HOW LONG
can famed D.C.-Hollywood-N.Y. beauty Patricia Duff–former spouse of movie executive Mike Medavoy and Revlon tycoon Ronald Perelman–stay out of the Clinterngate mess? In Hit and Run, their highly-regarded expose of the early-’90s Sony studio debacle, Nancy Griffin and Kim Masters report as follows: “At a dinner party at a producer’s home, which took place after [Patricia] and Mike had slept in the Lincoln Bedroom, she told the gathering that Clinton was ‘a full-service president.’ Patricia later said she meant to refer only to Clinton’s hospitality, but her listeners didn’t interpret the remark that way.” …
AN EMERGING DEFENSE of Clinton is that Linda Tripp’s evidence is somehow tainted because she’s been out to get the president all along. But if she were really out to get him, why would she have contradicted Kathleen Willey’s reported story that she (Willey) did not welcome Clinton’s advances? Tripp told Newsweek that Willey did not seem upset at the time, but instead looked “flustered, happy and joyful.” Certainly it would be more damaging to Clinton if Tripp said Willey was distraught and angry, an obvious victim of harassment. … Also, why would Tripp, in order to get Clinton to settle the Paula Jones lawsuit, have urged Lewinsky to tell Clinton that she (Lewinsky) had been blabbing about their sexual encounters? Tipping Clinton off would only help the president. Settling the Jones case would have helped him too (avoiding the whole perjury issue). But it would also have gotten Tripp out of testifying (and contradicting Lewinsky). Maybe Tripp is telling the truth when she says she was really terrified of having to testify, not hell-bent on destroying Clinton. …
WE LOVE HIM WHEN HE’S ANGRY: Is Chatterbox alone in feeling that Clinton’s State of the Union address was actually much more forceful because the president seemed a little tense and pissed off–not doing his usual ingratiating, good humored sales job. Something really seemed to be at stake. …
THERE’S BEEN A LOT OF TALK that Clinton has broken an “implicit pact” with the American people that was struck after he confronted Gennifer Flowers’ allegations in his famous 1992 60 Minutes interview. But what exactly was this unwritten deal? Many commentators (e.g., columnist Ellen Goodman, Jonathan Alter of Newsweek) seem to believe Clinton effectively promised not to screw around again in the future. Andrew Ferguson of Time argues that since the voters didn’t care about Flowers, “an implicit bargain was struck,” which held that Clinton would only screw around with people “roughly his own age,” and do it discreetly. Chatterbox thinks Clinton believes the implicit bargain was this: Since the voters didn’t care about Flowers, they’ll let him get away with it again. That’s the problem with those “implicit” bargains. Memo to electorate: Next time get it in writing. …
SEEN ON A BULLETIN BOARD at Columbia University (honest!):
INTERN WANTED FOR GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
ALL CC ‘99 AND CC ‘00 ELIGIBLE 15 HOURS PER WEEK/UNPAID
