Who says Bill Clinton's not a lucky man? The House Judiciary Committee, in its release of supplemental materials from Kenneth Starr's inquiry, publishes any number of embarrassing confidences of Monica Lewinsky, but it delicately and prudishly "redacts" the equivalent material from the president, citing "privacy."
Case in point: Monica and the president swapped off-color jokes. Monica's ethnic humor makes it into the transcript. But the president's JAP joke (as in Jewish American Princess) is blacked out by the Judiciary committee. Let's roll the tape:
"MS. LEWINSKY: I told [the president] this joke my dad just told me. . . . Why do Jewish men like to watch pornos backwards?
"MS. TRIPP: Pornos backwards? I have no idea.
"MS. LEWINSKY: So that they can watch the prostitute give back the money. (Laughter.)
"MS. TRIPP: You idiot. Did he laugh?
"MS. LEWINSKY: Yeah, he laughed. And then he . . . " and at this point in the transcript, a long joke-length section, no doubt reflecting poorly on the liberal sensitivities of the president, has been deleted with magic marker.
This is the second time that Bill Clinton has had a close encounter with politically dangerous humor. In 1991, Clinton was swapping jokes with his Democratic primary opponent Bob Kerrey. The exchange was partially captured on C-SPAN, and Chris Matthews wrote up Kerrey's half of the exchange for the San Francisco Examiner -- a crude joke about lesbians and Jerry Brown -- damaging Kerrey's chances for the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination.
What wasn't reported at the time was that Clinton told the first dirty joke but only Kerrey got caught. According to Matthews, Mike McCurry, who was then Kerrey's press secretary, urged his boss to expose Clinton, but Kerrey said, "I'm not gonna rat on a buddy." Clinton, ever slippery, remarked of Kerrey's troubles at the time: "As far as I'm concerned, it was an off-the-record conversation." No wonder.
And there's still more on the Lewinsky-Tripp tapes. According to Lewinsky, Clinton told her "the Jewish American princess and apple one." This somehow doesn't sound likely to be a very presidential joke, though THE SCRAPBOOK must admit it has never been privy to this particular joke and may be mistaken. Linda Tripp tells Monica that President Clinton "and Bruce Lindsey tell raunchy jokes all the time to each other. That's not a big deal." But a duty is owed to the historical record. Readers (or Bruce Lindsey) are invited to mail in the one about the apple to SCRAPBOOK, 1150 17th St., NW, Suite 505, Washington, D.C. Or fax to 202-463-6656.