#monica lewinsky

[dozydawn]

“Two Sudanese women hold an effigy of Monica Lewinsky, the woman who had an affair with US President Bill Clinton, in Khartoum, Sudan, during a demonstration to condemn the US attacks on targets in Sudan and Afghanistan.”

Photographed by Salah Omar.

24 August 1998.

[cosmicretreat]

[deadpresidents]

If I recall correctly, weren’t you a pretty big fan of Bill Clinton for some time? I recall a lot of posts from you about him that were fairly favorable. When did you finally accept that he was a creep? Do you think there’s finally a chance of accountability? I am truly asking from a place of empathy as I know what it’s like to have someone you looked up turn out to be not so great.

No, you're 100% correct. I was a fan of Bill Clinton for a long time. He was President from the time I was 13 until I was 21, and for a kid who was into Presidential history and Democratic politics, he was a major presence in my life. I still think that he is probably the most naturally-gifted politician of my lifetime. Nobody that I've watched has been able to explain public policy or instantly breeze through complicated press conference questions like Bill Clinton. For years after he left office, I said that he should just be the guy who explains how things work to America; he's remarkably smart.

One of the craziest examples of Clinton's intelligence is that he had to figure out ways to make it look like he doesn't have the answer to everything immediately. Clinton's political advisers thought he came across at times like a know-it-all and that it wasn't a good look on the campaign trail. You know how one of the famous mannerisms of Clinton is how he'll pause while he's speaking and bite his lip, like this?

Well, that was done on purpose. Clinton's advisers thought that his quick, completely formed answers to complicated questions was unnatural and that he needed to make himself seem more thoughtful, so he'd pause and bite his lip almost as an intellectual speed bump. Paul Begala, one of the most important architects of Clinton's 1992 campaign explained:

"He was so smart about so many things but also could connect. The whole thing about his biting his lip -- that was coached. Because he would answer so fast. We'd say, 'Take a beat. Pretend you're thinking about it. Pretend you haven't already got an answer.' It was a studied thing to give himself a second to force himself to slow down."

So, things like that were why I was always so impressed and appreciative of Clinton's skills and political gifts.

But, obviously, as I've gotten older and come to understand his personal actions a lot better, it's really hard not to consider him a creep. I mean, the Epstein thing is obviously impossible to reconcile. Even if it there hasn't been any suggestion of Clinton actually abusing any of the girls in the way that Epstein did, he spent a lot of time around Epstein and it's gross. I think one of Epstein's victims said that Clinton was a "total gentleman" and didn't do anything wrong to her, but that photo of a very young girl giving him a neck message in what looks like an airport terminal is a really bad look. That was clearly after he left office, so that was post-Monica Lewinsky and Clinton should have had the awareness to not even put himself near that type of situation with a girl that young (or any woman who was not his wife) -- even if it was just a neck massage that lasted a short amount of time. Even if the girl offered to do it willingly and had no issues with it, that's not a situation that Clinton -- who was impeached and could have been removed from office because he had an affair with a young woman -- should have have felt comfortable with.

But beyond that, as I've gotten older and as we've all gotten better about recognizing these things, his relationship with Monica Lewinsky is what bothers me because of the position that he put Monica in. She was in her early 20s -- barely older than Clinton's own daughter at the time -- and he was President of the United States. Listen, I don't have any room to criticize someone for dating younger women (seriously), but it's the power dynamic and the manner in which he treated Monica when things started to get difficult for him. That poor girl was in such an unimaginably nightmarish place because of what Clinton did and how he -- the incumbent President of the United States -- spoke about her publicly and treated her privately. When you think about it in terms of a relationship, it's just a crazy situation. And the poise that Monica Lewinsky had then and now speaks volumes about the person she is and has become, so it just makes Clinton look that much more terrible in comparison.

It is disappointing because I was a fan of President Clinton for most of my life. And, like Richard Nixon, he was so gifted when it came to his intellectual powers and, in Clinton's case, his political skills, that his flaws and his actions were overlooked for too long. I don't know what kind of accountability there might be for Clinton now that he's been out of office for nearly 25 years and is a few years away from his 80th birthday. But I can say that I feel like I know who he is now and "creep" seems like a pretty fitting description.

[odinsblog]

[weiner-enjoyer]

i want a hamilton-style musical about the monica lewinsky affair. it would basically be the same thing

[therealjohnstewart]

Monica Lewinsky

[lilfemme-fatale]

Thinking about the amazing Monica Lewinsky today, who faced violent misogyny from the entire world in her *early twenties*

[higherentity]

[warningsine]

[littletroubledgrrrl]

Monica Lewinsky got SO much hatred and slut shaming during the late 1990's, and during the late 90's she actually did a photoshoot for Vanity Fair magazine, this is a picture of her from that photoshoot.

I wonder how people in the late 90's felt about Monica doing this photoshoot for Vanity Fair since people hated her with a passion then?

[cherchezlafemmepardieu]

[cramulus]

[pressnewsagencyllc]

Amanda Knox faces a new slander trial in Italy that could remove the last legal stain against her

MILAN (AP) — Amanda Knox faces another trial for slander this week in Italy in a case that could remove the last legal stain against her eight years after Italy’s highest court threw out her conviction for the murder of her 21-year-old British roommate. Knox, who was a 20-year-old student when she was accused along with her then-boyfriend of murdering Meredith Kercher in 2007, has built a life…

[personal-blog243]

She can say she wasn’t raped, but I hope she now has a better understanding that a teen intern being sexually coerced and given drugs and performing sexual acts on multiple older men DOES count as rape and that this was horrible.

FUCK JFK 🤬🤬🤬🖕🖕🖕🖕

Has anybody told Monica Lewinsky that she’s not alone?

[7itch0zero]