Until all the current scandals play out and Donald Trump is either executed for treason or abolishes term limits and starts wearing a five star general’s uniform everywhere, Monica Lewinsky is synonymous with the most consequential domestic political scandal a US president has faced in the past 30 years.
For every scandal that’s followed, this is the only one (for now) that actually lead to congress issuing articles of impeachment against the president.
The woman at the centre of the storm, now an anti-bullying campaigner, has been in Australia over the past few days giving talks — at Broadside in Melbourne and the UNSW Centre for Ideas in Sydney — for which she’s rumoured to have been paid a total of hundreds of thousands of dollars. In the speeches she discussed … well, we’re not exactly sure.
Crikey tried to get a media pass to the Melbourne event and were told it was closed to the press. A tipster who was there said the talk was “amazing”, but that note taking, photography and asking questions was prohibited.
So imagine our annoyance when we saw one of our rivals had reported on the Sydney event, including direct quotes from the speech. We got in touch to ask “what gives?”, and the centre told us Sydney was every bit as “off the record” as Melbourne.
“The event was open to the public and was an ‘off the record’ conversation with no audience or media recording or photography permitted. Although many members of the media were present, the vast majority of them respected these requests,” said a spokesperson. “Regrettably some of the content of Monica Lewinsky’s presentation was quoted. We respectfully request that online discussion of this matter is concluded, to spare Ms Lewinsky from further unnecessary attention.”
While no one would deny Lewinsky was treated abysmally by the media, who happily gobbled up and repeated slanders against her spread by Bill Clinton’s office, we can’t help feel like a “centre for ideas” shouldn’t be keeping those ideas completely secret?
Don’t you forfeit the right to “attention” when you do a paid speaking course like this?
There is a character in Muslim folklore known as “Mulla Nasruddin” or in Arabic speaking countries “Juhaa.” People in a certain village came to believe, perhaps wrongly, that Nasruddin was a wise man and paid him to give a series of enlightening speeches. On the first day Nasruddin stood up and asked, “Do you know what I am going to say?” The people said, “No.” Nasruddin said, “Well there’s no point in my speaking to people who don’t know anything,” and left. On the second day he asked, “Do you know what I am going to say?” The people said, “Yes.” Nasruddin said, “Well then, I don’t need to speak,” and left. On the third day he asked, “Do you know what I am going to say?” The people had wised up to him and said, “Some of us know and some of us don’t know.” ” Well then,” said Nasruddin. “Let those of you who know tell those of you who don’t know,” and left clutching his payment.
I’m sure Lewinski was not as enlightening as Nasruddin.
Well I can’t top that one Rais but the most honest takes on Monica have been from Chris Rock and other black comedians unconstrained by tut tutting narratives.
Good old Mon has done very well out of giving a blowjob or two to Bill and regaling select audiences with what is the old story of regretted sex. What happened wasn’t desirable behavior from the Pres but it took two to tango.
There was nothing ‘secret’ about Monica Lewinksi’s talk in Sydney; you simply had to pay to attend, as I imagine was the case in Melbourne. The request for no photographs or recordings which was made before she walked onstage seemed to me entirely appropriate given the level of unwanted exposure and loss of privacy to which she was subjected by the media twenty years ago – not to mention the level of public abuse and moralising for which she is evidently still a target. Her talk did not in fact revolve around Bill Clinton or the ‘scandal’ of his impeachment, but was about cyberbullying, and more generally about the mass psychology of public shaming, as was made perfectly clear by the description on the Centre of Ideas website, as well as the title: ‘A Compassionate Internet’. As for the ‘hundreds of thousands of dollars’ that she’s ‘rumoured’ to have been paid for these talks – I mean, really? Personally I found her talk enlightening, intelligent, honest, generous, and worth the $39 admission fee; but I can’t help feeling she still hasn’t been forgiven for the fact that when she was a 22-year-old White House intern the most powerful man in the world couldn’t keep his hands off her and then lied about it.