Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [153]
As Monica herself would explain in the fall of 2002, having moved to New York City with her family after barely surviving the trauma of the Clinton years: “I was already planning to take the GRE [Graduate Record Exam] that fall, which I did do. My plan was probably to work, to find a job.” After college, Monica was wrapping up in Portland; during school, she had worked at a tie shop, selling neckwear and chatting away with customers. It was a fun job but not the stuff of a glamorous career. Marcia Lewis had divorced Monica’s father in 1988; now she told her daughter that she planned to leave the palm trees of Beverly Hills for the marble and glass of Washington. Marcia had found an apartment in the Watergate complex, close to her sister Debra’s dwelling in Virginia; Monica’s grandmother hoped to find a place in the same complex. It was a family migration.
So it was a natural decision for Monica Lewinsky, having earned her college degree in psychology from Lewis & Clark College in Oregon, to see what opportunities the nation’s capital might offer. She could attend graduate school the next fall—the goal, she told her mother, was to get a Ph.D. in psychology or an advanced degree in forensic science.
As far as the notion, later fueled by the tabloids, that she moved to Washington with a conscious plan to have an affair with the president, Monica viewed this as preposterous. “Not at all,” she stated, laughing. “In fact, I didn’t find him [Clinton] attractive [at first]. I don’t think he looks good on TV. And I didn’t think he was attractive until I saw him in person.” Nor was the allure of a high-powered government job a magnet. “I was not at all that interested in politics,” Monica said. She had only been to Washington twice before the summer of 1995, both times as a tourist. What caused her to pack her boxes and move to the nation’s capital, pure and simple, was the migration of the female wing of the Lewinsky family. This was a chance to get some job experience, save some money, take a breather, and then climb the next step on the educational ladder.
Yet, several extant copies of a forgotten magazine reveal that the allure of moving to the epicenter of government and politics, and the buzz associated with the youthful Clinton administration, created a sense of excitement for many Americans, including Monica Lewinsky and her mother. Although few people would ever see copies of the soon-defunct Beverly Hills Magazine, edited by Marcia Lewis and her sister Debra Finerman, one of the few surviving copies confirms that the two sisters viewed the newly overhauled Washington with a sense of glamor and adventure. In one 1992 issue, the editors ran a glossy story, “Hillary’s Inaugural Ball Makeover,” which included sketches of what a made-over Hillary Clinton would look like as she attended the Washington inaugural galas. Dressed in a dazzling green outfit, with her hairstyle redone in a carefree fashion, the incoming First Lady appeared like a modern-day princess. The caption, effusing over the arrival of Hillary Clinton and Tipper Gore, two youthful power spouses in the capital, read: “It’s definitely going to be the years of Hillary and Tipper!” In an apparent reference to outgoing First Lady Barbara Bush, the editors of the publication added tongue-in-cheek: “Say good-bye to size 14 electric blue suits and faux Majorca pearls.”
The magazine’s masthead listed sisters Marcia Lewis and Debra Finerman as the coeditors. The publication’s associate editor, at the time still a college student, was identified as Monica Lewinsky.
The same man who helped finance the short-lived Beverly Hills Magazine, millionaire insurance executive Walter Kaye, assisted Monica in obtaining an unpaid White House internship. Kaye, a friend of her mother and her aunt Debra through casual California contacts, had earlier recommended his own grandson for one