Time to Get Ready for All Monica All the Time

Just how much more Monica can we take? We’re about to find out in three different ways: the tapes, the book and the interview.

For months, we thought we knew everything about Monica Lewinsky. We knew her dress size and where she bought them. We knew about her temper and her frustrations. We knew her favorite books, her favorite foods and her favorite indoor sport. We knew everything about her except what she sounded like. But now we know. Now we can actually hear--her voice! The voice that stirred Bill Clinton to cheat--Monica’s voice! The voice that purred Bill Clinton to sleep--Monica’s voice!

And what’s Monica sound like? As a young newlywed once said of Niagara Falls: “It’s my second biggest disappointment.” In 22 hours of phone conversations with Linda Tripp, Monica doesn’t sound like a throaty sex kitten at all. She sounds like just what she is: a young, confused, intelligent but emotionally immature young woman who’s fallen head over heels in love with an older, unresponsive, married man. And Linda Tripp sounds like just who she is: a wicked witch who’s desperately trying to manipulate Monica into doing or saying whatever’s necessary to trap the president in an illegal act.

Listening to the Monica/Linda tapes is as much fun, and as enlightening, as overhearing an overbearing mother telling her obnoxious daughter to go clean her room.

But the voice is not the only new Monica opportunity. Soon, you’ll be able to buy Monica’s book! Ever since she waltzed out of the federal courthouse, Monica’s been trolling the streets of New York, peddling her tale. Finally, she scored: I showed Bill Clinton my thong underwear. How much will you give me? I serviced Bill Clinton under his desk while he was talking on the phone to two members of Congress. Come on, make me an offer! This is the girl with the blue dress. Monica. Hot Lips Lewinsky. Six million? Five million? Four?

Poor Monica. Even with all those high-priced agents, the most she could squeeze out of St. Martin’s Press was an advance of $600,000. That’s the biggest insult to Monica since Clinton rejected her plaintive plea, three months after he’d ended their affair, to just once, please, please, please, go “all the way.” St. Martin’s Press paid a bigger advance for a book about curing arthritis. As John Sargent, chief executive of St. Martin’s, asked only last summer: “Do you want to read a whole book by Monica?”

No! No! No!

Seriously, what more is there to tell? What do we need to know about Monica’s frustrations with the “Big Creep” that she didn’t already blab to Tripp?

But that’s not all. Soon, you’ll be able to watch--Monica’s interview! Yes, ABC beat out all the competition to broadcast Monica telling her own story. Which is, in the end, perhaps the worst news of all. Because now we won’t just have to listen to Monica. We won’t just have to read Monica. Now, we’ll have to sit through another insufferable interview by Barbara Walters.

It will soon be Thanksgiving. Time again to count our blessings. And when it comes to Monica Lewinsky, this year we are truly blessed. We can hear her voice on the tapes. We can look forward to her book and her interview. And then we can all go out--and throw up!