David, you bring out the worst in me, for which I thank you. Which means I now get to tell you what really bugs me about Linda Tripp. It isn’t so much that she was trying to write a book and make some money, or even that she was trying to leverage a low level civil service job into something that would get her some attention (which many foolish people mistake for respect). I just can’t stand passive-aggressive people who purposely stay in situations (work or family) where they feel superior to everyone else just to keep their smug juices going. If you are not going to believe in what you do and the people you do it with, leave or it will rot your soul. Come to think of it, this also applies to those people who trade artistic integrity for a good table at Morton’s and putting their yoga instructors on the studio payroll.Fawn Hall was certainly misguided when she shredded documents (and, as I recall, she stuffed a few of them in her shirt to get them out of the building), but by God, she was loyal. It would have been nice if she had been loyal to the Constitution instead of to Oliver North’s rogue operation, but at least she had a sense of commitment and truly believed that she was working for the good guys. Linda Tripp, described Kathleen Willey exiting the Oval Office not just as disheveled, but “joyful.” To me, that characterization implies a level of spite and hatefulness that is substantiated by her cultivation of Monica Lewinsky. If the President had sex with Monica Lewinsky, that was reprehensible on many different grounds, but Linda Tripp is still the clear winner by a landslide in the competition for greatest deceit and abuse.And while I’m ranting, let me move on to a subject about which I am unable to make any pretense of fair-mindedness, the Transformation Christian Ministries. I am happy to say that I missed Nightline last night, but I did read the story in the Post today about one of the group’s weekly conversion sessions, with counselors who see themselves as “benevolent healers, soothing nurses for tortured souls.” I guess I believe that these people mean well. But I hate to think of the people they have encouraged to hate themselves. I hate to think what the TCM do to the reputation of the many people who serve God by promoting tolerance and love. The Post story does have one sweet story, though. The co-founders of Exodus, another of the conversion groups, were two men who realized on the way to give a speech that they had fallen in love with each other. “On the plane they rewrote their speech and told the audience that God had to unconditionally love them for who they were.” Which, of course, He does.There’s a story in today’s Washington Times about Lynn Baker, a grandmother who has had her hearing restored through cochlear implants. Before, she could not hear the sound of her own voice. Now, she can hear a teaspoon clink in a teacup. She says, “I feel giddy at times with the thrill of sound.” When she heard her husband’s voice again, for the first time in 20 years, she wept. So this is a happy story, except for some members of the deaf community, who believe that Baker has gone through the equivalent of the Transformation Christian Ministries by having the surgery. They argue that the deaf have their own language and culture, one that is equally valid, and that it is abusive and bigoted to believe that the implants make someone more “whole.” Mrs. Baker, who lives in the hearing world and is an adult, can make her own decision. But there have been fights over deaf babies whose hearing parents want them to have the surgery in time to acquire spoken language while they are still toddlers, and over deaf children of deaf parents, who do not want their children to have the surgery. Both just want their children to grow up in the world they know and live in, to be able to communicate the way they do. I admit a bias for the hearing world, but it would be hard for me to interfere with either parent’s decision.The Washington Times also has the kind of story I find irresistible, a collection of wedding disasters. While my all-time favorite is omitted (the cash to pay the musicians was stolen from the jacket of the bride’s father, while it was draped on a chair and the wedding video revealed that the thief was a relative of the groom), it does have one that it accurately compares to Fatal Attraction. The “I do” came not from the bride, but from the ex-girlfriend of the groom, who was standing behind the minister wearing a wedding gown. She also wrote, “I love you” on the hood of the limo in lighter fluid and lit it. The reporter’s bio at the end of the article notes that she has just become engaged. I wish her luck. You, too – have a great weekend.
Hell Hath No Fury Like Linda Tripp
Advertisement
