Monica: We Still Hardly Know Ye

There are few public humiliations in modern American history bigger than that suffered by Monica Lewinsky. Nor, I believe, few people who have been more resilient in the face of a media gang rape than the former White House intern has been.

As a reporter who covered the Clinton impeachment scandal, I became more familiar with Lewinsky than most people, and the more I learned about her the more fond I became of this smart, personable and utterly mischaracterized young woman whose youthful indiscretion got the best of her.

Now comes Richard Cohen, the WaPo op-ed columnist, to try to set the record straight:

"In the various books I've read about the Bill Clinton impeachment scandal -- a scandal because of what was done and a scandal because the president was impeached for it -- the same story is told over and over again. When the prosecutors or lawyers or whoever finally got to meet the storied Monica Lewinsky, they were floored by her. She was smart, personable and -- as the record makes clear -- dignified. This is more than can be said about some of the people who write about her.

"I will not name names. But in recent days, Lewinsky has been back in the news. In December she graduated with a master's degree in social psychology from the London School of Economics. Her thesis was titled 'In Search of the Impartial Juror: An Exploration of the Third Person Effect and Pre-Trial Publicity.' Her thesis might well have been called 'In Search of the Impartial Journalist,' because she was immediately the subject of more poke-in-the-ribs stories about you know what. The Post, a better paper than it was that day, called her 'dumb-but-smart.' It was more than could be said for that piece.

"It does not take a Freudian to appreciate why Lewinsky chose the topic she did. She is a victim of publicity, and her life has been a trial -- enough to floor almost anyone. But in Lewinsky's case, she took a bad situation and made something good of it. That hardly makes her 'dumb-but-smart,' but rather once young -- and now older and incomparably wiser. An approximation of this befalls us all, but before we got to become wise and prudent in all things we were probably irresponsible, outrageous and wild -- in other words, young."

More here.

Meanwhile, Captain Ed at Captain's Quarters named names and criticized the offending reporter -- Libby Copeland-- the day the story ran.

More here.