November 20, 2018

"I was pleased — really totally surprised and flattered — to learn that Lewinsky had given the president her very own copy of my book."

"She was saying, I’m passing on my extremely personal page-turning experience to you. But the subpoena was just bad. Vox is a conversation between two people who are excited by the idea that they get to tell their private stories to each other. They get to tell stories and to be real to each other even while they have this artificial distance — they’re connected just by the phone. The book is trying to celebrate the secret hideouts that novels offer readers. And I love that about books. That kind of privacy ought to be respected."

Said Nicholson Baker, quoted in "The Clinton Impeachment, as Told by the People Who Lived It/Twenty years ago, Bill Clinton became the first president to be impeached since Andrew Johnson, in 1868. We offer a recounting by people who played a role" (The Atlantic). The subpoena Baker mentions was from the independent counsel Kenneth Starr to Kramerbooks, seeking a list of the books bought by Monica Lewinsky, one of which was Nicholson Baker’s Vox, which Monica Lewinsky was said to have read and then given to Bill Clinton.

The reason I'm focusing on that quote is that it's a long article, and I chose to find my way into it by searching the page for the word "love." I'm still interested in the question whether Monica Lewinsky loved Bill Clinton, whether he loved her, and whether they loved each other. I was watching a TV special last night about the Lewinsky affair — Monica looked beautiful (in the present) — and I still after all these years imagine real love. The only appearance of the word "love" in that Atlantic article is what you see quoted above — nothing about a human being loving another person but a novelist saying what he loves about books.

ADDED: Here's a clip from the documentary I saw. You can judge for yourself whether Monica Lewinsky is stunningly beautiful 20 years after her 2-year affair with Bill Clinton:



I believe Bill Clinton loved her and that he watched this show and felt deep pangs of loss of her love and her company these past 20 years. I'm not saying he's a good person. I'm just observing the fact of the sheer magnetism of Monica Lewinsky. I wish Bill Clinton had simply resigned and walked away from the presidency — given it all up for love. I think she deserved it, she whose youth he appropriated, she who really did love him.

129 comments:

Achilles said...

Bill Clinton is a rapist.

Achilles said...

Bill Clinton started the Democrats long association with the government of China by selling them missile technology and giving their spies positions in the party.

Achilles said...

Bill Clinton likes to take private flights to the Caribbean on planes where under age girls only put their first name on the manifest.

rehajm said...

A girl with a crush and a pervy guy with the current slam piece. The pervy guy happened to be President at the moment.

The 'affair' meme is a creative fiction.

Dave Begley said...

Bill Clinton is married to Hillary. He has to look for love and sex where he can. That being said, installing her as Secretary of State sure made it easy to carry out their bribery scheme with foreigners. That got the money but since she lost the election they don't have to do what they promised. No refunds for bribes.

Ken B said...

What’s love got to do with it?

What a weird idea, that Bill Clinton’s actions evince love towards Lewinsky. They don’t even suggest respect.

Fernandinande said...

The subpoena ... seeking a list of the books bought by Monica Lewinsky,

WTF?

rehajm said...

Hey, can I walk you home?

Eww.

Achilles said...

Why didn’t Hillary leave her rapist husband?

For the same reason Democrat voters vote for known pervs, rapists and woman beaters.

They have no morals.

They only care about power over other people.

Rick.T. said...

If Bill Clinton said he loved you, would you believe it?

From Ron Brown's funeral:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr8Y9qguTgc

Ice Nine said...

There can be little question that Monica loved Bill, supercharged of course by the infatuation that the most powerful man on the planet evokes.

Bill conceivably loved Monica. But the smart money bets that Bill merely loved Monica's various "cigar"-compliant orifices.

Otto said...

Ann , the deconstructionalist, talking about love- how silly. What's even more incredulous is after years of witnessing Bill's perverted sexual , that you would entertain the idea that he may have loved her. Is dementia setting in?

Curious George said...

Nothing says love like a good cigar.

Ann Althouse said...

Call me crazy, but I believe Bill Clinton loved her... and loves her still! I think he watched that show, saw how beautiful she is today, 20 years after their 2-year affair, and wishes he could have had her all these years and could be with her now.

rehajm said...

