WASHINGTON - Monica Lewinsky dips her head, ebony hair falling over her face. Vernon Jordan once teased her about being in love with the President, she recalls.
A smile lifts her glossed lips. "I probably blushed or giggled or something."
For the first time since the United States and world learned her name, memorised her face and scrutinised her voice on those phone tapes by Linda Tripp, the entire Monica Samille Lewinsky made her videotape debut - with a youthful, wide-eyed earnestness - from the Senate floor.
House prosecutor James Rogan, aiming to showcase 25-year-old Lewinsky as "a young woman very much like a family member or friend we might know," opened the witness phase of President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial at the weekend with a clip of her swearing to tell the truth.
Raised in oath, her shortfingered hand looked like that of a child and seemed to emphasise her youth. Rogan, a California Republican, called the former White House intern's testimony "an image that the President did not want America to see."
He and other House trial managers aired snippets of Lewinsky's deposition last Monday to stitch together their case that Clinton should be removed from office for perjury and obstruction of justice.
From four televisions - normally banned in the hallowed Senate chamber - senators and a phalanx of White House lawyers watched Lewinsky testify with crisp nods and a rehearsed brevity about the coverup of her sexual relationship with Clinton.
Many responses were a simple "Correct."
Did she know what Clinton meant when, in a 2 am phone call after the Paula Jones case began to close in on them, he talked of cover stories?
"Yes ... because it was part of the pattern of the relationship."
A small microphone clipped to her tidy black jacket, Lewinsky telegraphed the focus and composure of a TV news anchor - a vivid contrast to her shrieking sobs so often heard on the Tripp tapes, and to the otherworldly impassiveness she has shown to the stalking TV cameras this past year.
Neither siren nor victim, Lewinsky appeared in muted makeup with pearls at her throat and her dark hair primly framing her face.
The setting, a drab grey screen identical to the backdrop used for video depositions by Jordan and White House adviser Sydney Blumenthal, suggested nothing of the lavish Mayflower Hotel presidential suite where Lewinsky had been questioned.
Only once, near the start, was she seen taking a small, steadying breath. About 21/2 hours into it, as she waited for another question, her naturally downturned mouth and round eyes had the look of an alarmed child trying not to cry.
The House prosecutors and White House lawyers are now preparing for closing arguments tomorrow, after which senators will begin final deliberations on the perjury and obstruction of justice charges.
With the Senate clearly lacking the 67 votes needed to convict Clinton and remove him from office, Democrats have been preparing a harshly worded censure motion that would condemn the President's actions.
Said Utah Republican Robert Bennet: "We will make our mark with future historians if we can send to them the message that a very large majority of the members of the United States Senate are in one way or another appalled at this
President's behaviour and would like the opportunity to say so."
Pictured: Monica Lewinsky smiles for the camera.
Monica in the flesh reveals an earnest girl-next-door
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.