Alas, Our Girl’s Been Had By Shysters

As one of the leading rooters in the Feminists for Paula Jones camp, let me say how pleased we are by the Supremes’ decision in our case last week.

Simple principle: No one’s above the law.

Our Girl, as we think of her, has won a major victory for just plain folks, and we rejoice. This is particularly sweet given all the classist abuse she has had to take, including much from our fellow feminists and even more from my fellow journalists.

Shall we ever forget the time Our Girl posed for a Newsweek cover wearing a nice blue Angora sweater, only to have every snippy little snob with a press pass denounce her as “tacky”? You would think we would have gotten a break from the natural fibers crowd on that one, but no, in their eyes, blue eye shadow is only slightly less heinous than child molestation. Anyone who thinks there’s no such thing as a class system in America need only look at the treatment given Our Girl.

Now that Jones has Supreme permission to proceed with our case, the original problem of whether we actually have a case reappears. I’m afraid our lawyer, Gilbert Davis, didn’t help when he said: “Paula Jones wants her name and good reputation back from Bill Clinton. He’s got it, she wants it, and we’re going to get it for her.”

Er, ah, ahem. We will have to stipulate, as the lawyers say, that it was not Clinton who took away Jones’ good name. Whether you believe him or you believe her, for obvious reasons, he never said a word about her. If it had been left to Clinton, Jones’ reputation would be as unsullied as Mother Teresa’s. Our lawyer was a little over the top there.

Now, it can be argued that people associated with Clinton have trashed Jones. In fact, James Carville, Clinton’s 1992 campaign manager, once referred to her as “trailer trash,” an epithet at which I took particular umbrage. I have friends who live in trailers. However, Carville was not working for Clinton at that point and hadn’t been for some time, and it is difficult to believe that Clinton ordered him to pop off. Carville has, on his record, never been much under anyone’s control. His wife often says so. If the “trailer trash” crack is what stung, our beef is with Carville, not Clinton.

As for the media’s reportage of the unpleasant comments made by some of Our Girl’s kinfolk, well, it is my belief that we all have unfortunate relatives. But that’s not Clinton’s fault, either.

The fact is that no one in the larger world would know a single thing about Our Girl’s reputation had she not called a news conference and announced that she was filing this case. Her name had never appeared in the public prints; no one knew or cared who she was. It was three years after the alleged incident, and in all that time, she had never considered filing suit.

All this transpired as follows: An anti-Clinton crusader named David Brock printed in a tiny anti-Clinton magazine the allegation by a fired state trooper guilty of fraud that a woman named Paula wanted to be Clinton’s “regular girlfriend.” Lot of Paulas in the world. But Our Girl felt she had been outed, as it were - causing damage to her reputation, the whole nine yards - and filed suit. Oddly enough, she did not sue Brock, the magazine or the trooper.

Our case rests not merely on what happened in the Hotel Excelsior office room between Clinton and Jones but on whether there were any adverse consequences to Jones’ employment because of it. In other words, as the law says, the creation of a hostile work environment. Here’s where we have our problem.

After the alleged incident, Our Girl got both promotions and pay raises. Now she says her work was adversely affected. Perhaps she should have gotten more promotions and pay raises - but she didn’t say so at the time. This is where I fear our case is a trifle weak.

Meanwhile, all this leaves the citizenry, not to mention the president, in a rather unpleasant pickle. From the point of view of justice, this is a tale of “Rashomon” (a classic Japanese film on the slippery nature of truth).

For a while, it looked as though Our Girl, with the power of the presidency arrayed against her, would never get a fair hearing. Now, the question arises as to whether Clinton, with the power of public humiliation arrayed against him, can afford to go through a trial. Even if he is found not guilty of sexual harassment - as seems likely, given the aforementioned weakness in our case - the damage to his reputation, concentration and ability to function in office will be massive. None of that is Our Girl’s fault.

But the question does arise again: What kind of lawyers advised Our Girl to bring a lawsuit with such a dubious chance of success that would so evidently harm both him and her? Who were these lawyers, and what were their motives?

The answer is they were ideological zealots who wanted to get Clinton for political reasons, and at least one of them looked for movie and TV deals before filing the suit. Cliff Jackson, a Little Rock lawyer who has spent years trying to destroy Clinton, first brought Jones to Washington to make her allegation before the Conservative Political Action Committee. Her first lawyer, Daniel Traylor, approached a friend of Clinton’s and told him that Jones would settle for an apology, financial compensation and jobs for herself and her husband. Another lawyer who volunteered to help was Ken Starr, now special prosecutor in the Whitewater case.

I believe that Our Girl has been used and abused by more than one man in this mess.

xxxx