Posted on 05/19/2003 12:18:09 PM PDT by kattracks
Ex-President Bill Clinton and his defenders are reveling in the discovery that President John F. Kennedy had a Monica Lewinsky of his own, with Clinton himself set to capitalize on the find during a personal appearance at Boston's JFK Library later this month designed to rehabilitate his scandal-scarred legacy.
Adding to the Clintonista's delight, Kennedy's Monica, Mimi Beardsley, was just 19-years-old at the time she cavorted in the White House - a full three years younger than Lewinsky when she earned her presidential kneepads.
But as welcome as the news of Kennedy's intern certainly is for some, the way the story was reported could open up what would be an uncomfortable can of worms for the ex-president - allegations that Clinton himself once had a sexual encounter with a fourteen year-old girl.
For the first 24-hours of the Kennedy intern story, Mimi's identity was completely unknown. The New York Daily News, which front-paged the story last Monday, had only an account from another Kennedy staffer, Barbara Gamarekian, who told presidential biographer Robert Dallek that she knew Mimi's first name but refused to divulge it.
Still, armed with only Gamarekian's hearsay account about an unnamed woman who had yet to confirm or deny the story, 75 mainstream media outlets covered the story the next day, a LexisNexis search shows.
It wasn't till Thursday that the News was able to identify Beardsley - now 60-year-old Mimi Fahnestock - who News reporters located at her job at a Manhattan Presbyterian church. Thousands of press reports followed.
But during that critical Tuesday when news outlets ballyhooed Gamarekian's unsourced allegation, reporters had little more to go on than what Rick Lambert knew in 1997 - about an unnamed woman who had reportedly told friends that Bill Clinton, while governor of Arkansas, forced himself on her when she was just fourteen.
Lambert, along with his wife Beverly, were the Texas private investigators hired by Paula Jones' lawfirm to unearth Jane Does who could corroborate her sexual harassment story.
Of all the allegations he came across, Lambert told NewsMax that Clinton's apparent encounter with the young teen disturbed him the most.
The incident is said to have happened in 1984, at a party hosted by then-Little Rock bond dealer Dan Lasater, who later went to jail for supplying cocaine to underage girls. In exchange they were supposed to agree to have sex with men he invited to his soirees.
By numerous accounts, Lasater was one of Clinton's closest associates in the 1980s.
As told to Lambert, the 14-year-old was rendered unconscious by a deliberate overdose. When she came to she was half-naked, with the governor of the state of Arkansas on top of her.
According to Lambert, the young assault victim fled Arkansas when Gov. Clinton won the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination. The private detective, along with several reporters, traced the woman to California. After a stakeout that lasted several days, they concluded she had been tipped off and fled town, never to be seen or heard from again.
When investigator Lambert first revealed his story about the elusive 14-year-old to NewsMax, Bill Clinton had just been acquitted of Sexgate impeachment charges. But unlike the story of JFK's intern, the mainstream media had no interest in the bombshell allegation.
Now that reporters have chased down Mimi Fahenstock in a thinly veiled attempt to repair Bill Clinton's image, it's worth remembering the story about the president and the teenager they weren't interested in telling.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Fled? Or dead and another victim of Arkancide?
So der schlickmeister thinks that makes it all OK?
The question also begs ... did she really exist, or was she ever at the place they'd staked out?
Clinton may well have done what they're saying. But this being a NewsMax story, I have to think it's more of the same -- that is, made-up crap.
It means his obit may not LEAD with Monica.
Also idiot voters may be marginally less put off by voting for Hillary, since she and the sainted Jackie Kennedy now have something in common.
As a demonstrated liar, of what value would what he has to say now be? About anything?
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