Bill Clinton: ” I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.”
Alexandra Polier: “I have never had a relationship with Senator Kerry, and the rumors in the press are completely false.”
What precisely has Ms. Polier denied here?
In Clinton’s mind (he claims), the sex he had with Ms. Lewinsky did not qualify, technically, as “sexual relations.” As I read this “denial,” Ms. Polier has denied ever having had “a relationship” with Sen. Kerry, but she has not denied every having had sex (of Clintonian or other kinds) with him.
I would have thought, or at least hoped, that by now we would have had enough of parsing the grammar of sex.
Does it matter? Well, no, not for all those who believe that neither adultery nor lying about it speak to a person’s qualifications for high office, and no one should underestimate their numbers or their influence. As a case in point, Glenn Frankel, the Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize winning London Bureau chief, told the BBC that “nobody would be too shocked if Kerry lied about an affair. Even if someone came to us with photographs we still wouldn’t run it.”
Since some, perhaps many, voters appear to believe that lying about adultery is pretty serious business in a potential president, however, it may matter to those Democrats whose affection for Sen. Kerry is limited to his “electability.”
UPDATE
The New York Times has just been heard from on this matter, and I think it completely mischaracterized Polier’s statement. Here is its lead paragraph:
The woman at the center of unsubstantiated rumors that Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts had an extramarital affair released a statement on Monday in which she denied any romantic involvement with him.
On the contrary, all she denied was ever having had “a relationship” with Kerry. After Clinton’s pioneering work in the semantics of sex, one need not be overly cynical to notice that Ms. Polier did not deny ever having had sexual encounters with Kerry.
UPDATE UPDATE
It appears that Glenn Frankel (see quote above) has had his wrist slapped, since the BBC site where he is quoted as saying that the Washington Post would not deign to mention Kerry’s lying about an adulterous relationship “even if someone came to us with photographs” proving it has now removed that language.
And today in the Post Howard Kurtz reports Kerry’s Clintonian-sounding formulation on the Don Imus show— “Well, there is nothing to report. So there is nothing to talk about…” — and Polier’s Clintonian-sounding denial of “a relationship” in a straightforward manner, implying that’s the end of it.
Maybe it will be.
It sure did strike me as “Clintonesque” diction. Similarly with the diction when Kerry was on the Imus show last week: what’s worse, Imus was as Clintonesque about the subject as Kerry was; in fact, the circumspect and oblique fashion in which he queried Kerry about the Drudge report made Kerry’s circumspect and oblique reply all the easier. I actually wondered at the time if they had practiced that verbal ballet beforehand.
John, speculating, I’d have to agree with your instincts here, however, that’d just be speculating.
A good reporter should ask the question have you “had sex” with Kerry, pointing out your diction problem if Polier says she’s already answered that question. It may be too late though, and the media may be uninterested. I wish I was still in the business and had that kind of access.