Creep of the Week - April 4, 1998
But they're still prostitutes. Let's not mince words - whore, harlot, hooker, slut, call girl, streetwalker - they're all appropriate descriptions. And the only bad prostitute is the kind who won't own up to being one. Like Paula Jones.
For the last four years, political enemies of Bill Clinton have been using Paula as the killer weapon in their crusade to embarrass, harass, financially ruin and impeach him. She first embarked on her prostitute career at a press conference sponsored by a group of right wing yahoos called the Conservative Political Action Conference, where she told the tale we've all heard hundreds of times about the hotel room, the state trooper, and Bill's curved dick. She announced she was suing Bill for sexual harassment, claiming that as a result of her encounter with the Gubernatorial Gonads, she was thrown into a dead end job and didn't get any flowers on Secretary's Day. Paula soon became a famous floozy, picking up an endorsement deal from No Excuses Jeans and a pictorial spread in Penthouse. She also picked up a whole new set of johns willing to pay for her services - The Rutherford Institute, a conservative legal action group which had suddenly found a new interest in sexual harassment cases.
Like any good professional prostitute, Paula didn't try to hit the streets alone, but enlisted the help of a
madam and a pimp. Madams are typically ex-prostitutes who have gotten too old for the day-to-day
in-and-out lifestyle and moved into the public relations end of the business. Paula's madam is Susan
Carpenter McMillan, who serves as her spokesman and make-over artist. Susan has that
sweet madam come-on look that says "Come on over and see my girl. She'll make a man out of you!"
Susan has gone to great pains to point out that Paula's just a poor country prostitute trying to gain some
measure of respect after it was brutally taken away from her by the Great and Powerful Governor.
Paula's pimp is John Whitehead, founder of the Rutherford Institute. Pimps take care of the money and
provide the muscle when it's needed. They're also mighty sleazy, both in their looks and in the way they
treat their minions. It's not the prostitutes they care about. John fits the pimp role in all respects.
He's bankrolled the vast contingent of lawyers who worked on Paula's case and he has that dark,
derelict image that would look right at home wearing gold chains and a pink jump suit, driving a long black
Cadillac through the ghetto streets, hustling more customers for his ho.
For what it's worth, I believe the events in the Arkansas hotel room in 1991 happened pretty much as Paula described. But despite all the cash Pimp John threw at the lawyers, they didn't put together much of a case. Paula's lawsuit was thrown out of court this week by U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright who said that the allegations fell "far short" of sexual harassment and there were no "genuine issues" worthy of a trial.
That flushing sound you hear is Paula's career as a prostitute swirling down the toilet. Every hooker reaches a point where she's no longer able to bring in the cash like she used to. A few are savvy enough to become madams or move into some other job like hosting New Year's Eve Times Square specials on TV. But most of them leave the bright lights of the city to go back home to the trailer park. Expect John and Susan to perform some half-hearted motions to keep this case in the news for another year or so, but Paula's done being used. The Clinton Haters don't need her anymore. There will be no more press conferences, no more court appearances, no more high class hairdo's or fancy clothes. Good-bye Paula, it's time to get up off your hands and knees. She'll be back on her feet someday, but she'll always be a bit bowlegged.
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