"These are not grounds for impeachment; these are grounds for divorce."
MAUREEN DOWD: Liberties
September 13, 1998
Pulp Nonfiction
by Maureen Dowd
WASHINGTON — The President must not lose his job.
Not over this.
Certainly, Bill Clinton should be deeply ashamed of himself. He has given a bad name to adultery and lying. He has made wickedness seem pathetic, and that’s truly a sin.
Kenneth Starr, all these years and all these millions later, has not delivered impeachable offenses. He has delivered a 445-page Harold Robbins novel.
If we are going to dump our President, it should be for something big and bold and black and original. Not for the most tired story ever told.
Middle-aged married man has affair with frisky and adoring young office girl. Man hints to girl he might be single again in three or four years. Man gets bored with girl and dumps her. Girl cries and rants and threatens, and tells 11 people what a creep he is.
The dialogue in this potboiler, compiled with sanctimonious, even voyeuristic relish by Reverend Starr, is so trite and bodice-ripping that it makes “Titanic” look profound.
In fact, Monica identified with Rose, the feisty, zaftig young heroine of “Titanic.” Last January, the former intern wrote the President what she called “an embarrassing mushy note” inspired by the movie, asking her former boyfriend if they could have sex (the lying-down kind).
Despite the fact that it takes place in the most powerful spot on the planet, the romance does not sizzle.
Bill Clinton fancies himself another Jack Kennedy and invoked his idol’s name last week to defend himself.
But Kennedy was cool. His women were glamorous. The Rat Pack was good copy. He may have been just as immoral, but his carousing at least had style.
Mr. Clinton’s escapades are just cheesy and depressing. The sex scenes are flat, repetitive, juvenile and cloying, taking place in the windowless hallway outside the Oval Office study or in the President’s bathroom.
The props are uninspiring. Monica always pretends she’s carrying papers to get into the Oval Office, and she gives the President a frog figurine, a letter opener decorated with a frog and “Oy Vey! The Things They Say: A Guide to Jewish Wit.”
Their meetings, often when the First Lady is traveling, are more needy than erotic.
Monica recalled, “I asked him why he doesn’t ask me any questions about myself, and...
is this just about sex... or do you have some interest in trying to get to know me as a person?”
By way of riposte, she said, the President laughed, said he cherished their time together and then “unzipped his pants and sort of exposed himself.”
When she complained to the President that she had not had any hugs for months, he quipped, “Every day can’t be sunshine.”
Thankfully, Mr. Clinton grew tired of his little pizza girl. She sensed he was “putting up walls.”
“This was another one of those occasions when I was babbling on about something,” she said of their last rendezvous, “and he just kissed me, kind of to shut me up, I think.”
He didn’t call. He didn’t write. She began to suspect she was being “strung along.” Trapped in a stereotype, Monica became the raging, vengeful Glenn Close character in “Fatal Attraction.”
“PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS TO ME,” she wrote in a draft of a note to the President. “I feel disposable, used and insignificant.”
She demanded a big job at the United Nations or in the business world in New York, as compensation for his ruining her life.
“I don’t want to have to work for this position,” she said. “I just want it to be given to me.” She sent the President a “wish list” of jobs (”I am NOT someone’s administrative/executive assistant”) and enclosed an erotic postcard and her thoughts on education reform.
Now if the President was taking Monica’s advice on education reform, that might be an impeachable offense.
She sent him a note that read: “I am not a moron. I know that what is going on in the world takes precedence... I need you right now not as president, but as a man. PLEASE be my friend.”
Getting nervous over her fits, Mr. Clinton reminded her, “It’s illegal to threaten the President.” This is the document on which the fate of the Republic has been hanging? These are not grounds for impeachment. These are grounds for divorce.