Christine, it was my understanding that the co worker to whom Paula told the story at the time it happened described her as happy and excited about it. I saw the interview with Paula's sister. If I had to vote on it, I would say it is much more likely that she told the truth then than later when she took it back. Partly I think that because it accords with the report of the co worker and fits with the report of the state trooper who said thatafter her visit to the governor's room, she had said to him words to the effect that she wouldn't mind being the governor's girlfriend.
The fact that she waited to file until the eve of the deadline for the statute of limitations to take effect, suggests -- even though by this time she was being propelled forward by a clutch of right wing lawyers-- suggests a certain lack of conviction on her part about the merits of her case for having suffered discrimination, which, indeed, was dismissed. I think her false claim of having suffered job discrimination because of the episode, one example given having been that she received no flowers on Secretary's Day, offers a window into the fundamental disingenuousness of her assertions of mortification and occupational harm.
I hope you don't think that my cynicism about Paul Jones's own case for having been harmed and discriminated against, and my belief that she was being operated like a puppet by right wing forces, implies that I don't think Clinton is a thorough cad and libertine and liar and rapist.
If Paula did in fact say to her sister and brother in law what she is described as saying, she was certainly right. She has had a costly makeover, and is now a beautiful, well dressed and well connected public woman looking forward to a career on the lecture circuit. It will no doubt cost her husband his wife, that being the way of the world; but she herself got very lucky that day. She could of course have gotten lucky following a genuine traumatizing experience that resulted in career harm, I realize. But my 'take' on this is that the energy behind the Paula Jones case was more, and more sordid, than moral indignation on behalf of a hapless victim.
I do feel very sorry for her husband. I'm sure it has been, and will continue to be, awful for him.
BTW, just because I think she was and is not what she claimed to be, doesn't mean I think she is a terrible person. I think she did what was in her self interest, is all; and that she has probably, by now, convinced herself of the truth of the 'line' that is now the Paula Jones story. |
