But you’re no Monica Lewinky

by

My wife and I have a deal regarding the Miami Herald, a kind of “don’t ask, don’t tell” of media. When she buys the newspaper on Sunday, she does it with her money. I will not supply a farthing to the folks at 1 Herald Plaza. Because of that arrangement, and in an effort to torture me with something I refuse to read, she always reads to me the first few paragraphs of Ana Menendez’s column — while laughing, of course, because she’s a rock-ribbed conservative, too. (Thank God.)

Today’s column as I learned from her reading, deals with Bill Clinton’s recent trip to Coral Gables. I won’t link to it but it’s on the Herald site. Being a junior sadist, I’d like to inflict on all of you what has been inflicted on me. It’s about Bill’s “magnetism”:

The women arrived in strapless dresses, tight pink pants and back-less summer gowns: exuberant book lovers out to prove that sex doesn’t just sell, it also buys.

And this:

One woman asked him for a dance. A little boy asked him to sign a baseball. And Carolyn Horowitz showed up at 4 p.m., the day before to get a place in line.

”I think he’s the greatest guy in the world,” she said. “There’s no better president.”

Back at the office, a colleague asked: “Was he hot?”

Few mutual attractions are as enduring as the coupling of power and sex. But even by the standards of the formula, Clinton’s magnetism remains unequaled.

And of course,

Clinton was many things, but he was not a hypocrite.

She concludes,

His new book celebrates compassion. And cynics can bray about the benefits that will accrue to his wife’s presidential campaign. But the hundreds of people who turned up to see him on a hot summer morning sense there is something more to the man than mere calculation.

Americans always knew they were dealing with someone who made no secret of his outsized appetites. No joyless scold, Clinton knew enough to accept his own shortcomings and those of others.

And that’s very sexy.

As my wife said, “this column makes me want to vomit.” Me too. Can someone email me some Pepto-Bismol?

20 thoughts on “But you’re no Monica Lewinky”

  1. “…Being a junior sadist. I’d like to inflict on all of you what has been inflicted on me…” LMAO, OK George, if you say so (wink, wink.) How do you feel about Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) and his statements concerning his pledge to end the “embargo” (what embargo?) and shut down TV Marti etc., IF elected president (fat chance) and the fact that he chose “El Dia de La Caridad” to make such statements in Coral Gables of all places? Let me have the noticias from the Capital del Exilio, up here in the part of NJ where I live there aren’t many of us left any more.

  4. If Bill Clinton was a librarian would anyone think he had sex appeal? I think not. This is just another case of the appeal of money, fame and power. We’ve all seen these rich old troglodytes with their trophy wives and nobody can convince me that there is any physical attraction for the man. The only person who could produce uglier offspring with Bill Clinton than Hillary did is probably Ana Menendez.

  5. If Bill Clinton was a librarian would anyone think he had sex appeal? I think not. This is just another case of the appeal of money, fame and power. We’ve all seen these rich old troglodytes with their trophy wives and nobody can convince me that there is any physical attraction for the man. The only person who could produce uglier offspring with Bill Clinton than Hillary did is probably Ana Menendez.

  6. If Bill Clinton was a librarian would anyone think he had sex appeal? I think not. This is just another case of the appeal of money, fame and power. We’ve all seen these rich old troglodytes with their trophy wives and nobody can convince me that there is any physical attraction for the man. The only person who could produce uglier offspring with Bill Clinton than Hillary did is probably Ana Menendez.

  7. If Bill Clinton was a librarian would anyone think he had sex appeal? I think not. This is just another case of the appeal of money, fame and power. We’ve all seen these rich old troglodytes with their trophy wives and nobody can convince me that there is any physical attraction for the man. The only person who could produce uglier offspring with Bill Clinton than Hillary did is probably Ana Menendez.

  9. The jury’s not out yet on the Clinton, legacy, Ana. A couple of decades hence, when you’re old and decrepit and too feeble to read the paper on your own, someone will come and read for you the indictment that historians will have written about your sexpot.

    Must be tough making a living hanging out at the bookstores and wateringholes in the Gables and watching every shade of bimbo strut by to get their books signed or whatever. Takes a lot of neurons and intellectual effort to do that kind of work, doesn’t it?

  10. Un-Believeable. Ana likes Bubba…Ana likes Bubba!

    One nugget from the column not mentioned in the post:

    They (evil Republicans of course) might also develop that quality that comes to those who learn to face setbacks bravely: empathy.