Call me crazy...

Crazy!!!

Curious George said...

"Ann Althouse said...
Call me crazy, but I believe Bill Clinton loved her... and loves her still! I think he watched that show, saw how beautiful she is today, 20 years after their 2-year affair, and wishes he could have had her all these years and could be with her now."

Not when he got the dry cleaning bill.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

Bill loved alright. He loved getting his dick sucked by a groupie.

Seriously, what facts support Clinton had any feelings fir Lewinsky at all?

Where is the "emotional Althouse" tag.

n.n said...

Clinton may have loved Lewinsky, but under the established State religion, he was summarily guilty of superior exploitation or #MeToo (rape, but not rape-rape), and tried under "I did not have sexual relations with that woman". He thought he could have the baby and abort her too. For all practical purposes, he enjoyed both with the full backing of the Pro-Choice establishment and a politically congruent popular movement.

Nonapod said...

whether Monica Lewinsky loved Bill Clinton,

I suspect yes.

whether he loved her

I seriously doubt it, no.

Hannio said...

"Call me crazy, but I believe Bill Clinton loved her... and loves her still! I think he watched that show, saw how beautiful she is today, 20 years after their 2-year affair, and wishes he could have had her all these years and could be with her now."

Maybe you and I are not cynical enough, but I think you are probably right.

dustbunny said...

Nicholson Baker’s Anthologist is one of the most tedious books I’ve ever read

MadisonMan said...

She looks like Mama Cass to me -- absent the excess weight.

Nonapod said...

If Bill had divorced Hillary back then I would believe he really loved Lewinsky.

gspencer said...

"I wish Bill Clinton had simply resigned and walked away from the presidency — given it all up for love."

What? And give up all those millions yet to come? To lose out on doing his part in advancing the New World Order? Of denying the Harridan her chance to bewitch us all?

Curious George said...

The only person Bill Clinton loves is Bill Clinton.

Shouting Thomas said...

She is pretty. She's prettier in video than in still pics, which is unusual.

For some reason, Althouse's invocation of "love" instantly brought to my mind "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

The Bard had a lot to say about the illusions of love.

rehajm said...

Today Bill wishes he could have had Karen McDougal back in the day.

Lucien said...

I think (hope) that in the fullness of time Ann will realize that this post does not represent her best work.

Lucid-Ideas said...

There's the old line that men fall in love with their eyes and women fall in love with their ears.

Bill liked what he saw and Monica liked what she heard, but love? Yeah I don't think so.

hombre said...

"Call me crazy, but I believe Bill Clinton loved her... and loves her still! .... "

There is no evidence to support the "Clinton loved" theory and his behavior said otherwise.

OTOH, love notwithstanding, how could he not have preferred "having had" Monica "all these years" to being with Hillary?

Bruce Hayden said...

I think that the thing that Clinton really loved about Lewinsky was that he was getting away with it. It appears to have been almost a game between him and his wife, the execrable Crooked Hillary, where he would try to cheat, and she would try to catch him. She appears to have laid down the law when they moved into the WH, of no more affairs. And she appointed herself head investigator and moral police. Her people helped her, and his people helped him. She was deadly serious, because of the political ramifications of getting caught. He thought it was great fun - until she was proved correct with Lewinsky and her blue dress.

n.n said...

He may have loved her. He may have lusted for her. However, under the rule of political congruence (e.g. #LoveWins), it could not have been love #NoJudgmentSelective, and tolerance was not possible until it became politically congruent.

Sydney said...

Agree with others. Love had nothing to do with it. He used her, like other men use porn.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

I think she deserved it, she whose youth he appropriated...

It should be remembered that President Clinton was not the first married man with whom Lewinsky had an affair.

That does not excuse Clinton's behavior, but she was in no way an innocent in these events.

Bruce Hayden said...

“I wish Bill Clinton had simply resigned and walked away from the presidency — given it all up for love."

And then he probably wouldn’t have been repeatedly invited by Epstein to fly on his Lolita Express to his very own Pedophile Island.

Shouting Thomas said...

I think that it's also possible that Hillary loves her husband, and that no matter how hurtful we may perceive Bill's behavior to have been to her, she still wants to maintain her marriage.

