Monica's 'Truman Show' nytimes.com
Then, for a somewhat jaundice women's perspective, we have the sardonic Maureen Dowd. In general, not much of a friend of Bill, but by the local standard that anti-conviction-anti-impeachment implies that you're a Clinton lover, she's a Clinton lover. Subtlety is lost on the Clinton haters, although it's hard to call Dowd subtle.
Our little girl has grown up. She has had her ditsy moments and she has made her mistakes. But anybody who survives Bill Clinton, Ken Starr, Linda Tripp, William Ginsburg, the House managers and the press beast is bound to come out tougher and savvier.
And Monica Lewinsky has.
Being interrogated about her improvident romance for the 23d time, she easily handled Tennessee Congressman Ed Bryant, turning him into a stammering schoolboy.
"O.K.," the former U.S. Attorney asked the 25-year-old, "Um, tell me how you, um, began -- I guess the -- the -- we're going to talk about a relationship with the President. Uh, when you first, uh, I guess, saw him, I think there was some indication that you didn't speak to him maybe the first few times you saw him, but you had some eye contact or sort of smiles or . . . "
The saucy and wily Monica was up to the crucial task of putting the clueless House managers in their place.
Clearly she had absorbed some lessons from her old boyfriend, the operator. She showed a knack for not remembering. She would say she wasn't "comfortable" responding to a question. She gave the "vanilla," or innocuous, view of suspicious events. And, like Mr. Clinton, she shined in comparison to the other side.
Monica swatted aside Mr. Bryant's lame foray into prurience and chastised him for characterizing her first tryst with the President as a "so-called salacious" occasion. She suggested the more neutral "encounter."
He knew he was overmatched, comparing Monica to Marlene Dietrich, who saved her man with dazzling -- if duplicitous -- testimony in "Witness for the Prosecution."
When he said of Mr. Clinton, "I assume you think he's a very intelligent man," Monica shot back: "I think he's an intelligent President."
In Washington, "intelligent man" is often an oxymoron. When testosterone hits high tide, the judgment of highly placed men goes splat.
That is why this trial is so loony. Congress has an illustrious history of politicians having affairs with younger female aides and lying about it. The House managers pretend to be outraged that Mr. Clinton lied to Sidney Blumenthal about Monica. As if members of Congress never lie to aides intending that the lies be repeated?
The Republicans have acted like cheap hypocrites. Americans hate unfairness, and they know that Mr. Starr's partisan, relentless conduct has tainted his investigation.
The President behaved terribly. But he was entrapped into lying by his scheming political enemies, a hideous cabal that included New York literary agent Lucianne Goldberg, Ms. Tripp and the lawyers for Paula Jones. It was fortified by a clique of young, conservative lawyers who secretly worked on the Jones lawsuit from its inception and then helped orchestrate Ms. Tripp's fateful call to Mr. Starr. Despite the prosecutor's denials that his office colluded with the Jones lawyers, those ties have been exposed in the brilliant stories of The Times's Don Van Natta and Jill Abramson.
The week was dominated by two young women, one on the cover of The New Yorker, the other on the cover of People.
Monica, who was portrayed in The New Yorker as an unmysterious Mona Lisa, has complained to friends that her life has become "The Truman Show." Chelsea made the cover of People, and the President and First Lady pitched a fit, even though the story was nice.
The press deserves credit for the taste and discretion it has shown concerning Chelsea. If politicians don't want their families covered, perhaps they should stop using their families to promote, shield and rescue them, and as their photo-op hand-holders.
This President should start taking responsibility for his own messes. He should stop blaming the press for the discomfort his daughter has suffered due to coverage of his escapades. They are his escapades.
As he huffily demands that one young woman be protected from the media monster, he did not hesitate to let another young woman be consumed by it.
He told Sidney Blumenthal that Monica was a stalker. Hillary told Sidney that Monica was a "troubled" young woman who misunderstood the President's generous attempts to "minister" to her.
Mr. Clinton arranges his chaotic world in a Madonna-whore construct. He expects his "good" girls to rescue him when his "bad" girls tell all. The President should grow up.
Monica has.
And good for her, I say. I like the Marlene Dietrich line, standing a line of red/dead meat Rogan totally on its head:
Senators who had seen the tape earlier remarked that they had been struck by her youth and vulnerability. Representative James E. Rogan of California tried to introduce her as a victim, "a bright lady whose life has forever been marked by the most powerful man on earth." Throughout his argument, he referred to her simply as Monica.
And tacitly, he tried to get senators to think of her as their own daughter or niece, "that young woman," he said, "very much like a family member we might know." nytimes.com
The House managers clearly aren't troubled by the dreaded hobgoblin of small minds, either. You daughter or Marlene? Your daughter Marlene? At any rate, as one following the morality play for entertainment more than anything at this point, I look forward to Monica's little tete-a-tete with Barbara Walters. What will Starr do about that one? What will he do? "Please report back to the inquisitional chambers, Ms. Lewinsky. We need to have a word with you." |
