A View From Here -- Deb Weiss
A VIEW FROM HERE
by deb weiss
Lifetime's Woman of the Year
August 2, 1999
Recently, too ill even for my favorite lazy-day
activity of reading, I spent long hours in a darkened
room, watching television.
It wasn't all bad. No chores, no deadlines: just
blissful irresponsibility. Being a couch potato has
its moments.
Unfortunately, there was nothing to watch. I wasn't up
for sports, vintage airplanes, animal antics, or tips
on stenciling, much less that white noise emanating
from CNN and MSNBC. So I ended up watching the
"Lifetime" cable network -- "television for women," a
blend of diet tips, feminist agitprop, and
high-estrogen sit-coms.
At our house, "Lifetime" is known as The Hillary
Channel. Mrs. Clinton has "Lifetime" connections, even
appearing in bossy public service spots for the
network now and again. She fits their vision of
womanhood to a "t," being (with apologies to P.L.
Travers) half-nanny, half-dominatrix, and the worst
half of both.
Now, I don't mean to be unfair to the woman who
unmasked the vast, right-wing conspiracy. I'm speaking
purely of Hillary's public persona: party
theoretician, Senate candidate, minister of
propaganda. No doubt she's different in private life.
Charming. Generous. Broadly tolerant. Yes. I'm sure
she is.
On weekends, "Lifetime" offers a marathon of
made-for-TV movies in which good women are, variously,
harassed, raped, beaten, deceived, betrayed, robbed,
bigamously married, and/or (occasionally) murdered by
bad men.
Eventually, every good woman brings her bad man to
justice (unless she's been murdered, in which case
other good women -- mothers, sisters, friends --
fill in). Dauntless, righteous, she perseveres.
There's often a courtroom scene near movie's end, in
which the bad man smirks nastily until an unexpected
jury verdict -- a stunning victory for the good woman
-- wipes that smirk off his no-account face for keeps.
As he's led away in handcuffs, joyful tears spurt from
the good woman's eyes. Her supporters cheer. Music
plays. Virtue triumphs.
Here's an interesting fact: the "Lifetime" woman
frequently uses clandestine listening devices to nab
her bad man. Cozily wired, she beguiles him into
divulging his guilty secret. Naturally, these doofuses
never can resist making boastful claims into the
hidden microphone. Voila: there it is on tape. She has
him where she wants him.
Another interesting fact: her deception is celebrated
as brave and resourceful. No-one savages her looks,
accuses her of conspiracy, or charges her with making
secret book deals.
I couldn't help thinking of good women, bad men and
wiretaps last week, on hearing of Linda Tripp's
indictment for an apparent violation of Maryland's
wiretapping laws.
By "Lifetime" standards, Linda Tripp is a very good
woman indeed. She pitted herself against a powerful
man: an exploiter, a liar and a cad. She refused to
lie for him under oath, despite ugly threats and a
stupefying smear campaign. She made her covert tapes
because she wanted the cad to get what was coming to
him.
Talk about made-for-"Lifetime" -- you'd think they'd
be filming even as we speak. "The Linda Tripp Story:
Courage On Pennsylvania Avenue. Based On Real-Life
Events."
Think again. Snickering journalists revel in her
downfall. They shrug off the political implications of
her indictment (which evidently reach from Maryland's
corrupt Democratic establishment all the way to the
White House). They cheer the goons who've destroyed
her reputation.
It's surely a "Lifetime" world turned upside down,
when a James Carville gets to be the good guy.
What makes all this particularly painful is that we
know full well Linda Tripp would have enjoyed a good
woman's good press, if only she'd gotten the goods on
Ronald Reagan, say, or George Bush the Elder. Her sin
wasn't "outing" the president, or wiretapping the
perfidious Monica.
It was reckless endangerment of a liberal. Nothing
more or less.
For contrast, consider those Democratic apparatchiks
from Florida who "accidentally" taped a conference
call between Newt Gingrich and fellow GOP-ers just
before Christmas a few years back (the tape wound up
in the hands of Newt-hating New York Times
correspondent Adam Clymer). It was illegal as the day
is long, but they got terrific press, those two,
including the full Today Show treatment from NBC's
Katie Couric, who giggled about how "cute" they were,
warning, with perky pugnacity, that the Republicans
had better not try to mess with them.
If only Linda Tripp had exposed the wicked right, she
could have been a contender, widely praised for her
courage and her lovely hair. It could have been a
"Lifetime" moment.
Instead, however, it'll be just one more Clinton
moment. Equal parts of sheer hypocrisy, character
assassination, and toxic journalism.
So much for good women, in the real world.
A VIEW FROM HERE archive
Thinking Over This Tax Cut Thing -- July 29, 1999
The John John Show -- July 26, 1999
America's One China, Two Alka Seltzer Policy -- July 22, 1999
The Politics of Speaking Ill of the Dead -- July 19, 1999
The Nasty Legacy -- July 15, 1999
All in a Slow News Week... -- July 12, 1999
Traps For The Young -- July 8, 1999
Remembering Michael Dukakis -- July 5, 1999
R.I.P., O.I.C. -- July 1, 1999
Mr. Clinton's Post-War Vengeance -- June 28, 1999
Guns, Cuisinarts and the Bill of Rights -- June 24, 1999
Attack of the Concerned Advocates -- June 21, 1999
FTC Nation -- June 17, 1999
The Very, Very Coincidental World of Bill and Hillary Clinton -- June 14, 1999
Water-boiling in Our Time -- June 10, 1999
Crisis and Peace -- June 7, 1999
Reinventing God -- June 3, 1999
On This Memorial Day -- May 31, 1999
The Un-McCarthy Era -- May 27, 1999
Unspeakable Spin -- May 25, 1999