - like France. The best logo in the world won’t compensate for a wobbly product.
If only in that sense, Canada’s flag is an apt national symbol: the first of our great evasions, from which all others have followed. Sure, millions of people love it, just as millions of people love those Playmate centrefolds, air-brushed to perfection, dunked in a vat of industrial strength depilator, with every little awkward distinctive characteristic removed. What’s not to love? But isn’t it also a little bland, sterile, plastic?
Years ago they used to say: “What’s the difference between Dominion Day and Independence Day? About 48 hours.” Cute. But, if it was ever true, it isn’t now: Can you imagine Washington changing the Fourth of July to America Day? Federally funding the parades and fireworks? Distributing cardboard hats saying “Smile – it’s America Day!”? Saying “Hey, that old Uncle Sam guy’s gotta go. He’s not inclusive enough. And who wears tails with those striped pants these days?” Americans are novelty junkies when it comes to the Flavour of the Day at Starbuck’s (decaf-hazelnut-raspberry-Eurasian milfoil-latte), but not about what counts: flags, constitutions, anthems, Pledges of Allegiance.
We have, in the main, Pierre Trudeau to thank for this unconvincing makeover. In essence, he imposed his own image on the whole country: He was prime minister in his 50s and 60s, but determined to be the oldest swinger in town. Eventually, he moved on, as swingers always do, but he left us with the inane rictus grin of our medicare-funded face-lift. Pace Mme. Robillard, we are not a young country, but we are an immature one. Happy Playmate Day.
SLICK WILLIE HYPE WEEK SPECIAL!
AN A-Z OF THE CLINTON YEARS
from The Spectator, January 13th 2001
SO here we are. The Clinton administration is finally reaching, in the preferred formulation of the Starr report, 'completion'. In his political life, as in his sexual adventures, Bill Clinton is doing all he can to avoid that happy state. But whatever role awaits him - elder statesman, Arkansas Senator, executive vice-president at Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks, night manager of the Erotic Pussycat lap-dancing bar - he will no longer be, so to speak, in our face. I take my hat off to him. Indeed, I take my pants off to him.
He is an amazing paradox: a man whose smallness loomed large, in every sense. We may never get the full measure of the man, but then neither did Monica. In the meantime, herewith an alphabet of fragrant memories from the Clinton era:
A IS FOR AFFIDAVIT:
This was the first administration in US history to keep a standardised denial-of-sex form on file. When Paula Jones's lawyers were sniffing around Arkansas for women who'd undergone similar experiences, a nervous Juanita Broaddrick called her attorney, who in turn contacted an old friend, White House counsel Bruce Lindsay. Shortly afterwards the President's lawyer, Bob Bennett, faxed back the affidavit of another woman who'd denied involvement with Mr Clinton. Mrs Broaddrick's counsel replaced the original name with that of his client and dropped it in the mail. 'I, [Your Name Here], being of sound body, did not have sexual relations with William Jefferson Clinton': with the convenient do-it-yourself Clinton Home Affidavit Kit, you may get groped but there won't be a lot of paperwork.
B IS FOR BLACK:
He was America's first black president, according to novelist Toni Morrison; and the first gay president, according to himself, suggesting to a gay interviewer that gays supported him over impeachment because they understood what it was like to suffer discrimination. He was also the first Indian president, telling a disgruntled Cherokee that he shared the guy's reservations (metaphorically) because he, too, was part-Cherokee. Big Chief Talking Bull had hit upon an ingenious strategy: in the crazed politically correct America of the Nineties, he was the only white male to get away with appropriating the victim role for himself.
C IS 'FOR THE CHILDREN':
Disarmament? 'For the first time in 50 years, no nuclear missiles are targeted at American children.' African genocide? 'When you look at those children who greeted us, ' he told the Rwandans in 1998, 'how could anyone say they did not want those children to have a chance to have their own children?' Middle East peace? 'President Clinton stood before the Palestinian National Council and spoke of two profoundly emotional experiences in less than 24 hours. One of these was his meeting with the children of jailed Palestinian Arab terrorists. The other experience was meeting Israelis, some little children whose fathers had been killed in the conflict with Palestinians.' No such meeting ever took place. As Elizabeth Wurtzel observed in her book Bitch, Bill Clinton 'has made being full of shit not just a mere peccadillo, but in fact the greater part of his personality'.
D IS FOR DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS:
His was the first First Penis to have an official statement issued on its behalf, following its formal examination by Captain Kevin O'Connell of the National Naval Medical Center as Exhibit A in Paula Jones's sexual harassment suit. 'In terms of size, shape, direction, ' announced his lawyer Bob Bennett, 'the President is a normal man' - ie, it is not a crook.
