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from: Nell Minow

Monica Talks

Posted Thursday, Aug. 6, 1998, at 10:42 AM ET

Four years of Starr's investigation has brought us to this point. This morning, I turned on CNN to find television cameras staking out Kenneth Starr's driveway. (Commentary: "He has not yet returned to the car . . . ") The news reports about the expectations for Monica's testimony consistently assume that everyone got the same leaks, and no one is anticipating any surprises. So, we can expect her to say that they did have a sexual relationship, and that Clinton did not ask her to lie but did talk to her about keeping their relationship a secret.

We can discuss what will happen next later, but right now I am thinking about what happened then. The stupidity of it is unfathomable to me. Did Clinton somehow miss what happened to Frank Gifford? We know he was aware of what happened to Dick Morris. How has he managed to live in the world without learning that the same qualities that make someone vulnerable to his attention make her vulnerable to the attention of Linda Tripp? As a woman past what one writer in today's New York Times refers to as the alpha-hydroxy moment, I feel angry when any man is so easily beguiled by smooth skin and an adoring gaze that he will risk everything. And I don't know which will make me angrier--finding that that he really cared about her, or finding out that he didn't. I suspect it is the latter. I don't see Monica as a 21st century Anne Boleyn or Wallis Simpson. A man once told me that he thought the post-Anita Hill political correctness created an impossible standard and that he felt that he couldn't even compliment anyone for looking good anymore, blah, blah. I told him that the standard was a very simple one. He just needed to treat all of the women in his office the way he would like his daughter to be treated. That the president was unable to maintain such a standard is appalling.

The Wall Street Journal reports today that the venerable Golden Books company is in trouble, and is exploring a merger or sale of the company. Retailers like Toys "R" Us are stocking fewer books. Shari Lewis was Golden Books' hope for revitalization, and the company had planned TV shows and other products based on her characters. Her death makes the future of that project uncertain at best. Richard Snyder, formerly of Simon & Schuster, arrived two years ago with big plans for "branching out into TV production, expanding its book lines and creating an aggressive licensing operation that would put Golden Books' characters on everything from clothing to wallpaper." But the results have been disappointing. I suspect that Pokey Little Puppy toothbrushes are not the future of publishing. But with the video division the company's star performer at the moment, I wish I could say with confidence that the future was books. Even the Movie Mom thinks books come first.

Mr. Ponzi would be proud. The Journal also reports that Miksude Kademi, a former shoe-factory worker, made $60 million in one of 20 Albanian pyramid schemes that "have swallowed $1.2 billion, about half of Albania's gross domestic product, before collapsing last year and plunging the country into chaos . . . They were so embedded in Albanian society that their collapse in March 1997 pulled down the government and touched off a national uprising in which 1,500 people were killed." The Journal's profile of a "forensic accountant" brought in to sort through the wreckage is fascinating.

I'm off to check CNN to find out whether Ken Starr ever got into his car this morning. More later.


the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940
from: Nell Minow

Monica Talks

Posted Thursday, Aug. 6, 1998, at 10:42 AM ET
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David Edelstein is Slate's film critic. Nell Minow's reviews of movies and videos appear on her Movie Mom Web page. Her book The Movie Mom's Guide to Family Movies is forthcoming.
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