Posted on 05/25/2004 10:22:49 PM PDT by kattracks
Meet the new Monica Lewinsky. Jessica Cutler, a 24-year-old mailroom clerk and phone receptionist, worked for Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, until last Friday -- when he fired her for using Senate computers to post to an Internet Web log that chronicled her trysts with six different men in Washington. Cutler's partners reportedly included government officials who gave her money for her sexual services.
Diary excerpt: "I just took a long lunch with F and made a quick $400. When I returned to the office, I heard that my boss was asking about my whereabouts. Loser." In another entry, Cutler explains: "F(equals)Married man who pays me for sex. Chief of Staff at one of the gov agencies, appointed by Bush."
Cutler, who aspired to be a journalist, spouted: "I'm sure I am not the only one who makes money on the side this way: How can anybody live on $25K/year??" When I was 24 and making less than that, I did it by eating Spaghetti-O's, Ramen noodles and Swanson pot pies for dinner; driving a Toyota Tercel with no air conditioning; and sleeping on a $30 futon. I did it the way most parents teach their daughters to succeed: through hard work, thrift, faith and perseverance.
I don't usually write about such inside-the-Beltway gossip, but Cutler's indecent conduct, glib rationalizations and in-your-face shamelessness, and the accompanying feeding frenzy over her, deserve a firm outside-the-Beltway lashing. This vulgar little episode reflects a larger, disturbing media trend toward normalizing and glamorizing sexual promiscuity among young working women. It harms those trying to succeed on their merits in the professional arena.
And it also harms our own daughters, who will be forced to fight harder to protect their dignity and credibility in a "Girls Gone Wild" culture.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post featured Cutler, who dubbed herself and her online diary "Washingtonienne," in a prominent story last Sunday headlined "The Hill's Sex Diarist Reveals All (Well, Some)." Cutler posed for a fetching photo and supplied juicy soundbites. "It's so cliched. It's like, 'There's a slutty girl on the Hill?' There's millions of 'em," Cutler told the Washington Post's Richard Leiby. Millions? Follow-up dispatches appeared in Roll Call, the New York Post, the London Independent, United Press International and the Associated Press, whose wire reports on Cutler were reprinted everywhere from the Akron Beacon Journal to the Houston Chronicle to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The news media originally caught whiff of Cutler from an online D.C.-based gossip site, Wonkette.com, authored by "edgy" (read: profanity-laced and sex-obsessed) writer Ana Marie Cox, who herself has been recently touted extensively by adoring media fans. CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen hosted a tony party for Cox last month; Washington Post reporter Howard Kurtz invited her on his CNN show, where she boasted, "I'm the expert at talking dirty."
Cutler and Cox, 31, appeared together on Fox News Channel this week, where they giggled and guffawed and rolled their eyes as they reveled in their sleazy celebrity. When Fox anchor Brigitte Quinn (who deserves a medal for her restraint) asked Cutler whether her parents knew about her raunchy sex life, she snorted: "They do now!" Cox cackled and went on to coo about Cutler's writing talent and future book publishing prospects. Cox generously mentioned she didn't want too much "credit" for Cutler's newfound notoriety. ("Credit?" Quinn mused subtly. "That's an interesting word.")
This female Beavis and Butthead duo illustrate what normal Americans hate about the Capitol scene: narcissism, moral bankruptcy and self-congratulatory media-political incest. The Washington Post's legitimization of this shallow "story" illustrates something else: the mainstream media's perverted moral values. The paper's recent profiles and features of social conservatives drip with condescension and ridicule. Religious activists are portrayed as intolerant homophobes; Republicans as gun-toting rubes; abstinence promoters as freaks.
But give The Washington Post two vain, young, trash-mouthed skanks who couldn't care less about what their parents think of their sex-drenched infamy, and the newspaper can't wait to help make them full-fledged members of the media elite.
Cutler and Cox apparently have no trouble looking at themselves in the mirror every morning. I pity the mainstream journalists-turned-pimps who can do the same.
©2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
She better start chicking out the black ho websites.
I'm pretty sure that's the common view of dating. I'm not sure what you think dating entails.
For me and most of my friends, it doesn't entail the level of physical activity you suggest.
Okay, but you have to admit that what I described is the generally-accepted view of dating. If you consider that to be prostitution, you're certainly outside of the mainstream.
I have never cared whether or not I am inside the mainstream anyway.
So, then, mainstream dating is prostitution? You and Gloria Steinem seem to agree on this issue.
Glad to have her on board.
But I certainly am NOT going to change my position because Gloria has apparently changed hers, if you are accurate.
See if you can find anything redeeming; I couldn't.
Are you saying that you were renting a room in a house, and a prostitute moved in? Yikes!
Yup. She rented a studio for herself, and a day or two later, her sister moves in with a baby. And then I'd find strangers wandering through the house, asking for her. She'd leave the front door open for them. They'd take over the inside stairwell, drinking cheap wine out of plastic cups. And she'd look you straight in the eye, with that same hard expression as Cutler, and tell a bold-faced lie. That's when I learned the meaning of the phrase, "to lie like a whore."
She doesn't have a college diploma. She lied when she claimed she did.
She did attend college, but never finished.
You are not wrong. However the "rebuke" image is quite tiny, and uses far less bandwidth than a photo would.
In any event, the "rebuke" is a lie. It is perfectly legal to deep-link to any publicly-available data on another site. If the other site does not wish to have outsiders link to their material, it takes all of two minutes to rig up the site to either return a "rebuke" image or to refuse the connection entirely.
I find this story particularly apt and timely for the many on this forum that look to Washington as some kind of Mecca and to the those who labor there as "special" or better than us commoners.
The really scary part is that these 24 year-olds are "middle-aged" by DC aide standards. These young people are actually writing the legislative language, committee reports, etc.
There was a similar article a year or 2 ago in Vanity Fair.
One thing that burns me up is that some of these young people are there due to family connections with political donors, etc. What I wouldn't have given for such an opportunity. Talk about squandering good fortune.
By the way, in the early 90's when I was making $16,000/yr in an entry level job, I lived nicely on tuna, macaroni, ramen noodles, potato soup and egg salad. (I also had a figure that stopped traffic--maybe I should write a book called the "Entry-level Poverty Diet").
thanks
Cutler never finished college!?
Nope. Some blogger called her university and checked her status.
So we have a little mini-sex scandal during a Republican Administration and the FR dogs are cut loose on the the DIM's, the media, whatever other "enemy" can be imagined. I really don't get it.
I think it's called "rooted in original sin" folks and no one's immune to it.
Hmmm, a psychologist could have a great time with that blog. It wasn't so much what she was doing, but how she described doing it. She has some issues.
3 people in a studio apartment. Just great. I'm more familiar with "tweekers", but I know the hard look and the lies.
Lol, she lied about her college diploma? Why am I not shocked?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the name you were reaching for was "Lewinsky."
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