Dear Monica

Townhall.com ^ | October 23, 2014 | Derek Hunter

[Kaslin]

Monica Lewinsky re-entered public life this week. Actually, this is the first time she volunteered to enter the spotlight. Her first foray was involuntary and embarrassing. It also was her own fault. Well, hers and President Clinton’s.

Lewinsky gave her first public speech on Monday at the Forbes “30 Under 30 Summit” celebrating young achievers. She spoke for 25 awkward minutes, but she could’ve delivered her message in half that time if she were speaking comfortably. But as stilted as the delivery was, the content was worse.

Poor, sweet, innocent Monica was exploited, abused and bullied back in 1998 when her affair with Bill Clinton was made public. And she was. But not by who she blames for her humiliation.

Lewinsky blames Matt Drudge, Ken Starr, Linda Tripp, the media in general and the Internet in specific. She blames everyone but Bill Clinton and, most importantly, herself.

In talking about when the story broke, she told the crowd, “Overnight, I went from being a completely private figure to a publicly humiliated one. I was Patient Zero. The first person to have their reputation completely destroyed worldwide via the Internet.”

But Monica’s reputation wasn’t destroyed. The façade reputation she created for family, friends and co-workers, and maybe even herself, was destroyed. When the Drudge Report broke the story that Newsweek had spiked Michael Isikoff’s story of her affair, we learned a lot about Newsweek. But we also learned what kind of people Monica and—to a lesser extent since he already had a reputation for this kind of thing—Clinton were.

Monica Lewinsky was a victim in one respect only—the most powerful man on the planet saw an opportunity to use a young sycophant for his own sexual pleasure and took it. But she was a willing victim, and she was an adult.

She said, “I fell in love with my boss in a 22-year-old sort of a way.” Well, 22-year-olds are responsible for their actions; they aren’t babes in the woods. If she didn’t look at an affair with a married man who happened to be the president of the United States as something that might end badly, no matter what her emotions may have been, that’s on her. “Young and stupid” might apply to 5-year-olds who break their legs trying to jump off the garage and fly. But it does not apply to people with two decades of life under their belt.

The only people who victimized Monica Lewinsky were Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton.

She recounted the lows she went through after the news broke, the threat of prison time over committing perjury in a sworn affidavit in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case and the fear she felt at the time. But that isn’t “bullying,” as she claims; those are consequences of willfully taken actions.

It hard not to feel some degree of sympathy for Monica Lewinsky, but it’s harder still to care.

Near the close of her remarks, Monica said something that shows she doesn’t get what she was involved in doing, or just hopes you don’t.

“I don’t know which came first: the coarsening of the culture or the worsening of behavior,” she said. “Either way, what we need is a radical change in attitudes — on the Internet, mobile platforms and in the society of which they are a part. Actually, what we really need is a cultural revolution. Online, we’ve got a compassion deficit – an Empathy Crisis — and something tells me that matters a lot more to most of us.”

After the Clinton/Lewinsky affair broke in 1998 the culture did change, radically. The media and the Democratic Party spent years telling us it was “only about sex,” and stigmatizing judgment on such issues. Since then, our culture has developed a new class of celebrity.

Were it not for Monica Lewinsky, the media, and the Democratic Party, we would not know the names Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, Farrah Abraham and countless others people famous for things that would’ve mortified them prior to 1998. Are we better off as a society because of their “celebrity”?

That people would push back against that change for the worse is not only common sense, it’s a good thing.

Monica said she wants a “cultural revolution.” Well, she got one. It might not be the one she wants, but that’s the risk you run when you start something without thinking through the consequences first. Something with which she is intimately familiar.

[Norm Lenhart]

People paid to see Octomom. By comparison, Monica is M. Monroe.

Takes all kinds to support a porn industry...

[Rummyfan]

Forty-ish now, and she’s either willfully ignorant or just a plain ditz. She gets my sympathy because Team Clinton basically stigmatized her for life. But appearances like this don’t do anything to rehabilitate her.

[Rummyfan]

If not for the notoriety she got she would have been another footnoted corpse lying aside the Clintons path to power just like so many other inconvenient people the Arkansas mob found troublesome. Drudge saved her life.

Drudge and a stained blue dress.

