Monica Lewinsky, she of the infamous blue stained dress, has penned what some may label an explosive essay for Vanity Fair of which critics and other scandal-rubberneckers are mining for scurrilous admissions of guilt, guile, or other verifiable sins, and maybe, just maybe, a little vinegar thrown onto the honeyed path of one Hillary Rodham Clinton. After all, what could this would-be homewrecker have to say after fifteen years of self-appointed media exile that could be worth more than the briefest of romps through the pages of glorified tabloid fodder?
And the critiques are huge. Lewinsky for having sought to regain some of the limelight that was thrust upon her after the “Tryst That Nearly Ended a Presidency” has been lobbed of late with commentary befitting a temptress of the highest order including being referred to as a “money-shill” and a “relative scavenger” whose sole goal is to rake over the long dead and imminently settled corpse of Bill Clinton’s emphatic statement that he did not have “sexual relations with that woman” and exploit it for personal gain.
This would be much to the excitement and glee of Conservatives who would if not in time-traveling ability to retroactively successfully impeach Clinton, could do so to his reputation now, and that of his wife’s burgeoning presidential campaign. And that may entirely be true. Yes, Monica Lewinsky could be looking for a payday. And in the new America where you’re just a Kardashian away from multi-millions based on how high your sexual profile can outspend your relative anonymity — why the hell not? But perhaps what’s she’s really trying to do is re-frame her own reputation and bankability in a time where such things as “sex scandals” and other improprieties are looked upon — especially by the millennial generation who have grown up with sex scandals as near constant earworms — as pasé. To a new audience, the name “Monica Lewinsky,” as they delve into Wikipedia to research her relevance, can be seen as quite quaint. She’s now a pop culture reference as Beyoncé states in her latest hit, “Partition,” to which Lewinsky in the Vanity Fair article responds:
“Thanks, Beyoncé, but if we’re verbing, I think you meant ‘Bill Clinton’d all on my gown,’ not ‘Monica Lewinsky’d.’”
The question we have to ask ourselves: Is Lewinsky any less entitled to refocus, discuss, profit from, or share in the benefits that her scandal brought upon the many, many involved fifteen years ago, before political scandals were commonplace and baring one’s intimate details of their sex lives, became fodder for reality television and tell-all documentaries, than anyone else? Absolutely not. She blew a high-powered, married dude and that is considered moral high-ground-currency.
Let’s be honest here, Bill Clinton, who as the leader of the free world and the supposed political messiah whose appointment came with the expectation of freedom from distasteful acts, even though not even the greats were above extramarital affairs (see J.F.K. and Marilyn et al), has gone on to great success in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky Scandal (You’ll note that for posterity it is not “The Bill Clinton Scandal”.)
Not only is he looked at as one of the Democratic Party’s greatest successes, but he is deeply and significantly entrenched in the betterment of human kind through his Clinton Foundation, a grantmaking family foundation boasting more than $250 million in assets, and through his Clinton Global Initiative. He is a leader in the world of global change. He is an anointed speaker charged with sharing with the nation at large how good education, health, and prosperity-for-all benefits the world over. Lewinsky shares with Vanity Fair how in the years since the scandal she’s embarked on the almost laughable challenge of trying to get a job utilizing her master’s degree in social psychology from the London School of Economics with the name “Monica Lewinsky” attached. A name that in response to her serious inquiries has been met with snickers or opportunists. There are some interesting parallels to be drawn from that. Can we say that Bill Clinton is probably the most successful sex scandal survivor?
However, she’s not blaming Clinton for the affair or for taking advantage of her or her position, even though she admits that just by the nature of his position there was advantage taken. Regardless, she maintains that the relationship was a consensual one. What she blames Clinton for is making her the scapegoat i.e. “you doggone temptress” in order to protect his position. In 2004 she told the Daily Mail in response to Clinton’s Book, My Life:
He could have made it right with the book, but he hasn’t. He is a revisionist of history. He has lied. […] I really didn’t expect him to go into detail about our relationship. […] But if he had and he’d done it honestly, I wouldn’t have minded. […] I did, though, at least expect him to correct the false statements he made when he was trying to protect the Presidency. Instead, he talked about it as though I had laid it all out there for the taking. I was the buffet and he just couldn’t resist the dessert. […] This was a mutual relationship, mutual on all levels, right from the way it started and all the way through. […] I don’t accept that he had to completely desecrate my character.
Ah, yes. The victim that became of Clinton because his intern under the advisement of Linda Tripp, loyal friend and amateur super sleuth working for insane, obsessed investigative wunderkind, Kenneth Starr, kept that damnable blue dress with the stain. How could she retain the evidence of their affair which propelled the scandal into a right-wing conspiracy to remove the highest political official in our nation from office? Monica, merely a pawn, just became a means of getting them there. So, surely she has no reason to be bitter, or want some sort of reparations, if even in “taking back my narrative and give a purpose to my past” as she says. What the scandal did, she alludes to, was the very definition of what we’ve come to know as “slut-shaming.” She says during that time her mother sat vigil at her side for fear she would take her own life by effectively being humiliated to death at age twenty-two.
As Time Magazine recently reported:
To look back on the specifics now is mind-blowing. The Wall Street Journal referred to Lewinsky – in print – as a “little tart.” New York Magazine reported that, as an adolescent, Lewinsky had spent two summers at fat camp, where she “paid particular attention to the boys.” (Code word: Slut.) Maureen Dowd won a Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of Lewinsky, in which she called her a “ditzy, predatory White House intern” and “the girl who was too tubby to be in the high school ‘in’ crowd,” among other ugly caricatures. Fox News actually released a poll investigating whether the public thought Lewinsky was an “average girl” or a “young tramp looking for thrills.” Fifty four percent rated her a tramp.
So why now, Monica? Why now with Hillary poised to run for the presidency, with the right-wing rabble reaching a fevered pitch based upon that knowledge, including statements from Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and Sen. Rand Paul who are now using Lewinsky’s resurgence as a dual chink in the Clinton armor by claiming that “Monicagate” is still in play and that Bill Clinton was a serial philanderer who exhibited predatory behavior? Could it really be about revenge on the Clintons, or on the media? It’s probably so much simpler than that. Simply, the scorned from whatever vantage point, be it Bill, Hillary, or Monica, has no obligation to fade away indefinitely — and there is no time better than right now — when “slut-shaming” has a name, and a new generation can pass a more equitable amount of judgement not filled with the societal prejudices of the past, exists. All of which a savvy Monica Lewinsky may have surmised.
Interestingly, even as Lewinsky climbs out of the shadows to try and take back some sliver of her narrative in order to make whatever she likes of it; perhaps a talk show, or as a political commentator, or as a like-minded contributor to a charitable career in Communications as was once a goal, are we at this moment heaping the lion’s share of blame onto Bill Clinton whose legacy is now forever entwined with the political acumen of his wife? This as some are implying, “How can Lewinsky DO THIS TO HILLARY?!” Not really. So if the scandal is Lewinsky’s to bear alone, so it seems then and now, perhaps it should be up to her to make of it what she can so maybe her Wikipedia entry ends as Clinton’s does, with a redemption story.