Hillary's refusal to "denounce" her husband, as Althouse has demanded, seems the right response for a wife who loves her husband.

Hillary's personal life and loyalty to her husband supersedes loyalty to the feminist cause and/or doctrinal consistency.

tcrosse said...

"I wish Bill Clinton had simply resigned and walked away from the presidency — given it all up for love."

Unlikely that Hillary would not have wreaked some sort of vengeance on him. My guess is that he knew better than to scorn her like that, Hell having no Fury and all that.

Dave Begley said...

Ann:

There's no way Bill could have made all those millions married to Monica.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

...I believe Bill Clinton... wishes he could have had her all these years and could be with her now.

'Better than Hillary' is a very low standard.

AllenS said...

Curious George said...
The only person Bill Clinton loves is Bill Clinton.

This.

Rob said...

"Call me crazy, but I believe Bill Clinton loved her... and loves her still!"

Girl, you crazy!

Shouting Thomas said...

The opposition theme here, that our political opponents are incapable of love, or that their dogged pursuit of power and cynical use of other people means they are incapable of love, is pretty silly.

I'm pretty certain that Lady MacBeth loved MacBeth, Thane of Glamis and Cawdor.

Tim DeRoche said...

Althouse - Why do you think so? What in Bill's behavior -- then or now -- suggests this might be true?

Genuinely curious.

Earnest Prole said...

I believe all the minutes combined that they were together in the White House totaled less than the running time of a Hollywood movie, which is the only place a story like the one you imagine could happen.

Shouting Thomas said...

@Tim

See my comment above.

You're assuming that evidence of bad behavior or cynical use of other people means the offender is incapable of love.

You're wrong.

AllenS said...

Rob said...
"Call me crazy, but I believe Bill Clinton loved her... and loves her still!"

Girl, you crazy!


This also.

Achilles said...

Ann Althouse said...
Call me crazy, but I believe Bill Clinton loved her... and loves her still! I think he watched that show, saw how beautiful she is today, 20 years after their 2-year affair, and wishes he could have had her all these years and could be with her now.

He probably loved Monica about as much as he loved Juanita Broaddrick.

Rapists love all women.

But they don't respect them.

Ken B said...

Hot damn, another rhhardin vindication thread. Talk about mind reading! You think you know Clinton’s thoughts as he watched a video — that you didn’t even see him watch?

exhelodrvr1 said...

She's attractive, but hardly "stunningly beautiful."

BUMBLE BEE said...

After all those years with law journals... and you gotta believe in Harlequin Novels? Bill was the Rick James of his time, and Monica was a star fucker. Lead guitars and movie stars get their tongue beneath her hood.

Tim DeRoche said...

@ShoutingThomas

Bill Clinton might be capable of love. I don't know him all that well. He might love Hillary. He might love Monica Lewinsky. He might love them both and others besides. Or maybe he loves no one.

But I'm wondering what inspires Althouse to say that she believes that he loves Monica. From what I've seen, they didn't know each other very well. My guess is that infatuation might be a better word -- on both sides.

But I'm open to persuasion that there was an element of love.

Achilles said...

Ann Althouse said...
Call me crazy, but I believe Bill Clinton loved her... and loves her still! I think he watched that show, saw how beautiful she is today, 20 years after their 2-year affair, and wishes he could have had her all these years and could be with her now.

I think Bill loved the 15 year old girls on pedophile isle too.

narayanan said...

I am wondering how much pressure Hillary put on Bill
- to not walk out - on her or the Presidency -
- she had FBI files on him too.

Ken B said...

“I love you with all my heart!”
“Heart?”
“Okay, a different organ.”

Shouting Thomas said...

Men love to think the absolute worst about the motives of other men.

Feminists have been brilliantly successful in using this against us.

We men are helpless. No wonder the feminists are grinding us under their high heels.

narayanan said...

If Bill is telling the truth about shooting blanks due to childhood measles
- Chelsea is not his daughter.

When they identified his DNA on the dress - what else could they have found?

Francisco D said...

Ann,

Bill Clinton falls in love after every orgasm.

He is truly that shallow.

Amadeus 48 said...

