OT re: Real victims. Ignore if fear will be a bore...
First, apologies LG for not putting this into the clubhouse, but I was looking for Kathleen Willie's lovely emails to bill, ever searching for the right policy job, to give a flavor here to the wave's archives, and I found this irresistible commentary from Mary McGrory of the Washington Post, you know, that propaganda rag...
As markets rock with all those abounding shocks, perturbations large and small, why forecast, who knows what the transition path is in this intraday mess. So here's a bit of entertainment:
nancy
Sex KittenTo Hellcat
By Mary McGrory
Sunday, September 27, 1998; Page C01
On May 24, 1997, which Monica Lewinsky called "Dump Day," Bill Clinton announced the end of their affair. She wept and told him that presidents in the past "needed girlfriends."
Not girls like Monica, they didn't. At first, yes, she'd seemed like the answer to a wencher's prayer. She offered on-the-premises, no-argument, special-tastes-accommodated sex. But her transformation from sex kitten to hellcat had to be one of the nastiest shocks of Clinton's shock-filled life. Previous presidents did not have to face hysterical girls threatening to tell their fathers. Lucy Mercer, FDR's lifelong forbidden love, moved in the shadows. Jack Kennedy's multiple mistresses kept their mouths shut. George Bush's alleged love interest never moved beyond rumor.
But Beverly Hills princesses are not bred for "back street" self-effacement. Monica's parents may have failed her--her mother gave her bad advice, and her rich father wouldn't give her a decent education--but they instilled in her a powerful sense of entitlement. Demanding is hardly the word for her. She frightened the leader of the Western world out of his wits. She made a scene at the White House gate that shook the building. Clinton completely lost his temper and raged for the head of a uniformed Secret Service officer who unwisely told Monica, as she cooled her heels, that another woman was with the president. Poor Betty Currie, the hapless go-between, was left trying to put the pieces back together again.
The president understandably observed that if he had known what she was like, he never would have gotten involved with her. But it was too late. Monica was out of hand. She had been subpoenaed in the Paula Jones case. She didn't have the New York job she wanted; the president had better get cracking. He told her it was against the law to threaten the president of the United States. He could have complained that she had led him on. Early on, she had volunteered that, despite her youth, she knew the ropes in affairs with married men, an implicit promise of no muss, no fuss.
But not only did Monica tear the place apart when she found out that Eleanor Mondale was in the Oval Office with the president, she also told the grand jury that she was "annoyed" to see the president dancing with his wife on a Caribbean beach. She suspected, as did others at the time, that the romantic shot had been staged to offset the off-putting developments.
Monica said how hurt she was that the president, in his brief, lying speech to the American people, had failed to point out that she was "a nice, decent person."
Clinton belatedly spoke well of her in his grand jury appearance, that unexpected box-office hit. His people had trashed her as a ditzy stalker. He, however, in the face of the Starr report's account of character flaws such as adultery, perjury and shrewishness, called her "basically a good girl with a good heart and a good mind." In her turn, she gave him a fond character reference: "a sweet little boy," affectionate, kind, warm, selfish, self-centered, self-righteous incredible person who does what is in the best interest of the country.
His fate is the country's prime concern. And Monica? She has disappeared. Her name is mud, but one should never underestimate the cult of celebrity in this country. She could end up as a highly paid dispenser of advice to the lovelorn.
One thing we could wish her: more people in her life like the grand jurors who questioned her at the end of her long stay in the dock. She and they had an incredible encounter. You could almost hear the scraping of chairs as they figuratively gathered 'round. Kindly, but inexorably, they made her look at herself. They pointed out she had a habit of seeking out married men. They forced her to drop her babble about her issues and come right out and say it: "It's not right to have an affair with a married man." They loved her, you could tell. You would, too, if you suddenly found yourself on a jury with one-half of the world's premier scandal in your lap and you get a chance to tell her how to act. She's to stop hating Linda Tripp--what goes around comes around.
They assured her we all fall. They forgave her. They most helpfully asked Monica if she had something to "share" with them. She certainly did. She shredded Kenneth Starr's perjury charges: "No one ever asked me to lie and I was never promised a job for my silence."
We can only hope that telephone numbers were exchanged and that the next time the girl has a problem--sorry, issue--she'll call one of these good women instead of Linda Tripp.
© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post |