E IS FOR THE ECONOMY:
Mr Clinton decided early on not to get in the way of American capitalism's boundless resourcefulness and instead to concentrate on honing his low-brow burlesque act - it's not the economy, stupid; it's the stupidity, economists! His presidency is a monument to the marginalisation of politics in America and the most heartening repudiation of the theory that politicians 'manage' the economy.
F IS FOR 'FRIENDS OF BILL':
The original FOBs of 1992 mostly wound up dead, in jail or drowning in legal bills, but fortunately there were thousands more waiting to sign up in return for a night in the Lincoln Bedroom. To the Clintons, there's no such thing as strangers, just friends whose cheques haven't yet cleared.
G IS FOR GUCCIONE vs HEFNER:
Few presidents have been so concerned about expanding job opportunities for women, and, under Mr Clinton, many of have gone on to enjoy rewarding mid-life career changes from obscure state employee to Penthouse Pet of the Month. Sally Perdue and Elizabeth Ward Gracen stripped for Hugh Hefner's Playboy, Gennifer Flowers and Connie Hamzey for Bob Guccione's Penthouse. Paula Jones joined the latter ranks just a month or two back, making the final score: Guccione 3 Hef 2.
H IS FOR HOLY BIBLE:
He never travelled without his. In 1996, he strolled out of his church after the Easter service, waved his trusty bible to the crowds, and then went back to the Oval Office to help Monica observe the resurrection in a more personal sense.
I IS FOR IS:
'It depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is.' Alas, he never did let us in on his definition.
J IS FOR ‘THE JOY OF NON-SEX’:
Mr Clinton's forthcoming memoir.
K IS FOR KENNY G:
Say what you like about JFK but at least he took time out from nailing Marilyn to sit through the odd White House cello recital. Mr Clinton couldn't be bothered. For his gala banquet for Tony Blair, he booked Stevie Wonder and Elton John. A year ago, he spent the soi-disant millennium watching Tom Jones singing 'I'm gonna wait till the midnight hour. . . .' And when the White House released the names on their 2000 guest list, in the 'Arts & Letters' category the nearest thing to an artist is the Lite FM soporific clarinettist Kenny G, and the nearest thing to 'Letters' is his surname, which is one.
L IS FOR LAWN:
He installed a $7,500 hot tub on the White House lawn. Questioned as to whether this was appropriate for 'the people's house', press spokesman Mike McCurry said it would be the people's hot tub.
M IS FOR MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR:
He was the first boomer to realise the two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. According to Mrs Clinton's spokeswoman, the First Couple's dormant sexual relationship was rekindled by their late-night discussions during the Nato strikes against Milosevic. So, if it's any consolation to those bombed out Serb rail commuters and Chinese embassy employees, the earth moved for Bill and Hill, too.
N IS FOR NICHOLSON BAKER:
Monica asked Bill how he was enjoying Vox, the Nicholson Baker phone-sex novel she gave him. He replied that so far it was great but he was only up to chapter four. As the distinguishing characteristic of Vox is that it has no chapters, Monica went away wounded by the President's deceit. But even a pathological liar has to keep in shape, and it was all those little white lies that enabled Mr Clinton to keep on top of the big black lies at the heart of his presidency.
O IS FOR ONE MO' TIME!:
He was elected president twice. He had time to watch Harrison Ford in Air Force One twice. I’m a film critic and I only had time to watch it once. And he had time to rape Juanita Broaddrick twice, according to her sealed testimony to the House investigators ('Then he said, "My God, I can do it again!" And he did.').
P IS FOR PUSSY:
Some years back, asked what he and the President talked about during their frequent afternoons on the golf course, Clinton confidant Vernon Jordan replied succinctly, 'Pussy.' Presumably this is a reference to Kathleen Willey's late cat, who mysteriously disappeared after she went public with her accusations against the President.
Q IS FOR QUEEN, BEAUTY:
Mr Clinton has had relationships with at least three winners of the Miss Arkansas competition: Sally Perdue, Miss Arkansas 1958; Lencola Sullivan, Miss Arkansas 1980; Elizabeth Ward Gracen, Miss Arkansas 1982.
R IS FOR REPUBLICANS:
As some of them began to realise during the ever leftward drift of the Gore campaign, Republicans will never get a better Democrat in the White House than Bill Clinton. His cheerleaders in the press gleefully hailed him as a genius: according to them, he stole all the GOP's most popular policies and then tagged 'em as extremists for sticking with the handful he hadn't bothered purloining. This argument would have more merit applied to Tony Blair or Canada's Jean Chretien, both of whom ran in Tory clothes and came close to demolishing their countries' respective Conservative parties. But the funny thing about Bill Clinton is that his move to the centre came without any political benefits for his party: everywhere you look - the state legislatures, the House, the Senate - there are now far more Republicans than there were in 1992. Clinton's stewardship of the Democratic party was great for Clinton, lousy for Democrats. As in his sex life, there was no reciprocity.