Whoa, Althouse! I don’t think much of WJC’s commitment to love. Monica is beautiful and too experienced to ever fall for Clinton’s line today.
I have always thought that Starr ran right over her. He should have filed it all away. It had nothing to do with Whitewater.

FullMoon said...

She believed he would leave Hillary. She was in love.

Star Report

209. Lewinsky 8/26/98 Depo. at 20. They engaged in oral-anal contact as well. Id. Back

Darrell said...

The Canadian heiress/model he was openly hanging around with when he was working on his Presidential library in Harlem is more his type.

Openidname said...

Did the unnamed actresses who put out for Harvey Weinstein convince themselves that they loved him? Or that he loved them? Is being convinced that you're in love the same thing as actually being in love?

Gahrie said...

I wish Bill Clinton had simply resigned and walked away from the presidency — given it all up for love.

Hillary would have had both of them tortured and killed.

Shouting Thomas said...

I voted for Bill the first time around and thought he was a reasonably successful president.

In retrospect, I'm pretty angry with him for promoting sexual harassment legislation while he was engaging in same.

But (and there's always a but), I've always viewed him as a lovable scoundrel. I'll bet women really do love him and go after him in droves. I bet he loves women, too, especially the pretty ones.

Why is this making you men so angry and jealous?

mockturtle said...

I doubt Bill Clinton ever loved anyone but himself.

mockturtle said...

They engaged in oral-anal contact as well.

Eeeeeuuuuwwww! Gross!

Jupiter said...

"I wish Bill Clinton had simply resigned and walked away from the presidency — given it all up for love. I think she deserved it, she whose youth he appropriated, she who really did love him."

Like Hillary was going to allow that.

SDaly said...

Do you think Bill Clinton loved Juanita Broderick? Or do you think he loved Monica because she didn't need to ice her face after their encounters?

Next, Althouse will reveal that she has a treasured collection of trashy romantic novels with Fabio, bare-chested, on the cover.

Ken B said...

Maybe he would have loved Nina Burleigh.

Snark said...

Nothing, literally nothing, suggests to me that Clinton loved Lewinsky. She fed a deep psychological need, but not one thing he did during of after their affair suggested he cared about her in any way approximating love. There's barely any indication of a basic respect, or a basic concern.

Curious George said...

"He might love Hillary."

LOL

Danno said...

I'm a little skeptical that Bill loved Monica, however, I think he would have given up his life-long horndog behavior if he had left that unlovable bitch Hillary and moved on to Monica.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

When you're a Clinton, you don't give anything up for love, you do everything for power.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

+hormones.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Clinton would have saved everyone a lot of trouble if he had stuck to single-use silicone interns.

narciso said...

Nicolson Baker is responsible for some of the most detestable writing, checkpoint human smoke, speaking of detestable, avenatti.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

"who watched that and immediately thought of Bill Clinton's Semen?"

tim in vermont said...

I'm more in the camp of force them to live by their own rules. But it is a lot easier to view Clinton as a lovable scamp if you ignore the clear evidence that he is a forcible rapist in the case of Broaddrick, which jibes with the rumors of why he was kicked out of Oxford and something that happened at Yale.

Everything becomes clear if you ignore all the contradictory evidence to your point of view and make psychobabble charges against those presenting the evidence. Those in the lovable scamp camp, please explain why he's not a forcible rapist.

Wince said...

Love? What about Eleanor Mondale, et al?

Lewinsky allegedly freaked out at Clinton’s affair with Mondale’s daughter

June 18, 2016 | 11:37pm
President Bill Clinton had an affair with former Vice President Walter Mondale’s daughter — while multitasking with at least two mistresses in the White House — according to a tell-all by a Secret Service officer who guarded the Oval Office.

Gary J. Byrne’s ... book, “Crisis of Character: A White House Secret Service Officer Discloses His Firsthand Experience With Hillary, Bill, and How They Operate,” out June 28, depicts a cheating Bill Clinton and an unstable and tyrannical Hillary Clinton.

Byrne, who was a uniformed officer, says the president personally directed officers to provide Lewinsky access to the White House for a booty call around the beginning of 1996.

The Mondale relationship really set Lewinsky off, making her jealous and reckless, he writes.

