This past February, Gene Lyons, a columnist for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and the most zombie-like member of the Clinton cult, went on Meet the Press to clear up a few misconceptions about what he called the president's "totally innocent" relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Far from a seducer of interns, Lyons explained to Tim Russert, Clinton is merely "the Alpha male of the United States of America," a man so sexually appealing to females that "a certain irreducible number of women are going to act batty around him." Some of them go completely bananas. Monica Lewinsky, for instance -- who, Lyons said, had been transformed by the president's sex appeal into "someone rather like the woman who followed David Letterman around."
That would be Margaret Ray, whose career as a professional celebrity stalker came to an abrupt end last week when she kneeled in front of an oncoming train in western Colorado. Ray's sad death seems as good an excuse as any to take a closer look at Gene Lyons's comments on Meet the Press. Monica as stalker? Clinton as hapless stalkee? Where could Lyons possibly have come up with ideas that ludicrous?
If you guessed Sidney Blumenthal, you must be a close reader of this magazine. (Or else you know Sid personally.) Thanks to recently released grand-jury testimony, we now know that shortly before Lyons went on Meet the Press, Clinton himself was laying a similar explanation on Blumenthal. "Monica Lewinsky came at me and made a sexual demand on me," Blumenthal says the president told him. Blumenthal warned the president to stay away from Lewinsky, but the big-hearted Clinton protested that the cold shoulder is easier said than given. "It's very difficult for me to do that," Clinton explained. "I want to help people."
Blumenthal also wants to help people, especially shills for the White House like Gene Lyons. According to someone who knows them both, Blumenthal's explanation quickly reached Lyons, and then, by the magic of network television, millions of Americans who happened to be watching NBC on Sunday morning. The left-wing conspiracy creaks onward.