Sunday, Jul 20, 2008
Why did President Clinton risk everything for a perky intern? Because he was in love.
Aug 30, 1998 | Why did President Clinton wear that necktie? I'm referring to the $100 silk Zegna in audacious gold-and-navy patterns that Monica gave him with the remark, "When I see you wearing this tie, I'll know I'm close to your heart." Clinton donned it for a gun-ban rally in the Rose Garden the very morning Monica was testifying before the grand jury. The New York Times suspected that it was "a plea for solidarity," while Newsday thought it was a White House threat to Lewinsky "that she was being watched."
But there was something off in the timing. "Ms. Lewinsky did not learn of Mr. Clinton's choice of neckties until she turned on the television that evening," the Times noted.
Now, any two-bit G-7 knows that Clinton would have had to wear the tie the day before so that she would see it on the evening news prior to her testimony. Certainly Clinton, of all people, would have known such media fundamentals. So think like Sherlock Holmes for a minute. If it wasn't witness-tampering or a threat, then what was Clinton signaling?
I was on my third day of noodling this riddle (along with a few others I will get to shortly) while strolling to a friend's birthday party in Central Park when I looked up to see Woody Allen's familiar building. Woody and Soon Yi, Bill and Monica. Could it be? What if it wasn't just meaningless sex by a groupie eager to try out her presidential kneepads? What if Bill and Monica were actually in love?
Stay with me here, because if you suspend the belief that everything Clinton says is a lie, then a good number of mysteries disappear, patterns surface and a coherent theory emerges.
What if Clinton wore the tie for no reason other than to communicate to Monica, after the ordeal of testifying, that "I'm close to your heart"? Impossible? Does it help to know that Clinton also wore the Zegna when he left Washington for his historic trip to China, and on the day of his return -- two occasions with major television exposure for coded "I love you, Monica" messages? Bill and Monica seemed to have a thing for secret signals. One source alleges the infamous beret was a gift from Clinton. Now what better way to send a message to Dreamboat amid a massively attended White House function? And how about the "Romeo and Juliet" ad placed in the Washington Post on Valentine's Day by Monica? Assuming that Clinton wasn't looking for a dishwasher's job or wasn't out to buy a used El Camino, why would he be cruising the classifieds unless it had been pre-arranged by the two of them? (Watergate buffs will note that the Washington Post was the preferred medium of the ur-Deep Throat.)
How about this one: Last winter, just before the scandal broke, Linda Tripp set up a trap for Clinton when she told the Paula Jones lawyers that the president had given Lewinsky gifts. So a Dec. 19 subpoena served on Lewinsky commanded her to hand over "each and every gift including, but not limited to, any and all dresses, accessories, and jewelry, and/or hat pins given to you by, or on behalf of, Defendant Clinton." Almost immediately, there's the whole business of Betty Currie and the retrieval of the gifts.
But nine days later, on Dec. 28, upon the first opportunity for Bill and Monica to have a Christmas date (and their last meeting face to face, or whatever), Clinton gives her more presents. A bunch more. He gives her a throw rug, a gold brooch and an Alaskan stone carving of a bear. You can muse on the hidden meaning of such a troika of gifts on your own time, but consider this: Is there anything more domestic than a throw rug. A throw rug, for Christ's sake. I don't even know where to begin with that. A gold brooch is an intimate gift, but it's not as overtly sexual as, say, earrings (piercing the flesh) or a necklace (embracing the body). A gold brooch suggests sexual intimacy, as any piece of jewelry does, but with the implication of a mature future. And a bear carving? I'm betting that one day we will learn of a certain ursine nickname Monica once employed for the First Stud.
But to get back to the problem. Why would OIC-savvy President Clinton risk giving even more presents to Monica? As a Clinton insider told the Washington Post, it just didn't make any sense from a Machiavellian point of view: "The moral of the story is, if he was orchestrating an obstruction campaign, why was he giving her gifts on the 28th?"
Perhaps the simple answer is that this was a guy who loved his gal. It's a hard concept, admittedly, to wrap one's mind around since such a plain and boyish explanation flies in the face of Clinton's conniving reputation for "using everybody." (A preposterous accusation, by the way, since presidents are Darwinianly selected for such behavior. Reagan, Nixon, Kennedy, Roosevelt -- famous users all.) Of course the rashness of the Christmas presents is nothing compared to the insanity of the entire affair. It was initiated after the Paula Jones lawsuit was green-lighted. Hubris? Or maybe enchantment.
The full list of presents, as it has accumulated from leaks out of the grand jury, holds other clues. Consider the joke sunglasses. That's right, one of the presents Monica received from the Leader of the Free World was a pair of joke sunglasses. Silly, goofy, sure. But just who do we feel most comfortable being silly and goofy with? Here, visualize this: Clinton giving joke sunglasses to Hillary. Hard to bring that little mind picture into focus, isn't it?
Clinton gave Monica a "souvenir from Radio City Music Hall" when he was there to celebrate his 50th birthday party. So he's giving her presents from milestone events in his life, thus suggesting that, for him, she participates in them. He shares with Monica the solemnity of his office (a signed copy of a State of the Union address) but also gives her something hinting of future vacations (a Martha's Vineyard Black Dog bag). One gift was as romantically straightforward as it gets: a box of chocolates.
Then there are the books, which hint of a deep but spiritual kind of Eros between them. Clinton gave Monica "Leaves of Grass." Let's just put aside the easy fellatrix jokes ("I Sing the Body Electric") and think about what this particular book means to a man of Clinton's generation. Metaphorically, it's about the beauty of rollicking carnality when it yearns to defy death, a book that signifies the elevation of old-fashioned lusty monkey-love as a plaintive reach toward immortality. For a liberal-arts dilettante like Clinton, "Leaves of Grass" is the book that yokes the sacred and the profane into meaningful union. It's what you give your lover before you move on to a Henry Miller novel or James Joyce's letters to Nora from the winter of 1909.
And what is the book Monica gave Bill -- Nicholson Baker's phone-sex tour de force "Vox" -- but a Gen X attempt at signaling the same complex of spiritual longings bound up in physical desire? Yet, the differences are interesting. "Leaves" is hopeful, even defiant, while "Vox" has an almost tragic quality to it, an acknowledgment that the real world will never allow the couple's profanity to bloom into holiness. The book ends with the woman hanging up the phone because "I have to put a load of towels in the laundry." (Knowing now of the DNA-stained dress, one wonders if Monica ever finished the book.)
According to the usual sources (Monica's "friends"), she and the president actually participated in some phone sex. Given the intimacy of the gifts, this revelation is significant. By and large, phone sex happens between absolute strangers or serious lovers. You don't have phone sex with a friend or even a groupie. Among committed lovers, phone sex is the foundation of something deeper and meaningful. One doesn't whisper one's own degrading but arousing fantasies to anyone except someone you trust and love -- and love passionately.
If you accept this, then it becomes even clearer why Hillary has decided to stand and fight. She, perhaps alone except for Monica, realizes what is really at stake here. Her marriage.
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