“Monica, however, still regarded herself quite favorably as the president’s singular mistress. So now she was pissed off.
“You have to wait. He’s with his other piece of a–. Wait till he’s finished,” the officer told her.

It was clear to all, including Lewinsky, that the president was “screwing with Eleanor in the Oval Office.”

With an unseemly gesture toward her body, an irate Lewinsky responded, “What’s he want with her when he has this?”

But, Byrne writes, “Eleanor Mondale and Monica Lewinsky could not satiate the president’s horndog sexual desires.”

There were others, like the unnamed White House receptionist Byrne literally cleaned up after.

“Does that look like semen to you?” Nel asked, nervously showing Byrne a towel — emblazoned with the White House seal — that he found in the study.

“Yeah, that sure looks like it,” Byrne replied. “What the f- -k and who would?

“Nel explained that he’d been finding — and cleaning — semen- and lipstick-stained towels for weeks.

Byrne deduced the lipstick was not Monica’s...

“Yes,” Byrne said, admitting he believed it belonged to a “West Wing receptionist.”

Believing the presidency was at stake, he stuffed the towels in a trash bag and disposed of it off the White House grounds.

While the White House felt like a “brothel” — and Byrne believed Hillary Clinton knew of the affairs — the Secret Service had the “nerve-racking” responsibility of maintaining marital peace.

And dealing with the first lady’s anger was no small matter, according to Byrne, who describes her as a self-centered, tantrum-throwing, physical abuser.

She also knew how to handle a gun. Byrne found Hillary Clinton took a “surprising liking to firearms, especially a Thompson submachine gun, an original and an American classic, Al Capone’s legendary ‘Chicago typewriter.’”

Sometime after Bill’s 1998 impeachment, and long after Byrne left the White House, the Clintons came by a Secret Service training center and Byrne saw “Mrs. Clinton let loose a spray of man-stopping .45 -caliber rounds into the paper, dirt, and berms of our outdoor one-way range.” Smiling, she fired her next shots “right into the target’s crotch.”

Byrne says the Secret Service discussed the potential for “domestic violence” between the Clintons and worried frequently about how to protect the president from his volcanic — and occasionally violent — wife.

Her only concern was herself, Byrne says. “Mrs. Clinton was a joke, taking herself and the entire administration minutiae so seriously. Her ‘brand’ was her only concern. She was a faux leader, all bark, no bite, but in a very real power position as first lady.”

One exchange with her protective detail went this way:

“Good morning, first lady,” an officer said.

“Go f- -k yourself,” she replied.

Because Bill Clinton lied, Byrne says, and “these people were, frankly, so goddamn unprofessional.”

Recently, The Clinton Foundation faced questions after pledging $2 million to a company partly owned by a woman Clinton had a questionable relationship with.

tim in vermont said...

He was physically aggressive sexually before he met Hillary, unless you can explain why he was kicked out of Oxford.

Professional lady said...

I have always thought that Bill Clinton has a deep contempt for women.

Big Mike said...

Call me crazy, but I believe ...

I think I will call you crazy, Althouse. I suspect that most of us men who've found ourselves working alongside womanizing colleagues will tell you that the only person that the womanizer truly loves is the one he sees in the mirror. But did Lewinsky love him? I suspect more like a starry-eyed infatuation than true love. His charm is legendary, and she's probably a long way from being the only woman who felt flattered by his attention.

Freeman Hunt said...

She is very pretty. (Given her experience, I bet she's also tougher and more streetwise than the vast majority of women.) Not sure that I understand why one would think that he was in love with her though. What leads to that conclusion?

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

at the debate, Bill Clinton nervously scanned the victimized women Trump had brought.
He leaned towards Chelsea and whispering, asked "Did I rape the ugly one?"
"That's Mom" she answered.

mezzrow said...

Monica looks terrific. You're trolling us, Althouse. I truly believe that.

tim in vermont said...

I think Bill is a sociopath. I think Trump has a problem in that being a sociopath is almost a job requirement and he's not one.

Snark said...

"I think Trump has a problem in that being a sociopath is almost a job requirement and he's not one."

So delusional.

bagoh20 said...

"What leads to that conclusion?"

