Betty and Monica
Jeff Danziger's cartoon,
originally in the Los Angeles Times and reprinted in the Sunday New
York Times , shows Monica Lewinsky and Betty Currie sitting at a booth in a
fern bar. Lewinsky, slathered in makeup and dressed in what presumably is
intended to represent a designer outfit, clutches a frilly cocktail and gabs
away in Valley speak: "So, I'm like, yuh, and he's like, duh, and I'm like
thinking about a new car." Currie wears a raincoat and stares uncomprehendingly
at her companion over a cup of coffee. "That's nice," she says. The caption is:
"Now we are asked to believe that Betty Currie tried to get Monica Lewinsky a
job because they were actually great friends."
Danziger
was probably borrowing his joke from a column by Maureen Dowd, who also finds
the idea of a friendship between Currie and Lewinsky laughable. "Mr. Clinton
said it was Betty who became friends with Monica," Dowd wrote in the March 8
New York Times . "It makes sense that the 58-year-old secretary, known
for her dignity and discretion, would have enjoyed the dithering visits of a
shopaholic who thought she was having a high school romance with the President,
like, of the United States." The general belief seems to be that Clinton or his
minions have essentially concocted the notion of a bond between Currie and
Lewinsky in order to explain Lewinsky's many visits to the White House and the
high-level help she received in searching for a job in New York.
We may be at the stage in the scandal where any assertion
by Bill Clinton or his partisans has everyone not only doubting it but also
immediately assuming the opposite. And often for good reason. In this case,
however, it turns out that Currie and Lewinsky were friends. The
original link was apparently Walter Kaye, the New York advertising mogul,
Democratic donor, and friend of Lewinsky's mother's who sponsored Monica for an
internship at the White House. The Kayes and the Curries are friends who have
socialized together in New York City. It is not surprising or intrinsically
suspicious then, that Currie, who has a reputation for looking out for White
House interns with whom she has no personal connection, would have been helpful
and friendly to Monica.
Because
none of the principals is talking, it's hard to discover much about how close a
relationship Lewinsky and Currie developed. But the two do seem to have been
friends. Interesting detail: Mourners who attended the funeral of Betty
Currie's brother--Theodore Williams Jr., who died in a car accident last
December--recall seeing Lewinsky there. Lest anyone assume that Monica showed
up at the Metropolitan Baptist Church that day to ogle the president, a source
who asked not to be named says Lewinsky was spotted in the kitchen back at the
Currie home in Arlington. She helped clean up and serve food to the
out-of-towners. In fact, she brought a dish.
This background casts a rather different light
on the plausibility of Clinton's claim in his Paula Jones deposition that
Currie helped Lewinsky find a job in New York. Another fact that has been
largely ignored, according to friends of Currie's, is that she and Vernon
Jordan have been friends for 30 years. She also has a long-standing friendship
with White House Deputy Chief of Staff John Podesta. Like most everyone in
politics, she uses her connections on behalf of her friends. Thus when Jordan
says that Currie called him to ask him for help in finding Lewinsky a job in
New York, there is every reason to think he is telling the truth--and it's at
least plausible that Currie was calling at her own behest, not Clinton's.
None of
this is to say that Clinton wasn't sexually involved with Lewinsky, or that he
wasn't also interested in Jordan's efforts to find her a job. But the automatic
presumption that a personal relationship between Currie and Lewinsky couldn't
have existed says less about the president's lack of credibility than about the
assumptions of certain white people. An older black secretary and a rich white
airhead, many reporters and pundits have glibly conjectured, couldn't have
enough in common to be close. This testifies to a failure of imagination. It
also embodies a mentality that is not quite racist but smacks of
condescension.
The attitude is not limited to journalists and cartoonists.
One of the first Washington Post stories about Currie quoted an
anonymous White House official. "She dresses nicely and she speaks well, and
she's neat," the official said of Currie. "Her sweaters are probably stacked up
nicely in her closet." This was someone who worked with her, sounding as if
Currie was applying to be a domestic servant. Who would ever assume that the
president's executive assistant wouldn't be neat or use proper grammar?
You can't imagine anyone describing a white presidential assistant--Evelyn
Lincoln or Rose Mary Woods--this way.
Another grating manifestation
of this mindset is the way Currie is constantly referred to as "dignified."
This compliment threatens to become for black women what "articulate" is for
black men such as Vernon Jordan. Though meant as praise, it is in fact highly
patronizing. A middle-age white person would seldom be characterized as
"dignified" or "deeply religious" (unless he is some kind of religious
fanatic). The clichés that have been employed to describe Currie embody an
assumption that most African-American women are not dignified.
Lots of people writing about
this sex scandal want to make Betty Currie out to be the ultimate victim, taken
cruel advantage of by a truth-evading president who happened to be her boss.
What Currie has been put through is certainly unpleasant. But let's remember
that a lot of innocent bystanders have been subjected to swarming reporters and
unexpected legal bills--and perhaps faced with hard choices between loyalty and
integrity. Currie, who has had a long career in politics, is no naif. As one
old pal of hers told me, "There is a kind of worldly-wise woman in there--this
has been lost in all the saintly religious stuff. She is very good to her
friends. And those friends include Monica."
