Lynne Cheney said it’s more likely than not that Hillary Clinton herself was the prodding force behind Monica Lewinsky telling her side of the Bill Clinton affair in a penned Vanity Fair essay.
“I really wonder if this isn’t an effort on the Clintons’ part to get that story out of the way,” Mrs. Cheney said, during a Fox News appearance on Tuesday evening. “Would Vanity Fair publish anything about Monica Lewinsky that Hillary Clinton didn’t want in Vanity Fair?”
Ms. Lewinsky actually went out of her way in the essay to mention that Mr. and Mrs. Clinton had nothing to do with her public address of the affair.
“The buzz in some circles has been that the Clintons must have paid me off; why else would I have refrained from speaking out? I can assure you that nothing could be further from the truth,” Ms. Lewinsky wrote.
But Mrs. Cheney did raise an interesting point: Sen. Rand Paul, who is possibly running for president himself in 2016, has already started bringing up the past of Mr. Clinton and painting it in a seedy light, portraying him as a “sexual predator,” various media reported. That gives rise to the notion that the Clintons likely want to get this story fully vetted, pre-Mrs. Clinton run, Ms. Cheney suggested, The Hill reported.
“[The essay’s] happened at a time when Rand Paul has been criticizing the Clintons,” she said, on the broadcast. “It’s happened at a time when Hillary’s getting wrapped up to run, getting it out of the way so we can say one more time, ’It’s old news’ seems to me like a strategy or a tactic perhaps.”
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Ms. Lewinsky, for her part, said she decided to write the essay because of a Rutgers freshman who committed suicide after a video surfaced of him kissing another man.
“My own suffering took on a different meaning,” Ms. Lewinsky wrote, referencing the 2010 suicide, The Hill reported. “Perhaps by sharing my story, I reasoned, I might be able to help others in their darkest moments of humiliation.”
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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