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COOL HAND MONICA
The seemingly everlasting Senate impeachment trial has had few light moments, but on "Monica Saturday," we saw two that were memorable.
One
was the look on Majority Leader, Trent Lott's face when Chief Justice William
Rehnquist told him he couldn't have a break.
<AWKKKKK!>
The other was observing the skillful surgery that Nicole Seligman, one of President Clinton's attorneys, performed on the House Managers.
Peeling still more layers from the already thin skinned prosecutors, she nuked their sorry "snippets of Monica," using large portions of the deposition that THEY had insisted on videotaping.
But to fully appreciate all this, we need to go back a few days to when the House trio first approached Monica to, in their words, "get acquainted prior to calling her as a witness."
They went prepared, even unto dress. All three abstained from the so-called, "intimidating suit" and wore sweaters, a la Mr. Rogers. "Here we are," their apparel announced, "just three nice daddy type guys."
Briefing books for the visit included references from either male- or fembot-written, Psychology of Women text; Lionel Tiger's vomitus; and the gospel according to Paul.
They knew these truths to be self evident: Women are all alike. They desire approval. They cry easily. They require a firm hand. They crave forgiveness.
So their plan was to gently make Monica face up to the guilt they knew she really felt and was hiding inside herself. Then, they would magnanimously forgive her while blaming that dirty old man, Clinton. One more maiden saved by the White Knights of the Rychus.
They predicted she would be putty in their hands and give them evidence to support their previous connect the dots, circumstantial prattle.
They would demonstrate that Monica had been sexually harassed by Clinton and was too young and unsophisticated to realize it -- a super tie-in to the P.C.J. case.
They hoped to portray to the Senate and the country, a child who had been sexually misused. That would bring those uppity women's rights groups around to their side. Instead what they found was a woman secure on her path of defining herself. Armed only with their male-defined "girl-in-trouble" beliefs, their approach to Monica was doomed from the start.
After this initial encounter, scared witless of what she could do to their case, they begged the Senators to allow them to question her as a hostile witness, -- LIVE in the well of the Senate (translation: "trample the bitch").
However, the Senators, weary of all the talk, would allow taped depositions, but NOT live witnesses. So, the managers used small, misleading snippets of her taped testimony.
These were interspersed with large amounts of their oft repeated, unsubstantiated, dreamland scenario featuring Clinton in the role of puppet master directing the activities of Monica and others for his own benefit.
In
their final argument, they changed their tune. Her testimony would
not support their charges that Clinton had directed her to file a false
affidavit. So, they claimed that he used mind control and Monica
was unaware of it. In Monica, the
Managers met face to face with what choice really means, and what it
should mean to all women. Whether one agrees with her choices
or not, she not only made them, she owned them.
This was demonstrated by the fantastic response she made to Mr. Manager Ed Bryant during her video taped deposition. It was not played to the Senate much to our disappointment.
Bryant asked her a question using the word sordid relating to her intimacy with Clinton. She immediately told him NOT to characterize her affair in that fashion and her inquisitor backed off.
Another gem occurred when Ms. Seligman played back the entire sequence of questions and answers relating to her affidavit in the P.C.J. case.
On tape, Manager Bryant was trying to get Monica to agree that filing a false affidavit was Clinton's idea. He suggested that it was in Clinton's interest, not hers.
But it backfired when she asserted, "Actually, I did file the affidavit for my own interests".
A stunned Bryant unwisely asked how that could be, and she answered that (1) her affair was nobody's business and, (2) she didn't want to have anything to do with the Paula Jones case.
She then stated clearly that sexual harassment was not a factor in her relationship with the President. <BOOM!>
With the deposition blown up in their face, the Managers turned to what they do best -- trashing the President.
So of course they sent in their star hate monger, Mr. Manager Graham, (R-SC), playing Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith goes to Washington.
Big mistake. He came off looking like a cross between Jethro of the Beverly Hillbillies and Anita Bryant. Stay tuned.
1999-007
Copyright 1999 Renee T. Louise and Ruth M. Sprague, Ph.D. These articles may be republished for noncommercial use only, provided that they are copied intact, and that this copyright notice is attached. Address all queries to: twanda@ConnRiver.net.
G e n d e r G a p p e r s T M
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