July 6, 1998
Tripp bashing seemed to be the order of the day over the long holiday week-end, at times taking top billing over the 4th of July fireworks. It appears that the Bashing of Linda Tripp revolves around the notion that one girl should not squeal on another girl, regardless of the situation. I read one attack after the other about her "secretly taped" conversations with Monica Lewinsky.
Amazingly, none of the attacks found space to mention that she had been asked to lie under oath about the conversations and that she didn't plan to do that, which put her personally in serious jeopardy. She has been around Washington long enough to observe what happens to people who don't cooperate with whatever the Clinton White House thinks up. The advice by an older and wiser female counselor to tape the conversations so she could prove their existence was practical and, as things have turned out, the only thing that is saving Linda Tripp from a White House spin doctor destruction. They may hate her, but they can't say she is making it all up.
So, what to do? Try to convince the American people that she is a terrible person because she "pretended to be Monica Lewinsky's friend, and yet taped her conversations.
What kind of "friend" urges you to commit a felony by lying to a grand jury? Where on earth did the columnists and commentators ever get the idea that Monica Lewinsky was a "friend?" As near as I can tell, Monica Lewinsky was a pest. An Associated Press Story in October reported that Linda Tripp wrote an e-mail to Lewinsky saying, "Please give me a break; I can't take this."
In a Nov. 24 e-mail, Tripp wrote: "The information alone is a heavy burden, one I did not ask for." Reports indicate that Monica Lewinsky called Linda Tripp at all hours of the day and night, showing no concern for her time or her family, to talk about her lurid love life with the President.
There is absolutely no indication that Monica Lewinsky had any concern for the jeopardy she was putting her "friend" in by her constant barrage of calls.
The existence of the e-mails is emerging following suggestions promoted by Clinton supporters that Tripp was trying to lure Lewinsky into making damaging statements about the president. A source close to Tripp said she tried several times in 1997 to break off her friendship with Lewinsky after the former White House intern called and visited incessantly to discuss what Lewinsky described as a sexual affair with President Clinton.
Linda Tripp tried unsuccessfully in March of 1997 to contact Clinton's top White House confidant, Bruce Lindsey, to warn that a reporter was asking her questions about Kathleen Willey, who has accused the president of making an unwanted sexual advance in the White House. However, the Associated Press reported, phone messages, e-mails and beeper messages went unanswered. Tripp wanted Lindsey to get the messages so the president could be warned about the inquiry.
This little tidbit of information puts quite a different light on the subject. It was obviously known to the White House that Linda Tripp was trying to communicate something to them. It also must have been known that she was friendly with Monica Lewinsky. Linda Tripp also had watched others, like Billy Dale of the Travel Office, for example, lose their jobs, their reputations and be forced to spend money they did not have to try to defend themselves against phony charges emanating from the White House.
Those tapes are all that has kept Linda Tripp from a similar fate, and most of Washington's press corps knows it. Of course, that does not prevent them from trying to destroy every vestige of Linda Tripp's reputation. So, it should come as no surprise that, after doing everything they could to destroy her, the same press groups, such as CNN and TIME, which have done the Tripp bashing now are conducting their own "polls" that show that 52% of public (or at least the 1024 people in their poll) have an "unfavorable" view of Linda Tripp. Of course, since the poll has a margin of error of at least 3%, that could be totally wrong.
After she testified last week before the Grand Jury, Linda Tripp's lawyer Joe Murtha said "Linda is actually very encouraged by the quality and content of the questions presented by the grand jurors and the prosecutors.... If there is any truth to the adage that an honest person's pillow is peace of mind I can assure you that Mrs. Tripp will sleep very well tonight," said Murtha.
This is a statement that those columnists and commentators who have condemned Linda Tripp for having the gumption to tape some of those conversations in order to prove her own testimony simply don't seem to understand. Truth has no role in their philosophy of life. All that appears important to them is a kind of juvenile or hippie style "don't tell the cops the truth" mentality that became prevalent in the 1960s among the protestors and the civil disobedience crowd.
Linda Tripp has a clear conscience because she refused to go along with a request that she lie about the situation with Monica Lewinsky and the President. She didn't ask for all the information Lewinsky was giving her and tried to cut it off on a number of occasions. And, she obviously knew that if she told the truth with nothing to back it up, she would lose her job and her reputation and probably not be able to get another job as long as Bill Clinton was in the White House.
A personage no less than Jesus Christ told the world that "the truth shall make you free." Linda Tripp knows the truth about Lewinsky and Clinton. By telling the truth, she is free and at peace.
Her detractors, including the President of the United States, might want to try it sometime. Linda Tripp is in a whole lot better position to be in than they seem to be.
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com