White House rock

The most common flyer of the season in Washington is the resume, hundreds of which are strung out like so much confetti by hopeful interns. Skilfully crafted withMS Word or WordPerfect, they present exaggerated accounts of intern proficiency. In truth, all that most interns end up doing in offices is the grunt work 8212; writing standardised replies, punching in data, sorting mail and attending phones. Otherwise, it8217;s party time 8212; hanging out at happy hours, chilling out with other interns, and generally getting a feel of the government and its activity. It8217;s part of the all-American growing up experience.

But then, not all Americans are all-American. From all accounts, Monica Lewinsky came to Washington DC with a different kind of grunt work in mind. Among the more famous quotes attributed to her is one where she tells a friend she is going to Washington earn to her presidential knee pads. It8217;s the kind of bizarre, warped thinking that appears to have stemmed from growing up in a troubled home, from a dysfunctional family life 8212; as much an American phenomena now as the much ballyhooed all-American lifestyle.

Monica Lewinsky was a child of the American dream. Thefather Lewinsky was a German immigrant who went on to do medicine in the US and became a prosperous oncologist on the West Coast. He married Marcia, also daughter of immigrants, who bore him two children. By the time Monica was born in 1973, the Lewinskys had a monthly income of 37,000. They led a privileged existence typifying the American success story. By the time Monica was in her teens, the family was living in a 1.6-million Beverly Hills mansion in the 90210 zip code, the one which was to become so universally famous because of the TV serial by the same name.

Monica attended the elite Beverly Hills High School and graduated from the Bel Air Prep School, an exclusive 200-student private school where the annual tuition fee was 12,000. After graduating high school in 1991, she attended the Lewis and Clark College, a 3,400-student private college in Portland, Oregon. She lived out a life that was straight out of the pages of Santa Barbara. Mercedes and Cadillac, 60-an-hour tennis lessons and 20,000vacations. When her parents went through an acrimonious divorce in 1987, court documents estimated her mother8217;s household expenses at 25,707 a month, including 200 for facials, 200 for cosmetics and manicures, 300 for baby sitters, 720 for tennis lessons. Before long she would add 760 a month for psychiatric care for the children Monica has a younger brother.

In her earliest sound bite given to the Los Angeles Times much before she ambushed notoriety, Monica gave her considered view on soap operas, declaring, Days of Our Lives adds spice to life. Days of Our Lives is an ongoing soap in the US, somewhat like Bamp;B. Before long, Monica Lewinsky herself would be providing spice to the American life. There is no evidence that her fancy education was of any great use to her.

She was an ordinary student, graduating as a psychology major. She was not particularly focussed on what she wanted to do and never spelt out a career option. Her parents8217; divorce had made her deeply insecure, she had at least oneprolonged affair with an older married man, and went on frequent eating binges. Weight, or overweight, was a recurring theme in agonised parleys with her peers. At one time, she weighed 225 lbs.

But she certainly wanted to go to Washington to check out the action in the corridors of power. Having grown up in LA glitz, she wanted a taste of Beltway power, even though she did not particularly fancy politics or government. Her ticket to a White House internship was facilitated by a wealthy family friend who was a bigtime donor to the Democratic Party.

In the fall of 1996, she wound up as an unpaid intern in the office of legislative affairs, located in the basement of the East Wing of the White House. Her job was to carry the hundreds of letters written or forwarded from the legislature to the executive wing perhaps once a day, in a trip that would take her from the basement of the East Wing to the rarefied confines of the West Wing, office of the most powerful man in the world.

Many accounts suggest thatthe sultry and impressionable girl would make several trips a day, carrying the letters in small piles. With the benefit of hindsight, many White House officials later said she took every opportunity to be within an earshot or eyesight of the President, frequently dressing provocatively. Once she was even banished from the White House for wearing too revealing a dress and fled home in tears. But she returned and as the now famous footage of Monica-in-a-beret-waiting-in-a-crowd-to-greet-the-President shows, she was relentless in her crazed pursuit.

Some time towards the end of 1996, she landed a White House job as a paid intern in the West Wing, just four doors from the President8217;s Oval office. No one seems to know how because she was not particularly qualified to be there even though it was a low-level clerical job earning only about 33,000 a year. But her frequent dalliance with the President did not go unnoticed in the White House, not by the staff, nor by the secret service.

Within weeks, she wasshunted out to the Pentagon, where in a fit of pique she related the whole sordid story to Linda Tripp, who taped the stuff and set in motion a chain of events that stained the American Presidency beyond all belief.

One will have to await the verdict of history to see if Monica Lewinsky will end up being portrayed as a naive ingenue besotted by the power of the Presidency or a conniving tramp just out to have a ball. But for now, she is an apt metaphor for a confused Generation X-er torn asunder by a dysfunctional family, lack of values and excess of wealth.