S IS FOR THE SMALL-BREAST DEFENCE:
When Kathleen Willey accused the President of assault, Monica was crushed: how could the President be unfaithful to her? But Mr Clinton indignantly denied the allegation on the grounds that he'd never grope a woman with such small breasts. If you study the women who disrobed for Playboy and Penthouse, this appears to be one of the less risible Clinton defence arguments.
T IS FOR 'TENDERNESS, TRY A LITTLE ':
The song he sang to Monica in the Oval Office after he told her they'd have to end their dalliance:
She may be weary
Women do get weary
Wearing the same stained dress. . . .
(I quote from memory.) The President always knew when to try a little tenderness. No one was better at feeling our pain - or, as he remarked to Juanita Broaddrick, catching sight of her swollen lip as he left the room, 'You might want to put some ice on that.'
U IS FOR UNDERWEAR:
He was the first president with tax-deductible underwear. Throughout the 1980s, he gave away his old underpants and claimed the gift as a deductible item on his tax return: in 1986, he claimed $2 per pair for three pairs of used briefs; in 1988, $15 for a pair of long johns.
V IS FOR VIETNAM:
In November 2000, he arrived in Vietnam, albeit 30 years late.
W IS FOR WIN:
In January 1998, when scandal broke around him, Mr Clinton got Dick Morris to do a quickie opinion poll. Morris reported that the public would not accept a presidential affair with an intern. In that case, said Mr Clinton, 'we'll just have to win'. That determination to brazen it out is the President's chief legacy to America's political culture. At the time, worldly Dems told us not to worry: the corruption was strictly confined to oral sex, and, sophisticated chaps that we are, we could all understand that, couldn't we? After Al Gore's post-election campaign of the last two months, we now know that Clintonian methods have uses beyond fellatio. Bill Clinton called the Constitution's bluff, and the much vaunted 'checks and balances' proved all but useless in the face of a man who was unchecked and, in certain aspects, unbalanced.
X IS FOR EXIT MUSIC:
He wasn't a star, but he knew the tricks, cracking up at a Russian press conference when Boris Yeltsin said something flakey, corpsing with a corpse, like Sammy Davis yukking it up with Dino at a pro-celeb golf tournament. He understood a crude showbiz rule that, if you behave like a star, you'll get treated like one, a theory that reached its apotheosis in his endless entrance at the 2000 Democratic convention. We all knew he could talk the talk, but that night he walked the walk - and what a walk! It was the sort of thing Nicolae Ceausescu might have done if he'd ever seen Engelbert Humperdinck. But walking off the stage is harder.
Y IS FOR YES:
No Clinton defenders twisted themselves into more pretzel arguments than his feminist cheerleaders. But for one brief moment during the impeachment trial, it looked as though Senator Barbara Mikulski was reconsidering endorsing Mr Clinton's droit de seigneur when she voted 'No' on the motion to dismiss the case. Almost immediately, she stood up and announced that she'd made a mistake: she'd meant to vote 'Yes'. It seems an appropriate comment on the contortions required of Clintonian feminism that, in this instance at least, 'No' does indeed mean 'Yes'.
Z IS FOR ZZZZZZZZZ:
William Jefferson Clinton was America's entertainer-in-chief. But, even with the most frenzied trouser-dropping sex comedies, eventually you've had enough. It wasn't public approval that saved Clinton, but public indifference. By the end, even his sex life bored them. To rise to the presidency from Hot Springs - a town where there's no right side of the tracks - is an amazing feat. To survive in office despite being your own smokin' gun is spectacular. And yet what, ultimately, was it all for? He maintained his high 'job approval' ratings because he never did anything that didn't come pre-approved. All he could do was tell us he was indispensable, despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary.
And now that completion is about to be reached, what's left? Alan Greenspan. Republican Governors. Cigar jokes. Celebrity, unlike fame, requires a living presence and from now on William Jefferson Clinton will have difficulty holding our attention. He will always be there, the DNA stain on the Constitution. But the American people will shrug him off. He will, as always, be hungry for love. But from now on he'll find that they're the ones who won't reciprocate.
Exclusive interview!
THE DRESS SPEAKS!
from The Daily Telegraph, August 22nd 1998
August 22, 2018
SHE is older now, her once-dazzling looks undeniably faded, her famous beauty worn and creased. "Sorry about that," she says. "I was supposed to get ironed yesterday."
Yes, it's "that dress" - the dress that, 20 years ago this month, held the fate of a presidency in her lap. It has been two decades since the day she gave her dramatic testimony to the grand jury and then promptly disappeared into the federal witness protection programme. Even as she recalls her brief moment in the spotlight, she looks drawn.
