Monica reminds us that it wasn't her scandal

HLN, which was formerly known as 'Headline News', is a cable TV network spun off CNN by Turner Broadcasting. Today the network broadcasts a mixture of traditional news and real crime stories.

In a recent announcement, HLN said that they would revisit what it called "The Monica Lewinsky Scandal" with a two-hour special program.

Many readers may be too young to know who she is, and those who do may have forgotten all but her name. Let's do a quick review of exactly why Monica Lewinsky became such a public figure, along with a little background as to how she got into such a sensitive position.

In 1995, Lewinsky graduated with a degree in psychology from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. That summer, family friend Walter Kaye, an insurance big wig who was also friends with Hillary Clinton, helped her land an unpaid internship in Washington, D.C. in the office of White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta.

Per Jeff Leen of the Washington Post back in 2008, one of Lewinsky's fellow interns that summer painted her as extroverted, hard-working and ambitious. In the coming months there would be rumors, some started by her own comments, that she had somehow developed an uncommonly close relationship with President Bill Clinton.

By December, Lewinsky had been moved to a paid intern position with the Office of Legislative Affairs. She would later confide in a friend, Linda Tripp, that she had begun an affair with the President a month earlier.

Per a USA Today article in 2008, Lewinsky had her first sexual encounter with Clinton in the private study of the Oval office on November 15, 1995. The two repeated this Oval office tryst under similar circumstances just two days later. 

This was the beginning of a physical relationship that lasted approximately a year and a half. There would be, according to Lewinsky, a total of nine sexual encounters between the two. There was never sexual intercourse, but fellatio and other sex acts were involved.

Described by some on staff as a bit forward, and by others as outright flirtatious, Lewinsky was moved in April 1996 into a position as assistant to the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Kenneth Bacon. The move came because some of her superiors felt that she had grown too close to the President.

Lewinsky also had a reputation as a hard worker who was willing to genuinely put in long hours. She seems to have been an enigma. While exhibiting drive and determination, she also came across as distracted at times, with a fairly obvious crush on the President.

During a February 1997 liaison, Clinton purportedly left stains on Lewinsky's dress during one of their encounters. The revelation that the dark blue dress had been preserved with this "evidence" would later became a part of the public lore involving their relationship. A month later, the two had their final dalliance with one another.

Look at The Rack on Jocelyn Kirsch !

Headline grab your attention? The picture perhaps? Maybe it was the combination? Well, that is exactly the point of this posting.

In a city where murder happens on an almost daily basis, why are the crimes of Jocelyn Kirsch worth all the attention that they have received?

Sure it's not right to steal the credit card information of friends and use same to take a vacation and spend on your own vanities and desires. It's a crime, and if caught you go to prison.

But the funny thing is that this type of non-violent crime happens all the time. The not funny aspect is that credit card fraud, identity theft, selling 'hot' or 'knock-off' goods, and many other methods of fraud are used all the time by terrorists and organized crime organizations to further their nefarious purposes.

Often times these are purposes that directly affect our national security, the security of all the citizens of our entire city of Philadelphia. But rarely, if ever, have I seen a detailed expose' on this problem with continual follow-ups relating to these large criminal organizations that keep a spotlight on updates highlighting the individuals and businesses involved.

No, what you see, frankly, is Jocelyn Kirsch's bikini shots. Kirsch is a good looking woman with a nice figure. An attractive woman by most any man's standards. And there are attractive and even sexy photos of her available to the public. There is no other reason that the story of Kirsch and her paramour, Edward Anderton, who in the end defrauded a dozen friends of a little more than $100,000 total, is still so much in the spotlight.

So much worse is happening out here in the world that goes completely uncovered simply because there is no 'sexy' angle for the media to work. Frankly, that is not really true.

The public wants to hear and know the stories behind the everyday criminals and miscreants that wreak havoc on their neighborhood and city. They want the spotlight turned on these individuals, to have their pictures spread across the newspapers, to have the media look into their lives and their backgrounds and their criminal records. But except for the occasional 'worst of the worst' heinous offenders, it just doesn't happen on a regular basis.

Women who are, shall we say, less attractive than most are abducted every day, are the victims of abuse every day, commit crimes of that heinous nature every day. But television programs such as CNN's Headline News staple 'Nancy Grace' choose to constantly go for the 'sex sells' angle. They only take and publicize stories involving attractive women who go missing, attractive women who kill their kids, attractive women who go bad. And if they can get their hands on video or photos of them in bikinis, or tight tops, or bare midriffs, or cavorting at clubs they will show them to us over and over and over again.

Jocelyn Kirsch ripped off some friends and is going to jail for it. But we don't need to keep seeing the same old bikini shots every time the story is told. In fact, we don't need to hear this story ever again. Kirsch is not worth our time, and in fact the publicity likely just feeds that ego that she herself was feeding with her crimes all along.

Here's to hoping that in 3-5 years when she and Anderston are released we won't hear about it at all, and won't see those same old pictures drug out yet again. If you are that hard up to look at Jocelyn Kirsch's boobs, just pull up this story and there they go. But start demanding that our local and national news media get away from this blatant sexuality that they would scream is a sexist position if taken against one of them.

Islamism Series: Honor Killings

Amina and Sara Said (right), killed by their father (left)

Let's get the Islamofascist rants out of the way with right off the bat.

Yes, America is a society where murder has become epidemic in some communities, and domestic homicides are nothing at all peculiar to only the Muslim community.

That much is obvious simply by watching a few weeks of the 'Nancy Grace' program on CNN's Headline News network, were the latest murder of an attractive woman by a husband or boyfriend is the topic of discussion at least 50% of the time.

People kill people for many reasons, and some kill people that they do now, or at least used to love. What the topic of this post discusses is the particular problem of Islamic 'honor killing', which is indeed peculiar to that community.

The newsworthiness to the American public is that the phenomenon is new here, is growing, and is taking the lives of American citizens.

Tomorrow night, Saturday July 25th, at 8pm, Fox News reporter Megyn Kelly will host a special titled "Murder in the Family: Honor Killing in America" in which she will discuss the problem.

It is a horrific story of fathers killing daughters, brothers killing sisters, husbands killing wives, all in order to restore their families' 'honor'. Kelly is an outstanding reporter and host, and this program should prove as eye-opening as it's title implies.