Feels, as in I feels like I need an angle here.

bagoh20 said...

She certainly looks better than ever, but I'm sure Bill loved them all. He has loved and lost like no man before.

Tank said...

Pretty sure Bill, Hillary and Monica all loved Bill.

Love? Bill was/is a player. End of story.

Monica’s not my type, but not awful or beautiful.

Snark said...

"Feels, as in I feels like I need an angle here."

Well put. AWKWARD contrarianism. When you see yourself as always leaning into the wind, try not to look like that fake weather guy in the hurricane.

Trumpit said...

I love Monica, too. What does Melania see in Schlump except for dollar signs? The answer is nothing, the same as everyone else. Only an idiot or a fool supports him, and they need to be constantly outed as the deplorables that the are. No free passes when it comes to Schlump.

Greg P said...

She was an immature early 20-something girl. She was overwhelmed with hero worship, and totally infatuated.

She was not in love w/ Bill. She never had the chance to know him well enough to get that far.

Bill, OTOH, is an amoral user. I doubt he's ever loved anyone, other than himself, his entire adult life. No, he did not, and does not, love Monica

Hagar said...

According to The Daily Mail Lewinsky is on TV giving the details of their "intimate" encounters.

Greg P said...

I have always thought that Starr ran right over her. He should have filed it all away. It had nothing to do with Whitewater.


Bzzt. It had to do with perjury and obstruction of justice. Both felonies.

Leslie Graves said...

Thanks for your comments about Lewinsky. I always thought she was highly attractive and/or magnetic or whatever the right words would be, but that didn't seem to be part of the common understanding of her, so I didn't have the courage of my convictions on that.

Mark O said...

Of course he thought he was in love with her. She was everything that Hillary had never been. She was beautiful, intelligent, innocent, and sexy.

He abused his status to lure her in and then, when discovered, worked to destroy her reputation. Before the Blue Dress was discovered, the WH intended to characterize her as a pothead.

Bill seems busy with other young women, very young. He can pretend he is also young and they, too, are innocent.

Despite the truth of all of that, the Democrats, especially Democrat women, seem to worship him. Is he the universal bad boy?

n.n said...

Lust and pleasure. She was a "friend with benefits", an object of "casting couch" affection. It probably was not rape or even "rape-rape" (whoopie, I guess), but it was superior exploitation in the selective feminist religion, covered with a semantic legal play. As for infidelity, there was no evidence of normalization, so that's between him, his wife, and God.

mockturtle said...

Bill's idol was JFK, so there's that.

Rabel said...

Starr Report:

"At one point, the President inserted a cigar into Ms. Lewinsky's vagina, then put the cigar in his mouth and said: "It tastes good."

Love is a many-splendored thing.

Molly said...

(eaglebeak)

I have always thought she was beautiful.

William said...

I don't think there's any reason to suppose that he was more in love with her than the hundreds of other women he had relations with. I think he sincerely loved sex and was willing to make sacrifices and take risks in order to have sex. Bill Clinton's love affair with sex transcended his other interests.......I don't know if Monica was especially in love with Bill Clinton as Bill Clinton. Status and power have the same effect on a woman's libido as perky tits have on a man's. She was responding more to his power and status than to his charm.......Both Bill and Monica act in their self interest and define that self interest as some kind of altruistic ideal. It makes Monica look good to look infatuated rather than a home wrecker or the kind of girl who would leverage a blow job into a prestige gig at the UN. Now it makes her look good to be the victim of a powerful man, so that's the amended narrative.......I think Bill and Monica had things in common and would have been compatible if they paired off, but Bill and Hillary had a great deal more in common and have had the most enduring romance. Not Al Gore and Tipper. Maybe not even Barack and Michelle. Bill and Hillary are the great romantic couple of out time.

narciso said...

as compared with Elizabeth gracen, Shirley, why do we need to hear from her, when it mattered 20 years ago, she was a basenghi,

William said...

I don't think Donald Trump ever truly loved Stormy Daniels. I think Stormy is probably still in love with Trump and is making all of trouble for him because of her frustrated love.

tim in vermont said...