    Thanks for the advice Ana, but try this on for size: the man you tout as “accepting of his own shortcomings and those of others” lied through his teeth to his family, in court and to the American people. You apparently have absolutely NO clue what true bravery is. You have shown us this in your utter contempt for Cuban exiles, most of which have more bravery in one eyelash than 4 Bill Clinton’s do. All the man had to do was to own up to his screwup the FIRST time, you know, like a brave and honest person would.

    I can only guess if Ana would have shown so much empathy had an evil conservative done the same thing Clinton did.

    Can Ana REALLY spell hypocrite? She sure can.

  12. I bet Ana “Cara de Caballo” Menendez thinks that Oscar Corral is also not a hypocrite. Interesting how she did not come to his defense when the cub reporter got busted for soliciting teenage prostitution. Menendez also did not mention where Hillary was while hubby is out on his own promoting his book. That is evidently a marriage of convenience, where each partner does what they please. Clinton got disbarred for his shenanigans and Corral will probably end up, as Henry Gomez pointed out, exiled to the copy desk of the Herald’s Broward Bureau.

  13. If I remember correctly, I read on Joan Fleishman’s column quite a while ago that Ana was separated from her husband because he was outed as cheating on her while on assignment in Iraq (not sure about location). Last I read about her she was divorcing. Can someone verify this? Maybe infidelity is not hypocrisy? I am so confused about this little left-wing sycophant . . .

  14. The Miami Herald
    April 13, 2005, page 1-B

    Joan Fleischman

    LOVE AND WAR

    In divorce court: Ana Menendez, 35, a South Florida author and journalist, and Dexter Filkins, 43, a New York Times foreign correspondent based in Baghdad. Both are former Herald reporters who wed in ’95.

    According to The New York Daily News, Menendez got an anonymous letter saying Filkins played around. A fellow correspondent’s wife got a similar message about her hubby.

    Accused sender: Susan Sachs, 53, former Times Baghdad bureau chief. The Times “linked postmarks on the envelopes to Sachs’ purported whereabouts on the dates the letters were apparently sent,” the Daily News says.

    Sachs, also a Herald alum, denied it. The Times sacked Sachs, anyway. “She was accused of not telling the truth based on electronic information involving at least one follow-up e-mail she is said to have written,” a Times source told The Washington Post.

    Sachs told Editor & Publisher magazine that she is innocent and that she passed a polygraph. Aided by the Newspaper Guild, she’s fighting to get her job back.

    Menendez, who wrote the novel Loving Che, filed the divorce petition on Valentine’s Day, before the rumoring hit the press. She wants their South Beach condo and some alimony. But not quite yet. She asked Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Eugene Fierro to put the case on hold for 90 days – for the “opportunity to effectuate a reconciliation.”

  15. Dexter Filkins, God loves you! You were lucky enough to be divorced from Ana Menéndez before she finally turns into a witch… I’m sure every night Dexter kneels in front of his bed and prays: Thank you, Almighty, for I don’t have to see her face anymore before going to sleep!!

  16. Damn, delacova, you got one up on all those people.
    Giraldo: He probably covered her face with a large flag and did her for Old Glory. No wonder Ana Menendez comes across as so bitter, resentful, and frustrated. She would make a great match with Oscar Corral if his wife dumps him for being unfaithful.

  17. Oh, my. This column is too much…of a hoot. It might as well be titled “Oh, Bill, you make me so wet!” Can she possibly be serious? Can she truly mean such undiluted drivel? Can she be SO unaware of how VERY embarrassing these ga-ga high-school-girl effusions are? It certainly sounds like it, but, for her sake, I hope she’s not THAT pathetic. On the other hand, maybe she really DOES need to get laid more.

    Still, I suppose it’s possible she just couldn’t pass up such a great chance to show, once again, that she’s NOT like “those people,” as Billy boy referred to Cuban-Americans during the Elian crisis. He called us “those people,” of course, EXACTLY the way he called Lewinsky “that woman” (after he used her and she became a liability). But oh, noooo, Bill’s no hypocrite. Not at all. He’s a totally stand-up guy. Not to mention that he wields a mean cigar. So fuck Elian, get it?

    Then again, this could just be a misunderstanding. For all we know, this might be the first installment of a new book, “When I was a German Shepherd in Heat.”

  18. By the way, George, it’s hardly my business, but your wife should consider reading the Sunday Herald online for FREE. I don’t know what they charge for the paper version, but multiplied x 4 for one month has to be at least $4-$5, and it hurts me to think that any self-respecting Cuban-American household is contributing even that much to such an outfit.

Comments are closed.