Nosin' Around Slick Willie's Personal Bidness.
By Jeff Smith
IN A PERFECT world, men would not wag their cuties in front of
women who weren't expecting it, or, if they were, would just as
soon be spared the spectacle. Alas, this is not a perfect world.
In the real world men on occasion do wag their cuties at women--indeed
women in moments of intemperate enthusiasm have been known to
flash men--and in the majority of instances this can be passed
off to high spirits and low taste.
Seduction can at whiles be elevated to an art-form, as evidenced
by Bogart and Bacall, but transcendent moments in human relations
seldom involve the sound of a descending zipper followed by the
words, "Yo, Bitch: check this out."
Which is in no way to imply that Gov. William Jefferson Clinton
of Arkansas used these precise words to draw the attention of
state employee Paula Jones to his groin that fateful night in
a Little Rock hotel room...nor even to assert that such a sordid
scene ever actually played out.
What we have here is a classic he said-she said situation, elevated
to global consequence by the status of the accused, and sunk to
the status of sewage by the sordid particulars of the accusation.
Paula Jones says that Bill Clinton bade his bodyguard bring her
to his suite one night, and there and then, to borrow the words
of Jack Nicholson, "pulled the stiff one-eye" on her.
Are we to accept at face value the innocence of the accused, because
he is Leader of the Free World? Are we to assume mendacity on
the part of the accuser because she has big hair?
Despite the temptations, so many and various and alluring, in
this singular soap opera, we must not yield to the quick and easy
conclusion. For one thing, Our Man Willie enjoys something of
a reputation as a womanizer. As recently as last week he was accused
of trifling with the affections of a White House intern. As long
ago as his first term as governor of Arkansas he was accused of
an extramarital dalliance with Gennifer Flowers. While none of
this mud has yet stuck and dried to adobe on the presidential
physiognomy, Mr. and Mrs. Clinton did at least address times of
temptation and trial in their marriage, in a television interview
during their first presidential campaign--an oblique admission
that there were a few old flames behind the smoke.
And for another thing, Paul Jones has her own reputation as a
man-izer. Besides which, there are the unavoidable questions as
to what she expected to encounter in the Governor's hotel room
late at night, why she agreed to go there, and how come she waited
so long to work up a sense of outraged virtue, and so highly public
and theatrical a demand for justice.
As stated at the outset, in a perfect world.... But everything
and everybody involved in this sorry spectacle is so far from
perfect it would be best if we could just forget the whole thing
and get on with the business of running the world.
Want to know what I think? Too bad.
What I think is that Bill Clinton probably did pull something
on Paula Jones, and that she knew what was on the agenda, only
not in quite such lurid detail. I think she expected at least
a bottle of blush wine and some oysters from room service, and
the pretense of a quickie courtship before Willie whipped out
the whitesnake. I think that with all the advantages of position
and power and a fine education at the best colleges, Bill Clinton
couldn't get in the pants of a trashy woman who would have liked
nothing better than to ball the Big Guy and tell her girlfriends
about it.
And if that sounds like I'm an anti-feminist, male chauvinist
pig, you're dumber than I look. I love trashy women and I hate
pious-sounding hypocritical men. I just don't think this sort
of extra-curricular activity is pertinent to the conduct of presidential
politics. If Bill and Paula want to fuck around, okay by me--as
long as they do it on their own time. One immutable fact of life
is that powerful people are drawn both to leadership and to groupies.
And vice-versa. I wouldn't want to live in a nation led by eunuchs.
I think Paula Jones yielded to temptation when she went to Gov.
Clinton's room that night, and discovered, to her chagrin, that
he was even tackier than she. And in the process, discovered something
kind of odd and interesting about the gubernatorial staff, so
to speak. I think she yielded to temptation again when she agreed,
at the urging of Clinton's political enemies, to make a federal
case out of it. But I don't despise her for being human and fallible.
The whole thing is way beyond her control now.
I also think it's pretty silly and pretty sorry for Clinton to
have to run up a $3 million legal bill to defend himself against
what is really a matter of small moment.
And I think it's hilarious that in the loftiest aeries of the
free press and world affairs, great minds are wondering aloud
what it is about the President's pecker that Paula Jones claims
will be her bona fide. And why it hasn't been leaked, no pun intended.
To me it seems obvious. Discard the usual issues of size, color,
huge hairy moles, birthmarks, stigmata, or tattoos that say either
"Wendy" or "Welcome to Jamaica: Have a nice day."
Surely Gennifer Flowers or that White House intern would have
corroborated Jones' discovery, were the famous feature anything
commonly recognizable. Such is not the case.
What's special about Big Willie's Little Willie must be something
uniquely personal to Paula Jones and William Jefferson Clinton,
revealed in that moment of epiphany when the principals met, tete
a tete.
Consider Ms. Jones. Disregard the new doo, the softer shades
of lip gloss and mascara, the lower hem and higher décolletage.
Study the parts of her untouched by scissors or comb, brush, pencil,
needle and thread or surgeon's scalpel, the phases of the makeover
that decorum dictates must wait until after the trial, after the
talk-shows, after the made-for-TV movie. Ponder wisely and well
and you will have your own epiphany:
Bill Clinton's cutie looks just like Paula Jones' nose.
Remember, you read it here first.
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