One rather unfortunate aspect of the gangster's life is that it does
not teach one the virtue of moderation. One of the Tripp tapes,
according to internet sources, has Monica asking Slick why he doesn't
simply pay Paula Jones off and have done with it. Slick answers that
they'd all come up and want money if he did that; Monica replies "All
of them?? How many could there be??" and Slick replies "Hundreds..."
There are several inherent problems with trying to
set the numeric records ala Don Giovanni and make it
with literally hundreds of different women over a course of a
few years. One is that the first thing which goes straight out
the window is any notion of quality; you'll see these guys come
home with Marilyn Monroe one night, and then either Phyllis Diller
or Aunt Jemima the next, with the same stupid ####-eating grin
on their faces, since it's all really just the same to them.
Another problem in the case of politicians is that they make
prime targets for blackmail and manipulation of themselves by
conducting themselves like that. Slick couldn't get the simplest
kind of security clearance which you'd need to be a janitor or a
guard at the gate at any military base in America, and yet he was
supposed to be commander in chief of our armed forces. There's
a fairly obvious problem with that.
Another problem in the case of liberals particularly, is that
it appears to be a vanishingly small step from believing oneself
above man's laws to believing oneself above things like the laws of
physics and the law of averages. For instance, thinking "I'm a
Kennedy; there's no reason on Earth why I shouldn't be able to ski
downhill, operate a camcorder, and play football all at the same time,
the trees will get out of the way!" Or, in the case of Slick,
thinking he could put the make on 50 different women in one day, and
that all 50 would be happy about it.
Something like that could lead to a psychic problem with taking "no"
for an answer and, if we're to believe even a small fraction of what
we read, it has. The claim which you read around the net is that the
Paula Jones testimony includes something like two or three dozen different
allegations of sexual assault and rape, that Slick has been out of
control for a long time, and that a professional organization has been
in place to keep a lid on this by means of bribery, intimidation, and
whatever else gets the job done, and that this has invariably worked
because, in each individual case, you had some poor woman on her own
without any real resources up against an organization with the
resources of one of the fifty states.
Most democrats are still in a state of denial over this one. Many have a vague
memory of hearing or reading something about a single rape accusation (Juanita Broaddrick)
just before dog-wag III (Kosovo) started, but they assume it was just the one story.
In real life, things don't work that way. You don't get some perfectly normal forty
year old guy deciding "Gee, I've pretty much done everythint else I ever thought
was cool in life, I think I'll try my hand at being a rapist!"
CapitalHillBlue documents a number of the stories in question.
http://chblue.com/Feb1999/022599/clintonwomen022599.htm
If there was anything that convinced me that these stories were real early on, it was the interview with Elizabeth Ward Gracen in the Toronto Sun Times. A number of the details such as biting the victim's lips were so similar it was stunning. Gracen claims to have been involved in a one night stand, while friends of hers claim she was in hysterics at he time and had clearly been raped. She started getting good acting parts at about that time...
The Toronto Times interview has totally disappeared from the internet for whatever reason. Nonetheless, I saved it. Here it is:
EX-LOVER TELLS OF HER FEAR OF CLINTON
Toronto Sun via Grabbe
September 17, 1998
"people were being staked out"
To millions, Elizabeth Gracen will forever be linked to the
fall of a powerful man.
"He died in my arms," she says, speaking, of course, of her
role in the 1990 TV movie, The Death Of The Incredible
Hulk.
You were thinking of someone else? Then-Arkansas Governor,
now pig-boy U.S. President Bill Clinton, perhaps, with whom
Gracen had a one-time sexual encounter?
Fifteen years ago. Everyone who hasn't fooled with a loser
or three, step forward. Now get over it.
Gracen is starting to.
Living here helps. Her syndicated series Highlander: The
Raven, premiering on VR Wednesday and inducting her into
TV's Buffy-Xena kick-ass heroine club, shoots half its
episodes here, half in Paris. None in Washington.
Clinton's unfolding free-fall and waning power bring her
new peace of mind.
Remember that this is a woman who wanted nothing to do with
him ever again, wanted nothing from him now or then. She
rebuffed the tabloids' dirty money and went public this
spring only when she says she had to correct a lie, a
former friend's deposition in the Paula Jones case that
claimed Clinton had forced himself on Gracen. She found
herself a piece of what she calls "this horrible chess
game."
Speaking at the gracious Annex mansion she shares with her
boyfriend, New York-born investment banker Pat Augustus,
and her doted-on Great Dane, Bronte, Gracen expresses
relief.
"I think Clinton is a very dangerous, manipulative man and
I've had to be very careful," she says.
"There was a lot of pressure on my family and friends,
people were being staked out. I was a little bit afraid for
my own safety at one point. It's just not an area where
you're safe."
She pauses, then says, "I would never have said what I just
told you a month ago."
This month, karma has caught Clinton by the tail and life
is looking up.
On Highlander, life lasts forever. Gracen plays Amanda, an
immortal thief finally learning from 1,200 years of
experience. She takes pleasure in the character's fearless
persona, "because that's the way I see women if they ever
owned the power that they have, and truly listened to their
own voices."
As well as a good job and relative sanctuary from the
ruckus in Washington, Highlander has offered her the gift
of friendship, something she was hungry for. She's pals
with co-star Patricia Gage and the heavily-female crew.
They hang out, call each other The Chinchilla Social Club.
"It's something that I needed so badly. I lost so many
friends this year in terms of betrayal," says Gracen.
"These women have been such a resting place for me. We sit
in the trailer and just gossip and laugh our heads off and
talk about important things and just really bond."
Before decamping for Paris, she's hoping the London film
festival will screen her first effort as a director, The
Damn Deal, a moving, entertaining documentary about three
female impersonators. In her film, the men metamorphose
into their stage selves, finishing up looking for all the
world like prototypical Clinton girls -- big-haired,
lipsticked pageant queens.
Gracen roars with laughter at the thought.
"He'll be after them," she says. "No one's safe."
Toronto Sun, September 17, 1998
