Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [158]
When Monica received clearance the following day to bring the entire family to the president’s weekly radio address, which was held in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, it seemed like one more perk of the job. The Lewinsky family had a group photo taken with the president in the Oval Office, the whole lineup beaming. Monica was wearing a stunning, light pink suit, picked out specially for the occasion. The photo showed her looking directly into the camera with a knowing smile.
Despite all of these clues, including the “lascivious eyes” photo and this extraordinary access to the inner sanctum of the White House, Bernie Lewinsky would later confess that he did not put two and two together. He would fault nobody but himself for his naïveté. “In other words, you go back and you say, ‘Oh, my God, look at this,’” Monica’s father said, shaking his head disconsolately. “There was the telltale sign … but I sort of missed it.”
Barbara Lewinsky’s intuition certainly told her that something was afoot. After the radio address and tour of the White House, Barbara nudged her stepdaughter and said, “Girly, the President sure has your number—he just keeps looking at you!” Yet there was much disagreement within the Lewinsky family as to who knew what specifics, and when, struggling to find an explanation as to why nothing was done to stop it. Marcia would describe this early period that followed the first “innocent” months of Monica’s internship as “a confusing picture for me.” Asked whether she believed Monica might be having a physical affair with the president, Marcia would only say, “There were days that I thought—there’s something wrong here. And there were days I thought no, this is just a schoolgirl crush.” Bernie later questioned this equivocation by his ex-wife, saying that he believed both Marcia and her sister, Debra, had direct knowledge that Monica was having an affair with Clinton. “I think that they knew,” he said, “and thought that it was cute and wonderful. That’s what I think. But I’m not sure.”
What cannot be disputed, however, is that the relationship between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky soon developed into something that was an emotional roller coaster for the intern and a messy problem for the president. Several times, as their relationship entered its second year, the president met with Monica to say that he had been behaving badly and that he needed to terminate their liaisons. Even so, the affair continued with on-again-off-again weekend visits, risqué phone calls, exchanges of gifts (books, ties, T-shirts, cards), declarations that the relationship had to end, crying (by Monica), and occasional amorous reconciliations.
Just as rumors were flying that the Supreme Court was preparing to hand down its decision in the Paula Jones case in May 1997, President Clinton was meeting with Lewinsky in the pantry outside the Oval Office, repeating firmly that he needed to end the affair. During this emotional encounter, which Monica later referred to as “D-day” or “Dump day,” President Clinton confessed error, saying that he really just wanted “to do the right thing in God’s eyes and do the right thing for his family and he just—he didn’t feel right about it.”
Paula Jones’s attorneys later expressed incredulity that President Clinton continued to engage in such high-risk behavior, when he knew that he was under intense scrutiny in the Jones litigation. “We had not hidden that thought under a bushel,” explained Gil Davis, seated in his Virginia law office. “Showing a pattern or a habit of sexual advances to women, particularly in private circumstances of some related nature, would be a method of showing that this was a characteristic of the president. So, yes, we were announcing that. Made no bones about it.”
For that