Like I said, Snark, a president needs to be a psychopath to fool people like you. It's no newsflash that your entrenched opinion will likely remain unchanged no matter what.

n.n said...

the President inserted a cigar into... Love is a many-splendored thing

Oh, well. It was politically congruent. #NoJudgmentSelective

Ed said...

Life is complicated, as are people. I suppose anything is possible, but the reality is we'll never know and each of the two parties involved is probably not certain of anything regarding the other, and given the twenty years past, is probably even less sure of their actual motivations at the time the events took place (confirmation bias not just being issue when someone asks you a question; we like our personal narratives to conform to the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves).

Ice Nine said...

Yeah, she's beautiful. Was back then too. But pudgy, which rules beautiful out for many. But it doesn't rule beautiful out at all.

chickelit said...

Yeah, she's beautiful. Was back then too. But pudgy, which rules beautiful out for many. But it doesn't rule beautiful out at all.

She's pudgy -- if you want to call it that -- in all the right places.

Rusty said...

." What does Melania see in Schlump"
First of all if you want to be taken seriously in any debate it helps to call things by their rightful name. Your prsidents nakme is Trump. It would be helpful if you tremember that.
And obviously Melania sees something you don't.

MaxedOutMama said...

I don't see why anyone would assume that he loved her. I think he just couldn't resist pussy. The guy was a player.

Merny11 said...

First off, yes Rusty.
Clinton is beyond a pig. He is a Rapist. A Pedophile. A sicko. Monica an opportunist. I feel no pity for either of them. Contempt and revulsion however, yes.

Beach Brutus said...

No ... love is not dispatching your friend to her knees under your desk to give you a blow job while you discuss the war in Bosnia with a US Congressman ... that's just a raw power play.

Patrick said...

That's interesting. From the time that happened until now, it never once even occurred to me that he loved her- not once.

Interesting ideas are why I come to this blog, even if I have less to add these days.

Cool.

FIDO said...

Pretending that a deep love existed in a man who chased every skirt in Arkansas makes people who were supportive or tactically silent feel better about themselves for betraying core personal principles.

'But it was for lurv!' makes you feel less of a sell out for that abortion veto.

Everyone wants to focus on the incredibly innocent and naive Monica. What willful blindness!

Did he 'lurv' Gennifer Flowers whom he threw under the bus?

That Oxford girl too scared to testify?

How about Paula Jones when he dropped trousers and told her to kiss it? Was that love too?

Kathleen Wiley? Love?

I know you will never use that fucking 'cruel neutrality' on a grrl, but can't you apply it for two Goddamn seconds to Bill?

Why are you giving him a benefit of the doubt for a shittier history of action than you EVER gave Kavanaugh?

Bald partisanship is not disguised by spelling it c-r-u-e-l n-e-u-l-t-r-a-l-i-t-y





FIDO said...

Call me crazy, but I believe Bill Clinton loved her... and loves her still! I think he watched that show, saw how beautiful she is today, 20 years after their 2-year affair, and wishes he could have had her all these years and could be with her now.


No. You are in willful blindness to self protect your ego from having to apply your beloved standards of love and respect to a man who clearly lacks all of them...but you WANT to believe.


This post makes that 'cruel neutrality' an even sicker joke than it was during the Kavanaugh hearings.

FIDO said...

I'll bet women really do love him and go after him in droves. I bet he loves women, too, especially the pretty ones.


There is this. Bill, for whatever reason, set the panties aflutter of millions of Democrat women across the nation...particularly in Academia. Ahem!

And when women love, they don't care about 'facts'. Some guy shoving a cigar up a young girl's cooch? "Isn't he so expressive and open minded in his sexuality. Make me your humidor, Bill! Your cigars will never dry out!"


These infatuations are, from the outside, ridiculous and sickening. But I doubt that all the naysayers, people bringing up history, bringing up facts, will dissuade an Althouse to maybe bring some 'cruel neutrality' to her analysis .

She wants to believe. Facts be damned.

JAORE said...

"I believe Bill Clinton loved her and that he watched this show and felt deep pangs of loss of her love and her company these past 20 years. I'm not saying he's a good person. I'm just observing the fact of the sheer magnetism of Monica Lewinsky. I wish Bill Clinton had simply resigned and walked away from the presidency — given it all up for love. I think she deserved it, she whose youth he appropriated, she who really did love him."

