Forgive me if I recall briefly my own “meeting” several years ago with Harry Thomason, the Hollywood persona surgeon who was center stage again this week in the ongoing drama of the many faces of William Jefferson Clinton.
It was September of 1992, and I awoke one morning to find that the white-bearded Thomason and his irrepressible wife, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, had effectively snatched my persona when I had taken one eye off Hollywood for a moment. They had melded my life as a foreign correspondent into one of their silly sitcoms.
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In the show called “Hearts Afire,” the heroine, a pioneer foreign correspondent, was played by pretty Markie Post (that part was OK). Among a remarkable number of other “coincidences,” the girl was called “Georgie Anne” (such a common name!).
The saga went on for months, and at one point Harry even broke down and told The Washington Times, “I’m sure that maybe, subconsciously, we had (modeled the character on her). I think all writers base characters on real people.
“Since all this has come up,” he went on, “I’ve been noticing her byline, and we think she’s a terrific writer.” Aw shucks, Harry.
But the sweet talk was dropped when his lawyers threatened to retaliate against me, destroy me, should I dare to sue them. Indeed, this is the way this couple goes about wantonly creating and re-creating other people’s worlds, according to how they want the world to seem to us poor despised mortals.
Let us look at our Harry in his testimony this week before the grand jury investigating his friend Bill in the Monica Lewinsky case. And let us also remember that this is the same Harry who, after his alleged part in the nasty Travelgate scandal in the White House five years ago, has barely dared show his face publicly here in Washington.
He enjoyed the grand jury, he said. The grand jurors were “nice,” the prosecutors “courteous.” Indeed, “It was actually a good morning.”
As it turned out, Harry didn’t have a lot to say about the alleged affair between the president of the United States and the then 21-year-old intern young. Why? Well, because the lawyers in the White House duly advised him that it would be better if he didn’t know what really happened between the two. Yet that did not stop him in the slightest from telling Clinton in January to wholly deny he had sexual relations with Monica. (If that does not scan for you, congratulations.)
You see, Thomason himself revealed in an article in The New Yorker in July that he had also been the stage manager of Clinton’s angry denial in the White House last Jan. 26, when the president stood–his jaw clenched, his manner defiant, one finger raised in anger–and said, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie–not a single time, never. These allegations are false.”
But no student is perfect. Thomason had, according to the magazine, coached his friend Bill on how to stick his jaw out so effectively in defiance when he made this denial, but he apparently winced when he heard Clinton say “that woman.” That was a mistake. That doesn’t sound nice to some folks who just don’t understand all that is at stake here.
Indeed, at another meeting in the White House, during the weeks that Thomason lived there this winter, trying to get the president’s image in shape again, Harry was overheard by colleagues of mine to say dourly, “I don’t think it’s going to work this time.”
So, that’s the question: Is it working again this time? Is this newest attempt by the Clintons’ great image-maker going to convince the American people once again that when it comes to Bill Clinton, something they know in their hearts to be true is not true, and something they see with their eyes is not what they see? Thomason, after all, has been Bill Clinton’s psychological makeup artist ever since he created the Disney World inauguration in 1993 and “The Man From Hope.” He still is. And now the great illusionist behind the great manipulator is creating what could well be, one way or another, the final act for everybody.
Consider what Harry Thomason said this week before the grand jury.
“What did the president tell you about this relationship? Harry was asked.
Harry hesitated a moment, then answered: “I’ve always believed the president is telling the truth.”
What did Clinton tell Harry about his relationship?
“Nothing,” Harry said.
So it is that Bill Clinton’s unique Washington world lurches from knowing to not knowing, from truth to untruth, from reality to unreality, from belief to lunacy.
You’ve got to give Harry credit. This week, once again, we met the Great Impresario behind the Great Impersonator in the Great American Farce.