Mark Steyn: "That Dress, Twenty Years On"

He wrote this 20 years ago.  An example of why he is the wittiest writer in Enclish today.

August 22nd 2018

She is older now, her once dazzling looks undeniably faded, her famous beauty worn and creased.

"Sorry about that," she says. "I was supposed to get ironed yesterday."

Yes, it's "that dress" — the dress that, 20 years ago this month, held the fate of a presidency in her lap. It has been two decades since the day she gave her dramatic testimony to the grand jury and then promptly disappeared into the federal witness protection program. Even as she recalls her brief moment in the spotlight, she looks drawn. But that's because, following extensive reconstructive surgery, she's been living quietly as a pair of curtains in Idaho.

"What do you think?" she says, saucily brushing her hem against the sill as her pleats ripple across the mullions. "It cost less than Paula Jones' nose job."

To be honest, I was lucky to get the interview. The dress was supposed to be doing the BBC — the full sob-sister treatment, Martin Bashir, the works—but, to protect her identity, they wanted to do that undercover secret-location protect-your-identity trick with the camera that makes part of the screen go all fuzzy and blurry.

"Are you crazy?" she yelled at them. "It'll look like I've still got the stain."