So why did Linda Tripp do what she did?

The reason the show is giving is that she was obsessed with being at the center of things, and furious when she was re-assigned from the White House to the Pentagon. Once she found Monica, she not only wanted revenge against the Clinton administration but she loved being at the center of everything again and manipulating the puppet strings.

She would’ve have (rightly) been a DL icon if she had pursued one of our less favored presidents.

She was the original Karen cunt.

#1, Monica was involved with the production so no surprise.

Tripp said Blowinsky was a loose cannon, telling everyone about her affair, stains on her dress, etc. Tripp said she wasn't friends with the loony young fool, but after about a year of that shit she sought out people who could stop her stalking obsession with the President.

She did it to protect both herself and Monica. Monica was asking her to commit a felony and lie under oath, which really meant that the WH was asking her to lie and using Monica to deliver the message.

Monica would be another person connected to the Clintons who suffered a mysterious and untimely death if not for Linda.

Yikes r5. Never thought of that.

So Linda Tripp did work for Vince Foster (I looked at a bit of the first episode.) The first scene is him leaving and then killing himself and Tripp gossiping about Hillary having an affair with him.

The coming attractions I have to say were kind of powerful. (and will irk Clinton lovers)

Tripp is seen saying how she saw three presidents come thru. She says something nice that Reagan did (I forget what) then how George W. wrote handwritten letters to all soldiers killed in action and then Bill Clinton had an intern give him a blowjob. Paulson really shows Tripp revulsion of Clinton.

R6 not George W, Daddy Bush.

oops yes r7 I meant George HW.

Thanks for telling us what happened in an episode from five weeks ago, OP.

In other breaking news, the Titanic has hit an iceberg.

Rachel Maddow calls H.W. "Poppy" Bush.

STFU r9!!! I just rented that movie!!! You ruined it!!!

(and did it occur to you not everyone is watching the show but may be able to answer historical questions)

Be gone!

Years ago, I read that Linda didn't like the transition from the Bush administration to the Clinton administration. Every time the party in power changes, lots of fed workers get nervous about their postings. AAfter several years of service, Linda suddenly found herself unceremoniously moved to a new, less glamorous work location, after the new boss took over. Though she had worked there for several years before the new boss arrived, her seniority meant nothing to the new boss. She wanted the agency to know they had messed with the wrong employee. I think the TV series does a good job in getting this feeling across.

Also, the TV show portrays Linda as relishing being at the center of a major, news-worthy investigation. I think she enjoyed the feeling of being important. In a way, she would be considered a part of history for the next several years, and she would even become famous. (Though the fame would backfire, when comedians focused on insulting her looks.)

In the series, she also states that Clinton shouldn't be allowed to get away with using Monica and then letting her be assigned to a new work location to prevent Clinton from being tempted to cheat. It isn't clear if Linda has protective feelings towards Monica, or if Linda is just using Monica as a tool to get back at Clinton.

In the series, Linda is a very complex character. She's like the distant relative sitting next to you at Thanksgiving and whispering mean things about other people. You feel warm as she shares her sarcasm with you. But...you're afraid to get up and leave the table because you're afraid that she'll then say mean things about you.

She's dead now. Who got her stuff?

The attempt to take down Clinton with the Lewinsky affair seems absolutely cynical when you think about he fact that nobody said a word during the decade of HW Bush's affair with Jennifer Fitzgerald.

And that's really the difference between the democrats and republicans.

I think Nixon's resignation brought about by the democrats' Watergate investigation upped the ante on republicans wanting to get back on democrats. Republicans never forgave democrats for taking Nixon down.

It was about the lying not the affair, r14. But I still don’t give a shit. He should never have been questioned about a personal matter that had nothing to do with his duties. He should have refused to answer on that basis and then leaked his answer to the country. They wouldn’t have had lying to pin impeachment on him, and most of the country didn’t give a crap about his affairs.

Any pics of her hunky son with his pants off?

Tripp was furious a brain dead soror girl who like could not like even like type on like a typewriter was being gifted special attention. She used the nuclear option, got the groupie to detail her sexual encounters with POTUS, recorded the conversations and turned the recordings in for profit.

What's the motivation?

Malice and cash, the magats carrots.

Linda had a celebrity career planned out for herself on the back of her Fellatiogate scoop, with a book deal in the works with agent Lucianne Goldberg. She was most certainly not afraid of being prosecuted or assassinated. She was a happy lady with big dollar signs in her eyes, until the day SNL called in John Goodman to play her. That and the general public not really finding Bill Clinton getting a BJ that unforgivable.

John Goodman should've won an Emmy for his Linda Tripp.

