All America Is Asking: Are We Really Linda?

I don’t know about you, but everybody I know is still talking about Linda Tripp’s unforgettable “I am you” speech.

We quote her all the time. I personally go up to people on the street every day, just to say, “Hi, I’m you. Are you me?”

And then we hug.

A woman in Long Beach grew misty-eyed as she said, “Nobody’s ever been me besides me. Thank you for being me.”

“And you me,” said I.

We wept.

A man in Manhattan Beach wore a pin on his lapel with Tripp’s picture.

It read: “She’s Me. I’m Her. Be Us.”

I bought one from him.

Because I want to be Linda. Because she wants to be me.

I like her liking to be like Mike. No other woman has ever been this willing to be me. Most of the women I know are so selfish. They want to be them.

But not our Ms. Tripp. She’s me. She’s you. Linda R Us.

I feel a little better every day knowing this, because I’m good enough, I’m smart enough and, doggone it, Linda likes me.

*

A day after suspected presidential paramour Monica S. Lewinsky accepted a speaking role in Ken Starr’s big-budget production of “From Here to Immunity,” a speech was made by their mutual acquaintance Linda Tripp--or, as I now think of her, Everyperson.

I have heard a lot of stirring words in my day.

“I have a dream.” “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” “I’m king of the world!”

But, golly, Tripp’s speech gave me goose pimples.

Zooming into the TV camera lenses like a truth-seeking missile, Tripp told the world, “There has been a great deal of speculation about just who I am and how I got here. Well, the answer is simple.

“I’m you.”

Well, that just changed everything.

Had I known previously that she was me, I would have felt so differently toward her. I never would have written the things I had written about Tripp 24 hours earlier, if I’d had the slightest hint that she was actually me in disguise.

I changed my mind about her overnight.

“Ich bin ein Tripp!” I shouted to a crowd.

A boy in Santa Barbara said he thought I looked familiar. I told him that was because I was actually a woman with 20 hours of secretly recorded tapes.

He said, “Me too!”

A girl in Santa Ana wondered whether if Tripp was me and I was Tripp, I had also seen Lewinsky’s cocktail dress with the stain.

I told her that I had indeed, but, not knowing that I was Tripp at the time, sent the darn thing out to the cleaners. I thought it was Vanilla Swiss Almond.

Tripp’s lawyer--and therefore mine--Anthony Zaccagnini, confirmed on TV this week that his client did see something on Lewinsky’s dress.

“What that stain is, Linda doesn’t know,” he said.

Nor, therefore, do I.

“Quite frankly,” he added, “it wasn’t something that Linda was quite gleeful to see.”

What a relief. I wouldn’t have been gleeful, either, in that situation. It was good to know how much Linda and I had in common.

Her speech was something I will never forget. Someday, when the president of the United States is impeached because she--we--secretly recorded a friend’s conversation, I’ll be thrilled to know that I was a part of it.

And so will you, because she’s you.

Remember, as Tripp announced on our behalf, “This investigation has never been, quote, just about sex. It has been about telling the truth.”

Atta way, Linda.

What a woman we are!

*

Linda, you little truth-teller you, the last thing I need is an evil twin. You are not me. You will never be me. Don’t go around telling anybody that you are me. I will sue you for defamation of character if you ever repeat that you are me. I wouldn’t be you if you were the last person on Earth.

Until you stood up there so proudly the other day and spoke with “fear no longer my master,” I hadn’t been aware that by airing Lewinsky’s dirty laundry, you felt that you were just doing our duty as a citizen.

Speak for yourself.

If you feel the need to be you, go ahead. You have to live with you. Just leave me out of it.

“I’m you. I’m just like you,” said Linda Tripp. It was the first time in a long time that I really disliked me.

Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053, or phone (213) 237-7366.