Today’s post is another stroll down Memory Lane on Dr. ESP’s own “way back machine” (with apologies to Jay Ward, who created “Peabody’s Improbable History”).  This time the triggering event was the March 1 passing of businessman, civil rights activist and Bill Clinton advisor Vernon Jordan.

During Clinton’s second term, Jordan took on the additional role of “presidential fixer” when White House staff expressed concern a young White House intern named Monica Lewinsky was spending too much time with the president.  In April 1996, Lewinsky was reassigned to work at the Pentagon although sexual encounters with Clinton continued through March 1997.  When Lewinsky left her Pentagon job in December 1997, Jordan was tasked with finding new employment for her, preferably in New York City.

On January 12, 1998, Linda Tripp turns over recordings of conversations she had with Lewinsky about the Clinton relationship to Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr, who then receives permission from Attorney General Janet Reno to expand his investigation.  Re-enter Vernon Jordan who had been unsuccessful in finding new employment for Lewinsky and was in regular contact with Clinton about the still “under the radar” federal investigation.

So, you may ask, why is this post listed under “media” and what does the title “Beholding a Drudge” have to do with it?  On January 16, 1998, Tripp invites Lewinsky to meet her at the bar at the Ritz-Carlton Pentagon City (across from Reagan National Airport).   Upon her arrival, Lewinsky is met by FBI agents who take her to an upstairs room, offer her immunity and question her about the Clinton affair and her potential obstruction of justice when she coached Tripp to submit a false affidavit about other alleged Clinton sexual encounters.

As “luck” would have it, a little known political gossip columnist Matt Drudge is tipped off about the FBI intervention and breaks the story on January 19 via the on-line Drudge Report, a news aggregation service he started in 1995.  Why and for whom was this lucky?  In a most bizarre and perverse turn of events, in my opinion, Matt Drudge may have been single-handedly responsible for saving Bill Clinton’s presidency.

Immediately following Drudge’s exposé, which included a charge that Newsweek reporter Mike Isikoff had the story but his editor chose not to run it, Jordan terminated all communications with Lewinsky.  Why is this significant?  Jordan had been a “trusted mentor” to whom Lewinsky turned for guidance in navigating the potential public relations and legal firestorm if her affair became public knowledge.  Imagine Jordan was unaware Lewinsky had accepted an immunity deal in return for her cooperation in the Starr investigation.  Might her cooperation agreement have included recording future conservations between Lewinsky and Jordan and subsequent conversations between Jordan and Clinton?

If you think a Republican-led Congress had an impeachment field day over a perjury charge predicated on the meaning of the word “is,” imagine if there was evidence of further obstruction of justice including attempted witness tampering after the FBI’s involvement.  Democrats would have been in the same position as Republicans last month when they had to defend the indefensible.  As well they should have been.

Sadly, the story does not end there.  Even without further evidence of wrongdoing, I was among the minority of Democrats who believed then, and still believes, Clinton should have resigned.  Not because of the over-hyped perjury charge.  Rather due to his liability as a potential national security threat (can you say “kompromat”) and his setting a new precedent for reckless “presidential behavior.”  In hindsight, one has to consider the possibility Drudge’s premature outing of the initial FBI encounter with Lewinsky may have also resulted in Donald Trump’s election in 2016.

While Republican defense of Trump under the premise “what aboutism” is often unfounded, in this case, there is reasonable justification.  How could Democrats give Clinton a pass and attack Trump for being a sexual predator?  How was Trump’s response to his accusers any different from Hillary Clinton’s claim on the “Today Show” that Lewinsky was a pawn in “a vast right-wing conspiracy” against her husband. (Ironically, the January 27, 1998 interview was conducted by Matt Lauer.)  Or do we conveniently forget New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd “slut shamed” (before the phrase became part of our vocabulary) Lewinsky, calling her “a ditzy, predatory White House intern?”

Is this twisted tale just one more example of the “butterfly effect?”  Did the 1995 flashing of an intern’s thong in the Oval Office set the stage for the election of a reality TV host two decades later?  Does this make Matt Drudge an unwitting asset of MAGA World who has since fallen out of favor with the movement’s leader? Or is this a morality tale with no heroes?   Or as Carl Jung would suggest, a series of unrelated events which become a synchronistic narrative?

Or, was Vernon Jordan’s passing just one more opportunity for a blogger in search of a topic to consume one more morning while waiting for his second Pfizer vaccine dose to fully kick in?

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP