A Right Wing Conspirator Offers a Conspiracy Theory; Department of Mild Gloating; Conspiracies Continue; Highlights From The Great Apologies; Chutzpah!

A RIGHT WING CONSPIRATOR OFFERS A CONSPIRACY THEORY

Clinton unleashed the Lawyers of War yesterday on the Sunday shows. (George Will wins four stars for best incredulous question of David Kendall: You mean the president remembers being alone with Ms. Lewinsky when she delivered Pizza, but not when she delivered oral sex?). On both This Week and Fox News Sunday David Kendall and Cheryl Mills respectively took vocal pains not to attack Monica Lewinsky. Kendall denied that just because the president told the truth doesn’t necessarily mean that Monica is mistaken. More directly, Cheryl Mills (who had been escorted to the studio by Clinton consilgere Bruce Lindsey) stated flatly: “We haven’t attacked Ms. Lewinsky in seven months and we’re not about to start now.” Why?

I knew from Linda Tripp a year ago that the White House was well-prepared to immolate Monica Lewinsky. But don’t take my word for it. Read the report. The President planned on gratifying himself with Monica and then framing her as a deranged stalker.

So why, when her testimony is so, so, damaging to the President, aren’t the White House sock-puppets going on the offensive?

Bear with me. Monica Lewinsky from the beginning was proud of her sexual affair with the President. As much as it pains me to admit, the delusional William Ginsburg’s proffer was, according to reports, remarkably similar to Plato Cacheris’ and Jake Stein’s. The delay for six months was that Monica wouldn’t cop to the obstruction/talking points stuff. (The first “prebuttal” by Kendall et. al. is near apopletic about the missing talking points – and has the sulfuric stink of Sid Blumenthal). Could the White House’s failure to revert to form and attack their most damaging accuser have to do with the fact that Monica is still holding out on the obstruction?

I have total faith and admiration for Ken Starr and his deputies, but I find it near impossible to believe that Monica wrote that document alone. Perhaps Monica Lewinsky — as some have suspected all along — still desires to go down in history as the Marilyn Monroe of this administration and not the John Dean?

DEPARTMENT OF MILD GLOATING

The press always circles the wagons narrowly. When Steven Brill’s piece on the scandal came out the press closed ranks leaving the Goldbergs and the Starrs out of it. The press was mistreated and mis-quoted but of course he got me and my mother and, of course, Ken Starr right.

Howard Kurtz this morning, “If you listen carefully, you can hear the sound of journalists slapping themselves on the back. After all, 99.5 per cent of what they reported about President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky was right there in Ken Starr’s report. Vindication city!” Über liberal Lars Erik Nelson in his syndicated column last month argued that if Clinton did this, then people like Linda Tripp and Lucianne Goldberg would be heroes. Linda is waiting for her medal. Actually Linda is waiting for a single even-handed article in a major paper.

CONSPIRACIES CONTINUE

8:30 A.M. Lithium deficient callers on C-SPAN argue that Monica Lewinsky was a plant. “From the get go” “enemies of the Democratic party” used her to topple the president. Sunday on CNN’s Reliable Sources Lithium deprived Nation columnist, David Corn, splits the hair down the middle. He argues that the First Lady was right. There was a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. “Linda Tripp and Lucianne Goldberg” succeeded in “framing a guilty man.”

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE GREAT APOLOGIES

Henry IV goes to Canossa to plead forgiveness from Pope Gregory VII. After walking in the snow day and night around the Pontiff’s compound awaiting forgiveness Henry IV finally exclaims, “I am laid low with a broken spirit! Holy Father I beseech thee return to me to the grace of thy Church. But I should point out, I have instructed my ministers to mount a vigorous defense of lay investiture…”

CHUTZPAH!

According to the Kendall report Bill Clinton is still a moral avatar. Here is an excerpt from the “Prebuttal:”

It is not true that the President had an improper 18-month relationship with Ms. Lewinsky, as several media reports have alleged. In his grand jury deposition, he testified that on certain occasions in early 1996 and once in early 1997, he engaged in improper conduct with Ms. Lewinsky. These encounters did not consist of sexual intercourse, and they did not consist of “sexual relations” as he understood that term to be defined at his Jones deposition on January 17, 1998 (explained infra), but they did involve inappropriate intimate contact. These inappropriate encounters ended, at the President’s insistence, in early 1997, not because of the imminence of discovery, not because of the Jones case (which the Supreme Court had not yet decided), but because he knew they were wrong.

So there you have it. The President stopped the affair because it was the “right thing to do.”