[quote] every time the party in power changes, lots of fed workers get nervous about their postings. AAfter several years of service, Linda suddenly found herself unceremoniously moved to a new, less glamorous work location, after the new boss took over.

I discussed this on the other Impeachment show thread, but what I've observed for years of working for the government (both as employee and as a contractor) is that when there's someone kind of crazy, an office troublemaker, or just deeply unpleasant/incompetent--what I've seen happen many times is that they get "promoted" to somewhere else in a different government agency. Linda Tripp was sent to the Pentagon but she got a $20K raise. Rather than deal with the paperwork and get someone fired/removed from their position, it's just easier to shuffle them off to another agency and let them be someone else's problem.

Tripp seems like she was a pain in the ass/office busybody and rather than fire her it was just easier to give her the raise and send her over to the Pentagon. I've seen this happen many, many times and it sucks. I would be 100% behind constructive solutions for weeding these types of people out of our government bureaucracy.

[Quote]She was a happy lady with big dollar signs in her eyes, until the day SNL called in John Goodman to play her.

At least she got some great plastic surgery out of it.

[quote] Tripp was furious a brain dead soror girl who like could not like even like type on like a typewriter was being gifted special attention.

Speaking of brain dead...

At some point, Monica Lewinsky was asked to give a statement and she said: "I hate Linda Tripp." That made me realize how dumb ML was. Linda Tripp was the tip of the iceberg, the patsy, etc. Monica could only see / understand that small portion of what happened.

She wanted to feel important and was jealous of Monica.

The most interesting thing about the series to me was the explication of the rationale/self-justification Linda Tripp had for doing such a slimy cruel thing.

Regards political horse trades I've seen them at the state level. One woman who was the HR person in our office was a horse trade.. At the time we were moving to a new location. So I was tasked with doing all the planning and due diligence. One of the stories that came back to us was of another state agency where when they moved their I.T. gear they dropped a rack full of servers off the back of a truck.

Well one day the HR person and I are talking and she mentions it. I of course couldn't resist and said I'd heard the story about that.

Not following Lucifer. Were state secrets stolen from the missing servers?

Same here, r27. I think Lucifer may have lost a sentence editing.

I’m hoping to hell they reveal what happens to Linda’s cubicle mate by the end of the series. I’ll be disappointed if one or the other hasn’t been stabbed with a fork.

LOL R29. I loved when she told her "not now" during the Christmas party.

Linda Tripp was a master at the art of Karening long before we even knew it was an art. She figured she'd become rich and famous, pure and simple.

She had been perfecting her Mrs. Kravitz role and was finally able to take it to Broadway.

She fancied herself a charter member of the vast right-wing conspiracy…

jealous-fatty syndrome

In light of all the horrors the US has experience over the past two decades, the Clinton shit from the 90s looks so ridiculous and frivolous now. It's amazing anyone ever gave a shit.

Linda Tripp had a reputation as an office gossip and troublemaker long before Monica arrived. People were warned to keep her at arm's length.

What's really funny is that Linda Tripp thought she was the smartest person in the room always. But she got one over on the lovesick blabbermouth in the next cubicle, which really wasn't much of a feat. It was just really mean and self serving--Linda deserved every bit of the ire and mockery she received.

It seems like she really thought she would come out a hero. Instead, she became a joke and a target of scorn. That's must've really taken her by surprise.

R5 nailed it. The fix was in for all to lie on Clinton’s behalf in the Paula Jones case. Linda Tripp wasn’t on board, so she needed tape evidence to protect herself from a perjury rap. And of course she was no fan of Bill Clinton.

R39 is replying to herself at r5. Loons are out tonight.

No, R40, I’m not R5. I should add that I remember a great line from the ‘90s. Before Clinton’s troubles there was a movement afoot among the feminists of the era to make workplace sexual harassment a crime. When they turned the other cheek when it came to Clinton, it was said that they were against pigs in the boardroom, but not so much against pigs in the boardroom. Me? I’m consistently against pigs whether they’re named Clinton or the far more egregious Trump.

Because she was a republican. Republicans are incapable of EVER doing the right thing.

You’re so right, R42.

If you listen to the tapes, Linda's inflection reveals tons. Of course, Linda knows she's being recorded. And Linda enjoys every second. Linda is evening some score — probably a woman who has been shit upon her entire career. And she's shitting on someone else because Linda can. Monica -- to this very day -- is still peddling come crap that "she was a private citizen." Bullshit. Monica was a public servant — an in the White House. The whole thing is so Clintonian, so white-person. And so Hillary. I do think Bill really liked Monica. And the two of them probably made each other very happy. Man, I'd really fall for a dude who gifted me Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" too. Wish Monica would re-assess her depiction. The Victorian era was long long ago.

