From the lips of Monica: It took two
By John Kiesewetter
Cincinnati Enquirer
I thought I knew everything about Monica Lewinsky — until I met her in Los Angeles recently.
You may feel the same way, watching "Monica in Black and White."
I admit I went to HBO's news conference, out of curiosity, to see the immature former White House intern whose fling with Bill Clinton — leader of the free world and a married man to boot — nearly brought down his presidency.
I didn't expect to leave feeling sorry for her. But I did, after hearing her explain how she was a victim of Clinton, her former friend Linda Tripp and Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr.
While some people have wanted her to go away, she just wanted to have her say.
"Even though a lot of people might have already formed their opinions, (I wanted) ... to try to change their misconceptions," she told the Television Critics Association in January.
Asked to name a common misperception, she said: "That I sought this celebrity by seducing the president, and going to the White House with an agenda, and then turning on him so that all of this could happen, so that I could enjoy it, so that I then could cause trouble for the country, and then make millions of dollars, and then continue to perpetuate this celebrity, and enjoy it, and make the most out of it. And I'm stupid!"
That pretty well summed it up.
She denied she was a crazed stalker; she was involved with a mutual, consensual relationship with a flirt who just happened to be the commander in chief.
She just wanted to "fill in some of the historical gaps, and correct some inaccuracies ... that we really lost in the flurry of salaciousness that occurred in '98 and '99," she said.
The question-and-answer session, taped in black and white at New York's Cooper Union last year, was her first public statement since her immunity agreement with Starr expired.
HBO has added a time line, TV news clips and some of her conversations with Tripp to give the film context.
In her news conference and the HBO film, she made some valid points.
You can decide whether she was just a misguided naive young lady or a tramp, or somewhere in between.
'Mutual thing going on'
She first caught Clinton's eye at a White House helicopter send-off in August 1995.
"He just looked at me in this way — he sort of gave me 'the full-on Bill Clinton' — and I responded back. I flirted back. From then on, in occasions when we saw each other, we made a lot of eye contact."
The flirtations escalated in November 1995, when she answered phones in the chief of staff's office during the government's budgetary shutdown.
"It was sort of obvious to me that there was this mutual thing going on, and so I sort of blurted out, 'I have a crush on you!' And he smiled and said, 'Well, you want to come into the back office?'
"I just thought it would be a fun fling ... thinking: 'I'm young. It's the president. He's cute. That's kind of cool. Irresponsible, but cool.' And then I started to have real feelings for him, unfortunately.
"Think about this: How do you throw yourself at the president of the United States ... who has people protecting them? The only way the people protecting them leave is if he tells them to," she said.
She gave the president a tie. He gave her a book of poems. They had oral sex and phone sex, according to Starr's report. It was mutual, she said.
"There's a big part of me that's so incredibly offended by the way he described what happened. He testified that I (only) serviced him," she said. "I had to tell everything I knew (to the grand jury) because ... the president wasn't telling the truth, (and) they needed to have this detail so it would be believed."
As for first lady Hillary Clinton, Lewinsky said: "I didn't expect her to ever find out."
Lewinsky had a five-year affair in high school with a married teacher. So romances with married men were OK?
"I don't think it's appropriate. But I think it's MORE inappropriate for the person who's married. I think a lot of times in this society, the woman pays a price more," she said.
"I'm not going to take equal responsibility for his family. I'm just not going to do it. I'm sorry. I feel bad, but ... they've made choices, too."
As she said, it took two.
Linda Tripp's betrayal
After being transferred against her will from the White House to the Pentagon, a depressed Lewinsky was befriended by Linda Tripp, who tape-recorded their conversations.
"She fed my misguided hope for the relationship (with Clinton) working out ... and therefore made me want it more.
"I was like an addict, and she was my fix. It was delusional."
One TV critic asked what Lewinsky would do if, 20 years from now, she had a daughter who was having an affair with a president.
"I would plunk her up and drag her out of the country," she replies. "I think I would have to do that, especially if she was as willful as I am, because that was probably the only thing my mom could have done."
Four days after Tripp gave her tapes to Starr in 1998, FBI agents held Lewinsky for nine hours in Arlington, Va.
She asked for an attorney. They talked her out of it.
"I didn't know what to do, because in the movies and on TV, after a person says that (they want an attorney), they always say, 'Oh, OK,'" she said.
Two hours later, after being told she could face 27 years in prison, she asked to call her mom.
An FBI agent told her: "You're 24. You're smart. You don't need to call your mommy. And you should know, if you don't cooperate, we're planning on prosecuting your mom, too."
She said it stings when people refer to the impeachment proceedings as the Lewinsky scandal.
"If you look back in history, very rarely ... scandals like these have been named after one person," she said. "I didn't do this all by myself."
As Lewinsky said, it took two.
