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SCMP Reporter

MONICA Lewinsky will inevitably be a name that ends up in America's history books, but for now it's not clear that history wants her that much.

 The infamous blue Gap dress, which became the key piece of forensic evidence proving President Bill Clinton's sexual antics in the Oval Office, would seem to be a prime candidate for a future museum piece.

 Many presidential artefacts are already on display, including past First Ladies' dresses.

 The former White House intern this week said in an interview with Britain's Channel 4 that she planned to burn the dress.

 And the Museum of American History, part of Washington's Smithsonian Institution, said it would not want the DNA-tainted garment.

 'I don't think you can compare an item of popular culture with one of historical significance in quite that way,' Lonnie Bunch, the museum's assistant director, told the Washington Post last week.

 'We realise it is important for us to document the impeachment of President Clinton. But we want to do so in the way that gives the public the best understanding of the impeachment.'  Ms Bunch's comments spoke volumes about the country's opinion of Ms Lewinsky.

 Mr Clinton put it more politely yesterday: 'What I hope is that she will be permitted to go on with her life. And I hope it will be a good life.' Ms Lewinsky has recently set up home in Beverly Hills again, abandoning the political fishbowl of Washington for the comparative normality of Los Angeles.

 Not that she will be spending much time there for now - she has arrived in Britain for the start of a three-week publicity tour to sell Monica's Story, the tell-all book designed to pay off her US$2 million (HK$15.4 million) in legal bills and perhaps leave her with a little extra to go shopping.

 Ms Lewinsky's ABC interview garnered the biggest audience ever for a television news show, and sales of the book have initially been red-hot. But the most predictable nature of celebrity is its fragility, and many are predicting that within weeks, Ms Lewinsky will have disappeared from the nation's consciousness.

 There are certainly already signs of an anti-Lewinsky backlash. Media critics have largely been unfriendly and one biting editorial in the Washington Times stated: 'Before her little chat with Barbara Walters there were many who felt some sympathy for her. But after she bared her rather pathetic soul, is there anyone who can look at her with anything other than contempt?'  However, public exhaustion with Ms Lewinsky does not yet mean we can expect to see her face fade from the newspapers.

 Even if she chooses to go into semi-retirement by returning to college to study law or psychology - which is one of her stated goals - Ms Lewinsky is sure to remain at the end of the tabloids' zoom lenses.



Gap dress for the dustbin of history