But that's because, following extensive reconstruction surgery, she's been living quietly as a pair of curtains in Idaho. "What do you think?" she says, saucily brushing her hem against the sill as her pleats ripple across the mullions. "It cost less than Paula Jones's nose job."
To be honest, I was lucky to get the interview. The dress was supposed to be doing the BBC - the full "Panorama special" treatment, Martin Bashir, the works - but, to protect her identity, they wanted to do that funny little trick with the camera that makes part of the screen go all fuzzy and blurry. "Are you crazy?" she yelled at them. "It'll look like I've still got the stain."
But, even for our meeting, when the Daily Telegraph photographer arrived, I was concerned we might be placing her life in danger. "For heaven's sake. I'm a pair of curtains," she snapped. "Just pull me together and the whole room will be plunged into darkness." For an instant, you glimpsed the quick-wittedness that saw her through the dark days of January 1998 and her last visit to the Oval Office.
"I was couriered over in a Dunkin' Donuts bag," she recalls sadly. "I said to the President, `Bill, what happened to the limo? What happened to all the things we were going to do together? You said you were going to make an honest dress out of me; you said you'd have Barbra Streisand wear me to the banquet for Tony Blair. You still love me, don't you, Bill?' I was hysterical.
"'Sure, baby, sure,' he purred, running his finger along my seam. `Hey, tell you what, why don't the two of us stroll over to Hillary's office and I'll show you the Whitewater document shredder?' I knew then that, if I got out of the White House in one piece that night, I had to cut a deal with Ken Starr."
She gives a rueful shrug. "Guess I'm not the first cocktail dress to find out the hard way that men always go back to the dowdy little pant-suit at home. I can't blame him - I knew what I was doing. But he made me feet sexy, vibrant, alive in the very fibres of my being. He loved the way I could be worn without a bra. `You're an amazing dress,' he said. `Do you have under-wiring?' I said, `No, that's Linda Tripp.' "
I inquire, gently, how Ken Starr had found out about her.
"Well, several witnesses had described me and he'd had police draw up a composite sketch, which he pinned up in a composite Sketchley's. Little did he know that, in fact, I was hanging in Monica's mom's closet with no one to talk to but a pair of souvenir pantaloons once worn by Placido Domingo in Simone Boccanegra."
At first, she had scoffed at the notion of entering the witness protection programme. But then, late one night at the FBI crime lab, when she was lying on the examination table waiting for the DNA test, the President burst in. "He said, `Is this the right way to the Pentagon? I need to find out if there are any more countries I can bomb.' The nice boy from forensics was in the middle of giving him directions when Bill `accidentally' tripped and sent his McDonald's super-size vanilla shake, Xtra-large chilli fries and three-quarter-pound Salsaburger flying through the air and splattering all over me. I was buried by the stuff, I was choking. The last thing I remember as I was rushed into intensive care was Bill biting his lower lip and saying, `I feel your stain.' "
She gives an involuntary shudder, which prompts the thought: why break her silence now?
"It was all a long time ago. Bill's a different man now. He's running that adult film company in Amsterdam and, anyway, the Dutch are refusing to extradite. Besides, I got tired of people coming forward and claiming they had found me. I mean, it's pathetic. They say, `Hey, I've got Monica's dress!' and all they've done is cut an extra hole in OJ's ski mask or stumbled across one of those funny green European coats Douglas Hurd used to wear."
"They found a loden?"
"God, I don't know what it has got on it, and believe me, honey, I don't care. My point is, I want people to know the real me. Did you see that movie they made about us?"
"Yeah, I thought it was good."
"Good? Do you know what it's like to be played by Elizabeth Hurley's dress? It's not even a dress, it's two strips of material held together by safety pins. Safety pins! I mean, I know Monica's no Calista Flockhart, but she never split my sides."
I'm a hard-bitten journalist, but I confess by now I'm having to dab away tears with my napkin. "D'you ever see anyone from the old days?" I ask.
"Just Necktie," she replies.
"Necktie?"
"You're snuffling into him." I look down at my napkin, and the yellow pattern seems oddly familiar. "He was the tie Monica gave Bill, the tie he was wearing on the first day of Monica's testimony, supposedly to signal to her."
Now I remember. When the President had been caught out, he had come up with what proved to be his last, most inspired, yarn: "My fellow Americans," he had said. "Earlier today, I ordered raids on terrorist bases in Afghanistan using the latest in advanced communications technology: this simple necktie." For a few weeks, the rest of the government did their best to play along. For the space shuttle launch, they would say things like "Paisley-paisley-polka-dot, we have lift-off".
Finally, the big question: "Were you surprised when they found traces of DNA on you?"
She laughs. "You poor dear. That was just a clerical error. It wasn't traces of DNA they found, it was traces of C&A."
"C&A?"
She gives a wistful sigh. "The only real love of my life. John Major's suit."
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