"She was around in the early 1960s when JFK was cutting a swath through his aides at the White House..."

"... which served as preparation for the moment she became world-famous. That was at the end of January 1998, when she became the public representative of Linda Tripp, the intimate (and betrayer) of Monica Lewinsky, whose taped phone calls (taped on Lucianne’s advice) revealed the relationship between Lewinsky and President Clinton. You’ve probably forgotten, but I haven’t, the hilarious spectacle of a hundred reporters standing on the sidewalk at 84th and Broadway in front of Lucianne’s building as she calmly and with a Cheshire-cat smile replied to the screams of America’s journalists. 'That’s not a Linda Tripp question,' she would say, in her sing-song voice, if they asked what the agenda was here, or the angle, or whatever. Sure, she had an agenda, and she was totally honest about it. She didn’t like Clinton, either personally or ideologically, and wanted to see him laid low, and unlike other people who’ve been in the destroy-the-president game, she didn’t make any bones about it. When Lewinsky-gate ultimately came a cropper, she was even-keeled. 'If you go at the king, you’d best kill the king,' she said, 'and we didn’t.'"

From "Lucianne Goldberg, 1935-2022" by John Podhoretz (Commentary).

Lots more at the link, but let me quote this too: "She could tell you...  how incredibly depressing it was to spend time with Charles Schulz, who drew 'Peanuts'... 'They called him Sparky... It was the most inappropriate nickname ever.'"

"In backgrounding partisan politics and foregrounding Lewinsky’s experience of being strung along by the leader of the free world, at great personal expense, whether she knew it or not..."

"... the show makes Tripp an awful friend, a bitter woman, a conservative hack primarily responsible for the world crashing around Lewinsky’s ears, but one who is also granted an inch of ground to stand on. Bill Clinton was far worse than his allies and friends ever wanted to admit. That she chose the most harmful, duplicitous, self-serving way to address this is still true—but if she comes out looking bad, it’s still better than she’s ever looked before."

From "Impeachment’s Villain Isn’t Who You Think She Is" (Slate).

As for Bill Clinton... why isn't he the villain (at long last)?

"To me, the crime is that Monica, Linda and Paula had no control over how they were perceived... It was unbelievable, the hate."

Said Sarah Burgess, a producer and writer of most of the 10-episode series "Impeachment," quoted in "'Impeachment' Focuses on the Women Behind Clinton’s Scandals/In a group interview, Ryan Murphy and the stars and creators of the FX drama discuss why they made Linda Tripp and Monica Lewinsky the stars of the show, and why we still care" (NYT).

Set in the 1990s, the 10-episode series revisits the miasma of scandal and innuendo that shrouded the Clinton White House: Paula Jones’s sexual harassment lawsuit against President Bill Clinton; Clinton’s sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky; Lewinsky’s friendship with Linda Tripp; and the tangle of lies, half-truths and illicit recordings that were ultimately detailed in the Starr Report, the infamous and lurid document prepared by the independent counsel Kenneth Starr....

From the group interview with Annaleigh Ashford (Paula Jones), Sarah Paulson (Linda Tripp), Beanie Feldstein (Monica Lewinsky), and Ryan Murphy (who isn't really identified in the article/we're just told it's "Ryan Murphy's 'Impeachment'):

"As news broke that Tripp was near death, Lewinsky tweeted: 'no matter the past, upon hearing that linda tripp is very seriously ill, i hope for her recovery. i can’t imagine how difficult this is for her family.'"

From "Linda Tripp, whose tapes exposed Clinton affair, dies at 70" (AP).

While defending the taping as necessary to protect herself if her credibility were questioned, Tripp also consulted with a New York literary agent before beginning her secret recordings. Her initial concerns proved warranted when officials and pundits questioned her motives and attacked her character.

Tripp soon became a recognizable member of the wide cast of characters in the impeachment drama, so much so that actor John Goodman appeared as Tripp several times on “Saturday Night Live.”...

That was back when women who came forward and exposed sexual harassment in the workplace were treated as fat, ugly, old, jealous, self-aggrandizing freaks. But America had not yet learned about sexual harassment... other than that time we watched the high-profile, televised attack on Clarence Thomas. Who portrayed Anita Hill on "Saturday Night Live"?

(Watch Goodman as Tripp here.)

"Emotionality has been weaponized against women for centuries to dismiss us, silence us, or prove our imagined, inherent weakness.... [T]he pulsar gathered force until, with critical mass, we disturbed the universe."

So writes the woman whose emotionality disturbed us before we were ready for pulsar intensity disturbance.

I'm reading "Monica Lewinsky on the Decade We Reclaimed Our Stories—and Ourselves/A timeline of women’s acts of reclamation, 2010–2019" in Vanity Fair.

I was just talking — yesterday, in off-blog life — about Monica Lewinsky. I have long taken the position — in real-world conversations — that Monica Lewinsky really loved Bill Clinton and would have done anything for him, would have continued to please him in the style of old-fashioned femininity, driven by love wherever it went. Her confidante, Linda Tripp, is often disparaged, but we should recognize her as an early exemplar of the #MeToo woman. She was the woman telling another woman to wake up and look at what is really happening. This isn't love. This is exploitation. Your emotionality has been weaponized against you, to diminish and control you, but it needs to gather force and disturb the universe.

