I was sitting between two women who were discussing Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. "Men just don't get it why she saved the dress with the president's stains," one of them said to me. Most Americans
are tired of
Zippergate"Oh?" I said cautiously. "What do you mean?"
"Men think she saved it in case she ever needed evidence to use against Clinton," she said.
"I'm not sure that's what I think," I said, "but why do women think she saved it?"
"She saved it as a romantic souvenir," she said. "Lewinsky is a sentimental twit."
"Yeah," the other woman said, "she's a twisted bitch."
"Whoa, you two disagree as much as you say men and women disagree," I said.
"Not so," the first woman insisted. "We're saying exactly the same thing."
I guess another difference between men and women is the precision with which we use words. Call me obsessive, but to me there's a big difference between "sentimental twit" and "twisted bitch."
Every conversation related to the Monica matter seems to quickly degenerate into foolishness. One thing the majority of men and women definitely agree on is that, aside from the entertainment value, we're tired of the whole thing.
We don't care if they had sex. We don't care if they lied about it. We don't care to make sexual relations between consenting adults a matter of official scrutiny and political discourse. We want to move on.
It's not that we approve of Clinton's apparent lack of self-control, untruthfulness and disloyalty to his wife. We just think that it's between the two of them and that the first lady is quite capable of taking care of herself -- and dealing with her husband -- without the assistance of Kenneth Starr's special prosecutors.
This case has nothing to do with official corruption. It goes back to the Paula Jones lawsuit over sexual advances Clinton allegedly made before he became president. The judge in that case ruled that whatever happened between Clinton and Lewinsky was irrelevant to the Jones case. Then she threw out the Jones lawsuit entirely for having no legal merit.
So Starr and his Republican pals in Congress are seeking to cripple a president over lies he allegedly told about an irrelevant issue in a lawsuit that was found to have no merit. Talk about a victimless crime. Perjury in a civil deposition is a bottom-of-the-barrel offense that rarely is prosecuted -- unless the prosecutor has it in for somebody in a big way.
Presidents should never lie, Republicans protest. Really? Lying well has become part of the job description. Which caused you more personal grief? When Clinton lied about his sex life or when George Bush lied when he said, "Read my lips: No new taxes."
STARR, the most politically partisan special prosecutor ever, has been given an irrevocable license and a bottomless budget to get the president any way he can. His $40 million Whitewater investigation produced nothing against the Clintons. Starr was ready to pack it in for Pepperdine University until Republican zealots pressured him to keep after the president. Then Monica fell into his lap, so to speak.
Now Republicans are badgering Attorney General Janet Reno to appoint a special prosecutor to look into Clinton's campaign finances. That case may actually have some merit, but there's little public support for pursuing it because of disgust with the Starr Inquisition.
You know, if the special prosecutor throws another $40 million at it, I'll bet he can find out whether Clinton lied in 1992 when he said he tried marijuana once but didn't inhale.
David Shapiro is managing editor of the Star-Bulletin.
He can be reached by e-mail at editor@starbulletin.com.
Previous Volcanic Ash columns