Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [463]
In a spontaneous moment of reflection during an interview in 2008, Monica posed the question: “I wonder did he feel any responsibility to make sure I was okay? He certainly hasn’t [taken any steps to do that].” She took a breath and continued: “As I’ve gotten older, I think about that.”
Despite Bill Clinton’s repeated protestations to the grand jury, to Congress, and to the American people that he recognized the misguided nature of his actions, Monica remained unconvinced. “I think if he really felt these things—especially given the age difference and where I was in life, so young—at the very least, he would have apologized. Then he would have done something [to rectify the situation].” Unfortunately, she said, that had never happened. With Hillary Clinton having entered the national political scene in her own right and former President Clinton doing quite well as the retired leader of the world’s greatest superpower, there had been no effort by “the Big Creep” to make amends in any meaningful way. Monica Samille Lewinsky had written this off as an unpleasant lesson in life that she had learned the hard way.
She pushed the hair out of her face and said of Clinton with a note of sadness, “I guess my biggest disappointment was that he just turned out not to be the person that I thought he was, that I thought I knew.”
Monica still had the blue dress, packed away in storage. As her mother would say, “What do you do with it?” There had been offers to buy the soiled garment at generous prices to sell it at memorabilia auctions, but Monica had turned them all down, feeling it was unseemly to profit from this grotesque souvenir of a hurtful, long-ago affair.
In looking back on one of the most highly publicized political/sexual scandals of the twentieth century, which she would have given anything to make vanish from her life’s story, Monica would say in 2009: “I have contemplated moving to a remote country or changing my name. However, when you tease [that] out… you realize in another country there are still safety issues to consider. It would also mean not living near friends and family, who have been incredibly supportive.” Monica continued: “As for changing my name, I can’t imagine, even if I tried to file the legal paperwork under seal, that it wouldn’t leak. And then, what would be the point? Also, on principle, I don’t think I should have to change my name. Anyway, it will change when I get married.”
Bernie Lewinsky, who had watched his daughter suffer for years as a result of her affair with Clinton, had much more blunt, uncensored words for the man who had managed to transform the name “Lewinsky” into a synonym for “presidential sex scandal.” If he were to run into Bill Clinton on the street, Bernie Lewinsky said, he would share a piece of his mind; he would tell Clinton flat out “that I respected him as a president, but I don’t respect him as a man.” He felt that Clinton “was cowardly in his behavior towards Monica, and that if he had been forthright and spoke the truth in the beginning, the whole country and the world could have been spared the spectacle.”
Monica’s father sipped some bottled water to relieve the dryness in his throat and then finished: “He had an opportunity to put this whole thing to rest. And instead of saying, ‘I did not have sex with that woman,’ he should have just come out and said, ‘My fault. I’m sorry. It is true. I regret it. And that’s the end of that.’”
“He’s never apologized to her. And as far as I’m concerned, the only apology he can give her is to say ‘I’m sorry for what I put you through and here’s my check for two million dollars to pay for your legal fees.’ He got her into it just as much as she did, and he certainly had responsibilities he should have fessed up to. And I don’t think he’s going to do that. He certainly hasn’t apologized to us in any form.”
Of course, Bernie Lewinsky would reserve even harsher words for the independent counsel who set this criminal investigation into