How Monica Lewinsky Changed the Media (Tina Brown Crying A River)

TheDailyBeast.com ^ | 05.09.14 | Tina Brown

[TexasCajun]

Monica Lewinsky’s ‘Vanity Fair’ article reluctantly plunges us straight back into the frothing world of ‘90s gossip. It may be painful but it answers so many questions about today’s media.

The Monica Lewinsky confessional in Vanity Fair brings back a torrent of unfond memories of the appalling cast of tabloid gargoyles who drove the scandal. Remember them? Treacherous thatched-roof-haired drag-queen Linda Tripp, with those dress-for-success shoulder pads? Cackling, fact-lacking hack Lucianne Goldberg, mealy-mouthed Pharisee Kenneth Starr—the whole buzzing swarm of legal, congressional and gossip industry flesh flies, feasting on the entrails. And, of course, hitting “send” on each new revelation that no one else would publish, the solitary, perfectly named Matt Drudge, operating in pallid obsession out of his sock-like apartment in Miami.

A once-in-a-lifetime cast! Or so we all thought. But what we didn’t know at the time is that they were not some passing cultural excrescence. They were the face of the future. The things that shocked us then—the illicitly taped conversations, the wholesale violations of elementary privacy, the globally broadcast sexual embarrassments, all the low-life disseminated malice—is now the communications industry as it operates every minute of every day.

[Fledermaus]

Not only was their marriage a sham so was them becoming parents. Bill had just lost his first term as governor in 1980 and their polls and focus groups (ran by Dick Morris) pointed to Hillary being the problem for Arkansas voters. Morris of course totally ignored the Reagan wave of 1980 and the fact Clinton raised taxes when he said he wouldn't (he raised the state drivers license “fees” and claimed that wasn't a tax increase. Sound familiar?)

So to make her more “feminine” they took off her coke bottle glasses for contacts, put her in dresses holding umbrellas over Bill at events and then got pregnant with Chelsea.

[Fledermaus]

Can you delete this first post? I doubled posted after a spell check.

[KevinB]

Tina Brown is like a failed NFL coach...she leaves destruction at every job, and yet keeps getting hired by seemingly clueless new employers....

Yup, her last failure cost Barry Diller $100 million. That's real money in some circles.

[Cowboy Bob]

Tina Brown? Didn’t she used to be famous?

[GOPJ]

But she herself is a little short of empathy towards the woman whose husband she was romping with. She uses the loftily patronizing word “troubling” to describe Hillary’s confiding to her late best friend Diana Blair that she blamed herself somewhat for Bill’s straying and calling Monica “a narcissistic loony toon.” “Yes, I get it,” writes Monica. “Hillary Clinton wanted it on record that she was lashing out at her husband’s mistress.”

Hillary would get my sympathy IF Monica was the first 'other woman' or the 10th... but that wasn't the case. Hillary and others in the campaign ran the 'sluts and nuts' teams that took down the women Bill had taken down first. There's a point where 'the ugly' appears to be they're BOTH 'doing' fairly helpless women ...

If Linda Tripp had not intervened, the lies Clinton and his wife were putting out - that Monica AND her mother were mentally ill - and Bill was 'ministering' to Monica... and the lies about 'the vast right wing conspiracy' behind it all - could have held.

Thank God for Linda Tripp.

Hillary used the occasion to trash Americans who were Conservative by blaming the truth (as it turned out) on 'the vast right wing conspiracy'. Both Bill and Hillary were more than happy to lie about the situation, blame others, and use the power of their positions against innocent conservative citizens...

I read the first half of this piece and was so disgusted by Tina Brown's stupidity that I couldn't finish it.

[TexasCajun]

What I find amazing is that anyone who saw a byline listing Tina Brown as author read the article.

Drudge has the link to this Tina Brown rant, clicked the link, read her whining about the good ole days before Drudge and other Conservative blogs, read the viewer comments and just had to share.

[RichInOC]

I’d be perfectly happy never to hear from or about Bubba and Hillary and all their entourage ever, ever again. How about you?

[CorporateStepsister]

Tina is a relic from another time; she’s not someone who is really ‘with it’ and her glory years were the Eighties and Nineties.

[CorporateStepsister]

Yeah, she was once one of the top writers for various upscale (now trash) publications like Vanity Fair. Her peak time was the Eighties and Nineties. Now she’s just increasingly a joke.

I think she bought NewsWeek for one dollar, so really, it’s not like she’s someone who is currently able to get fired (as far as I know). Her stories are a complete joke.

[TexasCajun]

I’d be perfectly happy never to hear from or about Bubba and Hillary and all their entourage ever, ever again. How about you?

Hillary thinks she is owed the White House, Bubba loves the spot-light, Hillary & Web's daughter is trying to figure out how to best capitalize her inherited fame.