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Linda Tripp: Whining Backstabber

"I'm just like you. I'm an average American, I'm a suburban mom . . . I never, ever, asked to be placed in this position."
--Linda Tripp, July 29, 1998

Okay, that's about enough. I read that this morning in Pointcast's news summary and had to be physically restrained from tossing the monitor across the room.

A quick update for anyone who's been under a rock politically. Monica "Kneepads" Lewinsky probably had some sort of as-of-yet undefined sex with our fearless leader, Bill "Were those my pants?" Clinton. She definitely talked with her friend Linda "Who, me?" Tripp about what was going on. We know this much, since Tripp taped over 20 hours of conversation with Lewinsky.

Linda Tripp then gave the tapes to a literary agent named Lucianne "Everything I know I learned from Dick" Goldberg, who handed them over to the FBI. Interesting point -- Lucianne Goldberg worked for Richard Nixon, spying on the McGovern campaign in 1972. Dirty tricks, code names, secret payments, whole nine yards. Anyway, Goldberg told Tripp to start taping her conversations with Lewinsky so she'd have "protection." When "they" started trying to destroy her credibility.

Why is Tripp talking with Goldberg? Well, it's a free country, people can talk to whoever they want. Oh! And Tripp was trying to get a $500,000 book deal going about improprieties in the Clinton White House. Interesting point #2 -- Goldberg describes herself as a "Clinton basher".

But I'm interested in Linda Tripp. And her claim that she "never asked for this." Just so I understand this, taping conversations with someone who has no idea you're taping the conversations (which is illegal in Maryland, where Linda Tripp lives), then turning the tapes over to someone you're trying to score a sweet book deal with, who you know is trying to dig up any dirt on the President she can, isn't asking to get involved in an investigation of the President's private life? Where could you possibly draw that conclusion from?!

Just as the Clinton administration's complete denial of everything rings false, so do the mealy-mouthed whinings of Linda Tripp that she has no idea how she got involved in this. Again, just so I'm clear on this. You get advice from an old-school dirty trickster, get a tape recorder and mike for your phone, betray someone's confidence by recording 20+ hours of "private" private conversation, turn it over to someone who wants to get the president in trouble, and it never occurs to you that someone might view this as less-than-reputable behavior on your part? Idiot.

So, just a word of warning to anyone who reads this. If you do start taping private phone conversations with someone who trusts you, and then hand them over to certain people, you might be placed in a position where you have to admit that, yes, you taped conversations with someone who trusted you. Is that so hard to figure out?