Free THAT WAS THE MILLENIUM THAT WAS by John Scalzi Page A

a woman young enough to be his daughter? Because he could , you silly). Monica was either too young or idealistic to clue into that; she really thought Clinton gave a damn about her thoughts on education.
    (The other option is that Monica was simply too dumb to figure out, but I reject that. I don't think she's dumb; the White House, whatever other flaws it has, doesn't hire chimps as interns. There have to have been some brains in the package, just not ones that were working very clearly. In any event, in the realpolitik grand scheme of things, who was showing fewer brains: The woman who had sex with the most powerful man in the world, or the man who had sex with an intern?)
    None of Monica's flaws should have been enough to launch her into the spotlight. Certainly there are millions of needy folks with bad friends who live in terminal obscurity, and in retrospect Monica would probably have been happy to be one. But as they say, location is everything. Had Monica stayed in Los Angeles and become the pet of a movie executive, no one would have cared; she might have got a production deal out of it. Had Monica been in New York, her relationship might have been treated in an equally blasé style; it might even be considered a trophy wife tryout. 
    But it happened in Washington, with a President that the opposing party hated with a passion that not only bordered on irrational, but in fact colonized that emotion and sent out armed emissaries. Gone were the days when President Harding could boink his mistress in a closet, or FDR could fool around with a mistress, with only Fala standing guard against an untimely Eleanor appearance. The Republicans were gunning for bear, and if that meant punting Monica into the limelight, it was a small price to pay to get Clinton. She was quite obviously a Democrat, anyway. There was no downside.
    There's no point in rehashing the details of the actual political scandal, since everyone, and especially the Republicans, knows how it went. Focus instead on how Monica handled her newfound and unwanted fame: By shutting up and, as much as possible, keeping to herself. For most of the first year of her fame, no one even knew what her voice sounded like. This is not the modus operandi of a fame monger. Others dined nightly at her expense; that odious first lawyer of hers trotted her out to restaurants like a trained horse, in hopes of gaining entree into the talk-show level of fame. Everyone was relieved when they canned his ass. 
    Monica did eventually cash in, of course, with the book, and the Barbara Walters interviews, and the appearance on Saturday Night Live. But think of all the things she didn't do: The paid interview to the National Enquirer. The Donna Rice-like ads for blue jeans. The nude spread for Penthouse (which offered $2 million for it). The special appearances in B-movies. God forbid, the pop album. Instead she's living a relatively modest life, designing handbags or something, and accepting with reasonable grace that fact that her name has become a synonym for oral sex. 
    The funny thing is that Monica Lewinsky is probably now a pretty interesting person to know; anyone who can go through the wringer as she has and not come out of it certifiably insane has got something going for her. Almost certainly she's ready not to be famous, which is also not something that most people are willing to do after their fifteen minutes are up. I just hope this time she has some better friends. After everything she's been through, that's the least the world can do for her.

Best Use of the Brain of the Millennium.
    Cryptanalysis. Because it's harder than it looks, and it looks damned difficult. Also because, up until the advent of the Web, in which 128-bit algorithms encode your purchase of the most recent Michael Chrichton book or the Pokemon Yellow Gameboy cartridge from prying eyes, the only people who used codes were armies and bankers and spies. Crack an encoded message, and trust me, you were