[Jack Hydrazine]

“Once introduced at a party....she’s pretty much damaged goods and never able to get a guy to look at her beyond being Bill’s intern.”

Yeppers. She’s radioactive and no guy is ever going to get involved with her.

She’ll probably die a spinster.

[Norm Lenhart]

If she would just say “you know what America? I aplologize.” And mean it, most of us would give the the benefit of the doubt. But she even has people on the right trying to push all the blame on Clinton because she ‘was young’. Sure the Clintons are blameworthy. But no one put a gun to her ADULT head.

[atc23]

Yeah, she’s Chandra Levy only still breathing

[dfwgator]

Who wants Bill’s “Sloppy Seconds.”

[Gay State Conservative]

A caller to Rush the other day made an excellent point...one that probably wouldn't have occurred to me otherwise.That point is...if Monica hadn't saved that dress the Rat Party Machine,led by the Clintons (both of them),the Serpent and others,would have *destroyed* her.

It would have been the old "if you drag a diamond tiara through the streets of Beverly Hills...",over and over again.

And Monica seems to not understand that.She's not a victim of Drudge...or Newsweek....or Ken Starr.

[FamiliarFace]

***...and when did it become ok to start a sentence with “But”?***

Shoot, you’re behind the times. I’ve been seeing “but” begin sentences for quite some time now, maybe 30 years. It must be correct, because I see it so often, and no editors ever correct it. I’m not sure we even have editors or proofreaders anymore.

[Rummyfan]

Mary Mahoney, too, interned at the WH and know Monica PERSONALLY. As the months of the Monica Mess dragged on, Mary repeatedly mentioned to her friends she'd soon do something to HELP Monica and the many other "Bimbo Eruptions". Mary got a job managing a Starbucks in Georgetown, but men broke in at close, herded the 3 employees and Mary into the refrigerator and shot all of them to death. Mary was shot FIVE TIMES in the head, and NO CASH WAS TAKEN and NO SHOTS WERE HEARD.

Thanks to Freeper gaijin.

[Norm Lenhart]

That’s a lot of it. I mean lets be honest. Most guys don’t really get that picky. Sloppy ‘severals’ get wedding rings every day with no issue. But the Clinton association and the baggage that comes with it is the real issue.

And that she’s so mentally damaged it’s a guarenteed trip to thorazine land for any guy that would

[HarleyLady27]

aren’t we tired of Monica? Clinton? Moose-chel?

I’m ready for something NEW!

[miss marmelstein]

She was yakking it up only a couple of months ago - in Vanity Fair, I think.

I have no idea why this woman can’t get on with her life - she’s still talking about her great love affair - instead of acknowledging the embarrassing charade it really was. She’s gotten more pathetic, if possible. And I used to have sympathy for her.

[Kaslin]

Yes we are

[DBrow]

I’ve heard people speculate that this has something to do with Hillary’s campaign- either it’s the last time Monica can cash in if Hill loses, or somehow it helps Hillary’s prospects. I suppose it’s possible since everything including the weather is politics to a progressive.

[miss marmelstein]

Maybe she’s angling for a contract to write a book or something. It beats me. Her parents are wealthy, can’t they help her or at least shut her up? Of course, they were no help to her during the actual debacle.

[pieceofthepuzzle]

I have felt sorry for her - especially since she was young and Clinton used her, but this latest appearance really bothers me. She lost her private life not directly because of Matt Drudge, but because she got involved with probably the most public figure in the country at the time. Further, she still seems to be carrying water for him. Did she not read what he said when asked why he did it and stated “because I could”? To his credit, Clinton himself admitted that what he did was “reprehensible”. She doesn’t have to protect him.

If she had said that she was young, made bad decisions, and was influenced in a hurtful and selfish manner by a very senior and powerful man, it would have been accurate, and people would understand. I don’t really understand what she is thinking.

[polymuser]

Dear Monica,

How much are you being paid to be visible again two years before the next POTUS election?

[JoeFromSidney]

At age 22, she was an adult. As I used to tell me Junior-level students, average age 21, in my military career I'd seen people their age making life-and-death decisions. I expected adult behavior out of them.

[Kaslin]

She sure was and should have known better. Obviously she wasn’t taught morals