"[Lewinsky] ... is going to be 34 come July. Her clock ticks, her life ebbs. Where is the man for her?"

Oh yes, because turning 34 definitely means she has one foot in the grave. I guess I should buy my burial plot now, because like Lewinsky, I am shortly to be 33 and there is no man for me either.

"Her life ebbs"?? Is she some Victorian heroine slowly dying of consumption after opening the window and letting in too much of the dangerous night air?

Have they? It's at best a 50/50 split it seems to me, and even that is probably overstating it.

Dear Gimmegirl,

OK, spill. Who hid the multiple abortions and who had them? I realize you were writing about our current president (drinking and snorting well into his forties), but I have never heard of Laura or any other public person and multiple abortions.

The curious need to know.

"She is a branded woman, not an adulterer but something even worse -- a girl toy, a trivial thing, a punch line. Yet she did what so many women at that age would do. She seduced (or so she thought) an older man. She fantasized that he would leave his wife for her. Here was her crime: She was a girl besotted. It happens even to Republicans."

And Broadsheet calls this idiotic description "common-sense." What a crock of shit. Yeah, and the Holocaust was "unpleasant."

She was 23

She had a college degree

She was not exactly a virgin

And besotted? She's not just blowing the Vice-President of Marketing of some company. This is the most famous man in the world. Who, incidentally, is never more than a few feet from a bunch of bodyguards toting machine guns, and the briefcase with which he can start a nuclear war.

The idea that she didn't know what she was doing because she was drunk with love or something is just insane. Anyone who gets near the President of the United States is reminded about every five seconds of how powerful the man is.

She used her sexuality to what she thought was her advantage. Then, when it turned out she'd miscalculated, it suddenly turns out she's some kind of helpless, swooning victim of one of those nasty middle-aged men. God, give me a break.

And what's even better is the idea that she Had No Idea that once the story broke, Clinton would lie, and everyone might not be all honest and upfront about their feelings like they were back in college. No shit. This is the President. When you do something as stupid as threaten his presidency, he is going to play rough. If you are naive enough to attempt to manipulate someone like that, you are just asking for harsh consequences. It's kind of incredible that Linda Tripp is still alive.

1998 wasn't 12 years ago. It was 9.

and they finally were able to make it happen. What SHOULD be making people puke is Gary Harts old squeeze Donna Rice making a living as an anti porn activist. To the sexually sane cultures of the world the US looks barely a step above the Taliban.

Linda Tripp taped Monica without her knowledge. And she may have kept the dress the same way I once kept the sweaty headband of my tennis-playing high school boyfriend after he dumped me. (sigh ...) I don't know about Jonah Goldberg's mother. If she was blackmailing Clinton, what was she blackmailing him for, exactly? Whatevs ...

I'm happy that she's moving on. Hopefully, we can too.

And sometimes women (and a few men) really do give head to get ahead. I really don't understand the outrage. It's easily the world's 3rd or 4th oldest profession. And seemingly Ms. L has survived the event w/o becoming a drug addled born again crackpot or perish the thought, a blogging harpy opinion leader. Congrats Ms. L and many happy professional years for you. Now that you are nearly middle aged, let's hope the morons of the world have something better to do with their time that obsess about this.

obviously traditionalists and their hangers on don't (officially) like her but the neo-victorian prudo-feminist condemnation and hand wringing about "unequal power in the relationship" blah blah blah shares some of the blame for the relative political success that the right wing was able to make of the situation.

I just hate to think about this entire episode. It was not exactly our nation's finest hour.

I am embarrassed about, or for (not sure which) both Clinton and Lewinsky, smart people who should have known better. I am embarrassed for myself after learning a lot of lurid details that I really didn't want to know. (Thanks a lot, Ken Starr.)

But mostly I cringe at the memory of how this stupid, stupid tempest commanded so much attention and so much angst and even an impeachment (now how are school kids' history books going to address THAT in the future?). Really, how could we, as a nation, spend more than two seconds and 2 cents "investigating" a series of blowjobs -- especially in light of all the death and devastation that the world faces today?

In retrospect, after Iraq, Darfur, Katrina, thawing permafrost and on and on, the attention to the Lewinksy affair seems incredibly silly.

I've lived in Northern Virginia for almost 23 years, and have watched the interns and pages come and go. As a rule, they are smart, ambitious, and hard working. It doesn't surprise me that Lewinsky got into such a good school - and that she did well.

I'm amazed that there has been little discussion of the gendered nature of how we view the Lewinsky account. Hell, that drunk in the White House was snorting and drinking well into his forties, and the great liberal media have given him a pass. (And were soooo good about not prying into all those abortions.) And Henry Hyde got to carry on an adulterous seven-year affair that stretched well into his forties - and got away with calling it a "youthful indiscretion. We've overlooked quite a lot for these guys - and they got to move pretty high up the political food chain. Why not Lewinsky?

Let me give you a heads up: Some of these interns come to town with the expressed purpose of getting close to great men and great women. If that means getting to know them in the biblical sense, so be it. Straight and gay, male and female, some of these interns have a specific goal of getting into bed with powerful figures.

The Post account was tacky, but good political gossip in Washington left town with Sandra Gottleib and Diana McClellan. Now, it's all celebrity stud muffins and airheads with trust funds. Come back to DC, Sandra! All is forgiven!