A Former Clinton Aide Really Just Tried to Blame 9/11 on Monica Lewinsky
You know what? Pearl Harbor was probably her fault, too.
Politics
A former aide to President Bill Clinton is claiming 9/11 happened because the administration was too focused on his various sex scandals, most notably the one you may have heard of with then-intern Monica Lewinksy. “Monica Lewinsky took Bill Clinton’s eye off bin Laden, leading to 9/11: ex-aide” reads one New York Post headline. Now y’all can’t be fucking serious.
Once I picked my jaw up off the floor, I tried to engage in good faith with the memoir of former White House adviser and senior Clinton reelection campaign aide, Dough Schoen, which is being cited here. “I watched this unraveling happen close up, in painful slow motion, from inside the White House,” Schoen writes in Power: The 50 Truths, the Definitive Insider’s Guide, according to Page Six. “I watched the White House surreptitiously mount a whispering campaign to discredit Lewinsky.”
Okay, I am following along so far. But then, the excerpts provided to us by the tabloid go a little off the rails. Let me quote the Post in full so you see Schoen’s writing in context:
“There was also, I believe, a serious impact on national security. On Aug. 20, 1998, Clinton ordered cruise missile strikes against al Qaeda in Sudan and Afghanistan in retaliation for the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The strikes, named Operation Infinite Reach, missed Osama bin Laden,” Schoen writes.
“Beset by the Lewinsky affair, the Clinton Administration lost focus and leverage to pursue him aggressively and bin Laden struck again on 9/11,” he writes.
I….The administration had absolutely no time for other things other than responding to Monica Lewinsky? No other time??
Furthermore, it’s gross to continue to use her name—he calls it the “Lewinksy affair”—when there were two people involved, and one of them was the president. It’s Bill Clinton’s Sex Scandal! It’s Bill Clinton’s Impeachment Investigation! It’s high time to keep her name out of your mouth.
After 25 years, if you’ve randomly decided to link this woman giving a blowjob to the occurrence of 9/11—which happened under President George W. Bush, mind you—you should go touch grass. Lewinsky (understandably) did not respond to Jezebel’s request for comment, and if you’re reading this, Monica: We honestly regret even asking.