Tripp is the patron saint of Karens worldwide.

She's a narcissist who found a way to be the center of everything and indulge all her pettiness in one fell swoop.

It would have been sort of cool if Bill had left Hillary for Monica after he was out of office.

All three of them would have probably had much happier lives.

(as would Huma.)

Do you think Hillz could have still got the offices she did and almost did if she had divorced Bill?

[quote] It would have been sort of cool if Bill had left Hillary for Monica after he was out of office.

Nah, it would've been cooler if he ended up with Gennifer Flowerd, the one he really loved (&, who, btw, he admitted - for the first time - to having an affair with in the same deposition in which he denied any sexual relationship with Monica ... so much for lying to protect his family). At 38:34, Gennifer stole my heart with her reaction to Stuttering John's '92 press conference question about whether she was planning on sleeping with any other presidential candidates.

POTUS is allowed all the pussy he can eat. Bush. Sr. had a long term mistress who served as his assistant and even attended functions with Babs the punisher also in attendance. Allowing puke stains to impeach Clinton set us up for the disruptions we experienced in 2000 and 2016.

Because she's a patriot, she's a New England Patriot...she's their new starting outside linebacker

R16 He's fat now

R47 yeah, she seems really fun. Love how she let that one roll right off her back.

[quote] Allowing puke stains to impeach Clinton set us up for the disruptions we experienced in 2000 and 2016.

No, letting him get away with it did.

[quote] It would have been sort of cool if Bill had left Hillary for Monica after he was out of office.

They can never divorce.

[quote]Rachel Maddow calls H.W. "Poppy" Bush.

And why do you suppose that is?

It's because that was his nickname.

What if Tripp hadn't acted and Looninsky had done something to the President (knife, gun, etc.)? I wouldn't want that on my conscience.

Letting him get away with what. Clinton was impeached for a moral failing puke stains deliberately ignored in Bush .

His offenses pale in comparisons to Nixon & Trump, R56, but if you think Clinton was impeached for having sex outside marriage, you must be quite the fangurl. You ignore that he was also disbarred & that, too, wasn’t because of a mere “moral failing.”

The thing was that Clinton (unlike Bush) knew going in to office that his womanizing was known and was something the other side could use against him. It shows how compulsive he was about it when he knew how much he had to lose by continuing it.

R58, voted for 45, at least thrice. By the way, where were you on January 6th ?

Monica was a crazy psycho girlfriend, but definitely too young to handle the aftermath of the situation.

M was a groupie who kept a stained dress as a trophy of one of their trysts.

Bush sen affair with Jennifer Fitzgerald was well known before he became president.

Not true, R62.

[R57] name the offences trump did, or are u just parroting what you heard on propaganda tv.

R20, exactly. Having worked for the government, I’ve seen that exact same sort of reassignment often. In fact, we had one in our office. She caused lots of trouble, and then got reassigned to our office with a raise.

She started the same sort of trouble again—just a pain in the ass about everything. She would be constantly making complaints to the union about bullshit: she would twist every moment into something personally against her.

But this time she had a boss who could go toe-to-toe against her challengers. Unfortunately the boss had to move to enforcing every stupid official rule for everyone because of this woman.

Where was your self-respect?

What did she do, OP?

Oooooh but she did… but she did… but she did 🎵

Spy magazine covered the Jennifer Fitzgerald thing but the press, generally, did not.

So Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton all cheated on their wives. Jimmy Carter had "lust in his heart" (what an odd thing to say. What does that even mean?) But I guess he never acted on it.

What about Bush Jr. and Obama? Faithful you think?

Trump we don't have to ask about.

I'll get called Boris for saying this but Biden must have had some sort of reputation. There's an interview Barney Frank did with Larry King. He says Biden should learn to keep his hands to himself. (this was during the Trump years when Biden was out of office. Must be something there if Frank was willing to say it so openly. What would he have to gain from that?)

Every CEO cheats. "President" is just another job, not God.

[quote] Every CEO cheats. "President" is just another job, not God.

Teddy White, who covered every presidential campaign for about 30 years, through 1980, wrote about the four candidates he would swear never cheated on their wives. The only two I can clearly remember were Harry Truman & Jimmy Carter.

[Quote]So Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton all cheated on their wives

Reagan cheated? I've never heard of that.

Actually, this might be a good thread topic

As I recall, the other two presidential candidates White named were never presidents. They may have been Sargent Shriver and Hubert Humphrey, but I’m not certain about that.

Some of my memory is being refreshed. John Glenn was one of the other two. Whether the other one was HHH or Shriver, I can’t be sure, but I’m now leaning in the direction that, of the two, it would’ve been Shriver.