"Well, Linda Tripp — remember, Clinton was impeached because of Linda Tripp’s testimony, which was complete hearsay!"/"Well, she was not under the desk with Monica. Let’s put it that way. So that’s hearsay."

Discussion of the hearsay rule on "The View."

The problem with Hillary's pause-button fantasy.

As we talked about yesterday here, Hillary Clinton — in her soon-to-be-published memoir — fantasized about the choice she didn't make when she was on stage with Donald Trump at the second debate last October. She wrote:

"It was incredibly uncomfortable. He was literally breathing down my neck. My skin crawled. It was one of those moments where you wish you could hit pause and ask everyone watching, well, what would you do? Do you stay calm, keep smiling and carry on as if he weren’t repeatedly invading your space? Or do you turn, look him in the eye and say loudly and clearly, ‘back up you creep, get away from me. I know you love to intimidate women but you can’t intimidate me, so back up.’...

"I chose option A. I kept my cool, aided by a lifetime of dealing with difficult men trying to throw me off. I did, however, grip the microphone extra hard, I wonder, though, whether I should have chosen option B. It certainly would have been better TV. Maybe I have overlearned the lesson of staying calm, biting my tongue, digging my fingernails into a clenched fist, smiling all the while, determined to present a composed face to the world." 

I've already said a few things about this, so read the first post, but there's something else. Is Hillary saying — with hindsight — I should have taken option B? I don't know what's in the next paragraph. Perhaps she says my choice of option A really was best, because I would have sounded weird, weak, or crazy if I'd said "back up you creep, get away from me. I know you love to intimidate women but you can’t intimidate me, so back up."

Last night, PBS News hour played the audiobook version of that quote. Listen to how "back up you creep" sounds in Hillary Clinton's voice:



That might get some feminists and fans to cheer, but I think most people would think it's ridiculous to voluntarily join a debate and then object to the proximity of the opponent. I suspect that she's saying: See? I did the right thing. I know how to deal with "difficult men" trying to throw me off.

Does she mention Rick Lazio, who got into her space in that senatorial debate in 2000? Hindsight there says she did the right thing, which was to act as though his approaching her was funny. The feminist spin — man invades woman's space — was applied by commentators after the fact.

So I think Hillary knew how to act and wasn't choosing between options and would never have chosen option B, even if she'd had a pause button to get more time to contemplate the options. Option B is a book-selling gambit invented not because Hillary lost the election and seriously thinks saying "back up you creep" might have produced a better outcome but because it might stir up excitement about a dead-on-arrival book.

But I want to talk about "creep." Why — if you were inventing an imagined line that might have been deployed during the debate — would you come up with "back up you creep"? Why not something more sophisticated? Why use a girlish word like "creep"? It sounds like something a 22-year-old intern might call her boss. Let's go back to 1998. Here are Michael Isikoff and Evan Thomas writing in Newsweek:

Over the phone, the two women are talking about sex and its consequences. Night after night, for months on end, they have talked of little else. One of the women, the younger one, sounds like a neurotic, slightly spoiled Valley Girl...

The older woman, Linda Tripp, is urging the younger woman, Monica Lewinsky, to tell all about her relationship with the man they refer to as "the big he" and "the creep." But Lewinsky is resisting, hoping, somewhat plaintively, that she won't get caught....

For a moment, Lewinsky seems to entertain the idea of threatening to tell all – tell Clinton that she intends to reveal the truth if she is questioned by Jones's lawyers. "Maybe we should just tell the creep," she says. "Maybe we should just say, don't ever talk to me again, I f-----d you over [by telling others about the affair], now you have this information, do whatever you want with it."...

Lewinsky recalls a thank-you note she wrote the president after her family was allowed to watch him tape a radio address. "I sent a note to Nancy [Hernreich, an assistant to the president], a note to Betty [Currie], and a note to the creep... 'Dear Schmucko, thank you... As my little nephew said, 'It was great to meet the principal of the United States'."...

Back to October 2016. Here's video from the NYT put up the day after the debate. The pro-Hillary spin is fascinating — so different experienced today that it was back then, when we felt Trump was down and desperate and Hillary was sailing toward victory:

"So, is Bristol's baby's name one last dig at Hillary from the Palin family?"

"Sarah's first grandchild is named after Hillary's husband's nemesis...Linda Tripp! Sarah always manages to one-up Hillary!"

Wrote Zachary Paul Sire, somewhere in the long comments thread that spun out under my "Benjamin Button" commentary last night.

IN THE COMMENTS: Henry Buck says:

The Palins (I don't know about the Johnsons) just seem to like boys names that begin with Tr-

Track, Trig, Tripp ...

What's next? Trap?

EDH said:

No, Trog?

A remake by Oliver Stone, with Sarah Palin as Joan Crawford.

"Whatever the risk, this kill-crazy fiend from Hell must be destroyed!"

I prefer Trogg to make everything groovy. But if it's a dirty and sweet rock-star kid you want, call him Trex.

To stress conservatism, call him Trad.

Stay away from Trick, Truss, Troll, and Tran.

If you get twins, call them Tried and True.