Salon Books | Monica's nightmare


	A L S O+.T O D A Y The big baby By Joan Walsh Forget "The Death of Outrage." If the right really wants to win the Culture War, it should pass out copies of "Monica's Story." Starring Monica Lewinsky, as herself By Liesl Schillinger She was universally reviled -- until the public got a chance to hear her speak and, now, to read her version of events - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "The Handyman" Reviewed by Ruth Henrich In this L.A. novel, an unassuming handyman muddles his way to artistic genius while repairing the lives of lonely wives and other lost souls T A B L E+T A L K It's almost spring, and books about baseball are a hot topic in the Books section of Table Talk B O O K C A S E A new service for book lovers R E C E N T L Y Journey to the center of a race By Fetzer Mills, Jr. Randall Kenan talks about the seven-year odyssey that led him from Martha's Vineyard to Alaska in search of the truth about black life in America (02/24/99) Writing on Air By Geoff Edgers David Halberstam talks about his new book, "Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made." (02/18/99) I know why the untuned Thunderbird pings By Todd Lappin Maya Angelou delivered the inspirational speech to the National Automobile Dealers Association. And guess what? It worked (02/09/99) Black but not like me By Jill Nelson A journalist slouches into a party celebrating the black elite -- whatever that is (02/04/99) "It's the Stupidity, Stupid" By Harry Shearer In this excerpt, Shearer wonders if we should hate the people who hate President Clinton (01/29/99) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Books feature archive - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -		MONICA'S NIGHTMARE \| PAGE 1, 2, 3, 4 - - - - - - - - - - For all Morton's complaints about Clinton's lack of loyalty, he knows who the real villain is. If "Diana: Her True Story" was Morton's Gothic romance, "Monica's Story" is his Orwellian nightmare. Even the title of the chapter on Monica's interrogation, "Terror in Room 1012," echoes the Room 101 of "1984" ("The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world"). What Morton recounts in this chapter goes far beyond the violation of civil rights that occurred when Starr's deputies and FBI agents prevented Monica from contacting her lawyer. He is describing the psychology and the tactics of the police state, an intensive and secluded bombardment of deliberate misinformation, cruelly calibrated psychological pressure, ridicule and threats. Lewinsky was told that she could go to jail for 27 years (but not told that that was the maximum sentence for her alleged crimes); told by Starr deputy Jackie Bennett Jr. that her mother would be prosecuted as well; and told that she couldn't contact her attorney, Frank Carter, because his having been secured for her by Jordan would compromise the investigation. There was a more pressing reason, though, to keep Monica from contacting Carter: Had she done so, she could have prevented him from filing the false affidavit she had signed in the Jones case, and Starr's office would have had nothing with which to pressure her. The psychology of the police state is present not just in the behavior of its enforcers but in the behavior of its targets, too. In the days after that meeting, Monica and her mother, Marcia Lewis, holed up in their Watergate apartment, convinced that they were under surveillance, that their phones were tapped, that they were about to be arrested, and they kept themselves incommunicado, afraid that the records of any phone calls they made might drag others into the case. Lewis was even neatly bundling the garbage and leaving it in the kitchen lest she later be charged with destroying evidence. And who's to say their paranoia wasn't justified? Most of Monica's closest friends were subpoenaed, the hard drive of her computer was searched and -- despite assurances from the Office of the Independent Counsel -- her private letters were published in the referral. Not one of the Republican House managers who claimed to be outraged at Clinton's behavior has ever said a word denouncing the psychological and emotional rape of Monica Lewinsky. In a 1976 essay, Greil Marcus argued that the melodramatic language of spy thrillers comes closer to capturing the essential irrationality of Nazism than the reasoned language of historians does. Unconcerned with the phony "balance and perspective" that mainstream journalism demands, Morton has captured the essence of Starr's investigation. We have seen how journalistic distance can easily become a refusal to call events by their real names, a refusal to even consider facts that challenge the version of reality that has been agreed on. (In that March 4 Times story, Clines and Bruni wrote, "The Justice Department now is considering an investigation of the fairness of Mr. Starr's methods." But the issue isn't fairness, it's legality.) Morton isn't embarrassed by his conclusion that Starr has brought us Orwell's dystopia. And not being an American, he has no investment in propagating the fiction that Clinton's acquittal proved the system works; the trial itself, he says, was "the triumph of the system over common sense." Both Morton and Lewinsky are hoping for a blockbuster, and so they try to end on a hopeful note -- with Clinton's acquittal, Monica's attempt to make a new life and the words "The nation was moving on, and so was Monica Lewinsky." But it won't wash. Hovering over the book is the story's Big Brother (as Morton identifies him), Ken Starr -- present, like Orwell's dictator deity, even when absent. To his credit, Morton doesn't succumb to the temptation to assume that the threat Starr represents ended with Clinton's acquittal; his bogus investigation continues, as does his persecution of Susan McDougal. He continues to hold the threat of prison over Monica Lewinsky and to control what both she and her family can say publicly. He is the monster the far right has created to realize its dream of controlling behavior it finds offensive, of silencing its critics and of destroying the safeguards of privacy and due process that would keep that dream from coming true. Writing about President Clinton's grand jury testimony back in September, I compared Starr to Joe McCarthy. I was wrong: He's Torquemada. SALON \| March 12, 1999 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Clinton in Crisis Salon's complete coverage of the investigation, impeachment and trial of the president.