Supposedly Reagan cheated back when he was governor.

Yes Reagan was with another woman the night Nancy gave birth to Patti Davis.

And this isn't left wing rumors.

I read it in the Bill O'Reilly book "Killing Reagan" (it's all about the assassination attempt. I was interested because of Jodie Foster/John Hinckley.)

O'Reilly said he got a lot of flack from conservative friend for including that info.

Monica didn’t care about Chelsea.

Bill and Hillary barely cared about Chelsea, good thing she was a self raising flower like Saffy!

Don't worry about Chelsea, she turned out fine. She's never had to really work for a living and she lives like a Duchess in Manhattan.

Is it apropos that she is dead and all the rest are alive? Karma

I find it odd how masculine Linda looked, and very funny yet sad when SNL hired a man to play her. It was like the biggest insult, to make fun of her looks by comparing her to a fat man in drag. No matter what side she was on, the public would ridicule her for that. It was a reminder to women everywhere that their looks were all that mattered and the easiest way to attack them. Surreal because now the biggest "hate crime" is for anyone to tell a trans woman that they are a man or that they don't look like a woman. Yet it's fine to attack a woman by getting a man to parody her, even though trans are parodying women all the time.

A BOOK DEAL!

[quote] Don't worry about Chelsea, she turned out fine. She's never had to really work for a living and she lives like a Duchess in Manhattan.

Except all those years of college and grad school leading up to a PhD

Which she's never really used r84. She's a Manhattan Princess who doesn't do a hell of a lot.

r82 Linda Tripp was ripe for parody. She was an extremely ugly woman, unusually so.

[quote] Which she's never really used [R84]. She's a Manhattan Princess who doesn't do a hell of a lot.

Chelsea's the head of an international, multi-million dollar public-health focused foundations--so yes she's used it and works alot

Bless your heart r87. You really have no idea how those kinds of things work, do you?

She was ugly inside and out. That's why it was OK to ridicule her.

R88, the work of the Clinton Foundation is renown all over the world. The CEO isn’t having champagne and caviar while all the minions are working for her

R90 so is the mafia.

I really want a tTV biopic call The Fall of Linda Tripp.

She blew the whistle for the same reason the women came out about Cosby. Clinton has a history of sexually abusing women that goes back to his first term as the governor of Arkansas.

Monica was no victim. What Clinton did was totally inappropriate and sleazy, but Monica was no victim.

as did dump but that didn't stop you from voting for him.

r95 let the adults talk

[Quote] She blew the whistle for the same reason the women came out about Cosby. Clinton has a history of sexually abusing women that goes back to his first term as the governor of Arkansas.

He didn’t abuse Monica. She was an adult and a willing participant

"Yes Reagan was with another woman the night Nancy gave birth to Patti Davis."

A man has needs...

Linda should’ve gone on some show and played John Goodman, stuffed with eight pillows to replicate that gigantic gut he had back then.

R98 Was it Jane Wyman?

I doubt it r100.

He had been there and done that.

R94/97, Monica was 22 to Clinton’s 49 when they met in the workplace. And he was the most powerful person in the world. When you take the political partisanship out of the equation you’re really hard pressed to make the argument that Monica wasn’t somewhat at least the victim.

Monica pursued Bill. She knew exactly what she was doing. And he was insane to reciprocate.

Mons kept the dress!!!

She was young, impressionable, smart, but definitely not innocent.

[quote] Monica was 22 to Clinton’s 49 when they met in the workplace. And he was the most powerful person in the world. When you take the political partisanship out of the equation you’re really hard pressed to make the argument that Monica wasn’t somewhat at least the victim.

A victim of what exactly? She's the one who stately plainly she was going to washington with kneepads on.

Does that mean every young person who hooks up with a powerful older person is a victim?

R106. we've been told for years that this disparity in age & power made the younger person per se the "victim."

We've been told a lot of things.

I guess it all depends then on whose ox is being gored.

monica was no victim in the affair, but she was a media casualty for the clintons.

A. Groupie. Who had trysts with the most POWERFUL MAN IN THE FREE WORLD and could not keep it to herself.

R94 / R97

I'm surprised that any gay man on here is falling for that victim shit.

None of this excuses Clinton's conduct, but I agree with you, Monica was no victim.

When a younger woman blows an older man for money or a job or whatever, she is a "victim." That mean man "abused" her. He is so toxic and misogynist.

When a younger man blows an older man for money or a job or whatever, he is just a stupid fag, or worse he's a criminal (prostitute).

Folks need to stop falling for the mainstream mantra of glorifying pussy over dick.