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FORMER WHITE HOUSE intern Monica Lewinsky broke her silence today about her illicit 1990s affair with president Bill Clinton, saying she wants to reclaim the narrative of events that brought her global humiliation.
Lewinsky, now 40, was in her early twenties when she became the infamous blue dress and beret-wearing muse who engaged in sexual relations with the president and then endured a colossal backlash that nearly drove her to suicide.
After years of being turned away by potential employers and ridiculed online, she decided to write her version of events in this month’s Vanity Fair magazine.
“It’s time to burn the beret and bury the blue dress,” Lewinsky wrote, in excerpts posted on the magazine’s website.
“I am determined to have a different ending to my story. I’ve decided, finally, to stick my head above the parapet so that I can take back my narrative and give a purpose to my past.”
She said her radio silence was so complete for nearly a decade that rumors swirled that the Clintons must have paid her off to keep her quiet.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” she wrote.
It is time to stop “tiptoeing around my past — and other people’s futures,” she said, in a possible reference to former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s expected White House run in 2016.
News of the Lewinsky affair broke in 1998 and became an all-consuming scandal that nearly brought down the Clinton presidency. He was impeached by the House of Representatives that December but was acquitted by the Senate.
While the Clintons moved on, Lewinsky became an American outcast, even as she came to regret one of the most famous political affairs in US history.
“Sure, my boss took advantage of me, but I will always remain firm on this point: it was a consensual relationship,” she wrote.
“Any ‘abuse’ came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position,” she added.
In the scandal’s wake, Lewinsky said, she “turned down offers that would have earned me more than $10 million, because they didn’t feel like the right thing to do.”
Instead she applied to various communications and marketing jobs, but the employers balked, claiming her “history” made her the wrong person for the job.
The anxiety made her suicidal at times, she admitted.
Her suffering “took on a different meaning” in 2010, following the suicide of Tyler Clementi, the gay Rutgers University student who was shown on the Internet kissing another man.
As one of the first major figures to endure global online humiliation, Lewinsky said she wanted to work with victims of cyber-bullying and harassment.
“Perhaps by sharing my story… I might be able to help others in their darkest moments of humiliation,” she said.
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Roll on 2moro!!!!!! Can’t wait!!
I hope he means ‘metaphorically’ and not ‘literally’.
Would be a lot more useful if these idiots tackled countries such as China, Iran and Burma that restrict free access to the Internet. Suppose it’s not newsworthy though.
They have recently. Iran was hit by op anti sec. Government departments.
So there.
You won’t here about it with mainstream media. Try arstechnica.com or wired.com
can they transfare funds into ecb to bail out italy.since the rest of europ is broke.
I’d prefer if they transferred out of the ECB into Ireland seeing as they’ve screwed us over for the last few years.
and all across the land IT staff plugged out their modems at home just in case, the work ones can wait till after coffee.
Non starter. No-one in Anonymous has any skill beyond SQL injection and DDoS attacks.
They do this to show that big fancy businesses can’t even protect from basic attacks such sql injection or ddos attacks and we’re supposed to trust them with our details.
Just criminals
…as opposed to unjust criminals? I agree!
Can’t wait to see what they do! Fair play to them exposing the flaws in Internet security. It’s the ones that sneak in and say nothing you need to worry about
It’s just someone with an agenda
Spoilists if such a term exists.
Brilliant brilliant minds used for mediocre purposes.
Why don’t you try famine, disease, dictatorships etc etc
Attack them, if you win ……. the world wins
God bless you and help you to make the right decision
Because they don’t have Internet? :-) To be serious, all this hacking is not directed at “who”, it is way more often directed at “viable of doing or not?”. Of course there is extra pride and hype amongst hacker groups if they manage hit something big. But reality is they always look for weak targets and easy points first and then just narrow down more and more to select something attractive. In other words, they hack what they can, not necessarily what they would like to.
Guys… anyone know what a false-flag attack is ?? …9/11 … the government / powers that be are gearing up to shut down the web as we know it… and reboot with a new COMPLETELY CONTROLED & CENSORED Web.. …using security fears / blaming hackers for there actions…
Must Watch >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDwsslGcC4w
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