Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus Blames Lewinsky for ‘Thong Flashing’ at Bill Clinton

‘Monica Lewinsky was not precisely an innocent victim’

WaPo’s Ruth Marcus: ‘Thong Flashing’ Monica Lewinsky Was Asking for It (Mediaite)

On Monday, Ruth Marcus, left-leaning political columnist for the Washington Post, stepped on a rhetorical landmine. Or, that is, she would have if she was Ruth Marcus, right-leaning columnist for the Washington Post. Maybe former White House intern Monica Lewinsky was just asking for it? That is the impression that this headline and the selected pull quote will project.

When Marcus was making a fairly anodyne statement about how female sexuality is routinely mischaracterized in the press when it involves a politician (intentionally so, I would submit), Marcus lamented how sexually active women are branded as either insatiably promiscuous predators or helpless victims. Marcus insisted that there is a grey area here that the majority of women occupy.

Hers is the kind of milquetoast observation that would draw applause at an academic conference, or a corporate seminar on sensitivity, or anyplace where the obvious and antiseptic statements are regarded as brave and refreshingly honest.

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