news.bbc.co.uk
WaPo's Richard Cohen makes some very good points in his defense-of-Monica article today — she was young; she had the misfortune to have her dirty laundry aired in public (cue blue Gap dress joke); she's always been remarkably dignified in the face of public scandal; she's just received her Master's from the London School of Economics; and as if you haven't messed around with skankier than a sitting President, for God's sake. Cohen was reacting to this WaPo article by Libby Copeland, which poked fun at Lewinsky for graduating from LSE, which she rather snottily said made one "question your fundamental assumptions about the world," but really just made me question where Libby Copeland was a year and a half ago when the news broke that Lewinsky would be entering that program.
Cohen offers a fair and chivalrous defense of someone who has probably about served her debt to society by now, hmm? (For God's sake, even Nixon got a pardon!), and I would have cheered it had he not felt the need to wander into Lewinsky's private life:
But she is now a woman with a master's degree from a prestigious school and is going to be 34 come July. Her clock ticks, her life ebbs. Where is the man for her?
OH MY GOD SHE IS GOING TO BE 34 COME JULY!!! WHERE IS THE MAN FOR HER? HER CLOCK TICKS! HER LIFE EBBS! Cohen says "It would be nice, too, and fair, also, if Lewinsky were treated by the media as it would treat a man... Where, pray tell, is the man who is remembered just for sex?" I would add, where, pray tell, is the 34-year old man whose sad prospects of singledom are bemoaned in a national newspaper? Practice what you preach, Richard; but as for the rest of it, I and my wasting, shriveling 34-year old ovaries couldn't agree with you more.
Fairness For Lewinsky [WaPo]
From Thongs To Thesis: Lewinsky Flashes Her Intellect [WaPo]
Even with that paragraph I'd still take Cohen over Copeland. Clueless and well-intentioned beats claws-out cheap-shot nastiness every time.