Wow, even for a Harlequin Romance that is a weak ending to a sordid tale.

Oso Negro said...

The Nicholson Baker work that comes to mind for Bill and Monica is "The Fermata". As I recall, in that one a woman stops time to fellate the President of the United States. That was published in 1994.

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Tom Grey said...

Would have been a romantic abdication, if Bill had really loved her. (Like King Edward VIII abdicated.)

I don't quite believe it; I'm not sure he can love anybody even half as much as he loves himself. Tho he almost certainly loved Monica more than he loved Hillary.

Just as Trump loved Marla Maples more, while he was with her, than he loved his first wife, Ivana (the champ Czech skier).

I suspect there is good amount of alpha male self-love in "loving" a much younger woman, different than your wife.

Otto said...

I think this is about Ann rationalizing her voting for Clinton. She just doesn't want to believe that a "highly intelligent" feminist law professor voted 2 times for a sexual predator. His presidency will always be remembered for a blow job and anal sex(?) with a whore in the oval office. What a "blow" to Ann's discernment ability and feminism. So she fantasizes and tries to put a good face on what is purely a carnal act in order to validate her 60s core beliefs: sexual freedom, women can do what they want with their bodies, style over substance, no moral code, no right or wrong, I am God, etc. But notice she does not use her rhetorical skills for her rationalization but just uses "corny" <60s words like love and beauty. The emperor has no clothes.

Anonymous said...

".... after her 2-year affair with Bill Clinton..."


Good God! There was no 'affair'. An affair would have an element of romance and affection.
Lewinsky was just a cum dump. Why romanticize this crap?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I'm surprised she didn't end up dead. Another Clinton casualty of convenience.


Lewinsky, on Bill Clinton: last week.

“If you want to know what power looks like, watch a man safely, even smugly, do interviews for decades, without ever worrying whether he will be asked the questions he doesn’t want to answer.”

SeanF said...

I think Lewinsky is more attractive now than I thought she was at the time. I don't know how much of that is due to changes in her, and how much is due to changes in me.

I also don't know where Ann got the adverb "stunningly" from. The source quote just said she looked "beautiful".

FIDO said...

Ms. Althouse

Do you believe Juanita Broderick as much as you believe Christine Ford?

Why or why not? Be detailed. Is it her husband?

Or is it how the man in each case MIGHT vote?

FIDO said...

'Stunningly' beautiful? Never ask a woman how attractive another woman is. Her answers may make sense to another woman, but never to a man. She is a six. Maybe a 6.5.

How scripted this 'documentary' is. It's as good as that other 'documentary' 'The Truth' is regarding Dan Rather's pushing a lie as the truth, at least from the little bit I saw here.

This feels like proof that Madam Clinton will run again. She is trying to immunize herself from all the shit that she did, and she knows that Bill is a huge throbbing tumescent member jutting out of her pantsuit and making her Feminism and honesty a lie.

And Althouse is schilling for her. "Oh...it wasn't the DOZENS of other women which defines Bill 'Rapist Pedophile' Clinton. He was in LURV!

Nonsense and insulting.

Was that 'stunningly' added to give Bill the excuse of 'she was too hot to turn down?' Fuck no. She was a blowsy, artsy chunky 20 year old with a moderately nice rack. But she had a hard pass so he could make a hard pass.

She was AVAILABLE. Not amazingly hot. Not emotionally mature (Althouse ignores that scripted Barbra Walters Interview where she looked like an idiot). She was there in her short skirts and tight sweaters and she said 'yes'.

Kelly said...

Oh please. She was infatuated with someone she barely knew, that isn’t love. He was doing what he had done many times before. Why would it turn out any differently.

FIDO said...

Just for the record, I don't expect Althouse to respond. I note all these instances of 'lurv' to force her to self reflect.

Geoff Matthews said...

Remember when Monica did a drawn-out bit with Tom Green? He took her home to meet his parents and said that they were going to make an announcement. His mom and dad looked really uncomfortable.
Turns out, they were going into business to make handbags, but you know that everyone else was assuming marriage.
That's the only public appearance that Monica made, sans scandal.