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| Elizabeth ward gracen one night stand bill clinton |
Onetime presidential guru Dick Morris has noticed something reviewers had missed in Michael Isikoff’s new book, “Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter’s Story.” It’s this tidbit from page 256 about Clinton’s one-night stand with former Miss America Elizabeth Ward Gracen: “According to Gracen’s later account, Clinton flirted with her — then invited her to the apartment of one of his friends at the Quawpaw Towers.
They had sex that night. It was rough sex. Clinton got so carried away that he bit her lip, Gracen later told friends. But it was consensual.”
Appearing Tuesday night on Fox News Channel’s Hannity & Colmes, Morris noted, “There’s a very important revelation in [Isikoff’s] book that hasn’t received a lot of attention.”
Morris paraphrased the passage quoted above and then pointed out that Clinton bit Gracen’s lip, “… just as he’d bit Juanita Broaddrick’s lip, according to Juanita Broaddrick. And [Gracen’s] statement was made before Juanita Broaddrick spoke.”
…Morris added, “Now if there was a rape trial of Bill Clinton right now and this woman, Gracen, was called as a witness and confirmed the M.O., that would be a) admissible and b) very decisive.”
What about Gracen’s claim, as Isikoff reports, that her Clinton sex was consensual?
The author sources his lip-biting account to Gracen’s friends, at least one of whom has weighed in on the rape question. Gracen confidante Judy Stokes was interviewed by Paula Jones investigator Rick Lambert in December 1997.
Snippets from Stokes’ Jones case deposition have appeared in the press, including an account of a tearful Gracen coming to Stokes after her Clinton encounter, saying the sex was “something she did not want to have happen.”
Last month, Lambert elaborated on Stokes’ version for NewsMax.com’s Carl Limbacher:
“I talked to Judy Stokes for an hour and a half,” said Lambert. “At first she was reluctant to burn her bridges with Liz. But I finally asked, ‘Do you believe Clinton raped her?’ She said, ‘Absolutely. He forced her to have sex. What do you call that?’” Lambert concluded, “Stokes was totally convinced it was rape.” (See Archives: “The Jane Doe Case Files - Part 1″)
In April 1998, after months of eluding subpoenas from Jones lawyers, Gracen finally came out of the closet to the New York Daily News. Yes, she said, she and Clinton did have sex — after denying it for the previous six years. But it was consensual, Gracen insisted.
Rather than deny the charge, White House spinmeisters were mum — almost as if they were relieved by this version of Gracen’s story.
Most reporters, including Isikoff, prefer to accept Gracen’s public rape denial over what friends say she told them back in 1982. That’s exactly what happened when news of Juanita Broaddrick’s rape charge first hit the press.
Gracen’s April 1, 1998, rape denial came just three days after NBC’s Lisa Myers first reported that Juanita Broaddrick had told four friends in Arkansas that Clinton had raped her. Broaddrick herself had denied the assault in an affidavit filed with Paula Jones’ lawyers nearly three months earlier.
With the exception of NBC’s Myers, no one in the major media thought this issue was worth pursuing. Most reporters still don’t.
Perhaps that’s why we haven’t heard more from Elizabeth Ward Gracen.
– Newsmax, April 17, 1999
…Words fail. Things fall apart. The president’s apologists made the expected denials, but no one believed them, and even Geraldo Rivera had the grace to look embarrassed. Juanita Broaddrick had caused a problem. The New York Times, for one, tried to ignore it, although later it tried to make amends. It said in an editorial that Bill Clinton in his past confessions had presented himself as a “recreational philanderer,” but now it seemed he might be “a serial masher or worse.” The wording was close to whimsical — masher had a quaint ring to it — but you could excuse the Times for that. Some things are almost too painful to talk about, and the Times, and all the rest of the press, was having a problem. How do you deal with the idea of having a rapist in the White House? Or must you deal with it at all?
…None of this is promising. It should be obvious by now that Bill Clinton…will, as always, do anything to save himself when he gets in trouble. On the day the Broaddrick story broke in the Journal, the most interesting, and appalling, item on the evening news broadcast was a report by David Martin, the CBS Pentagon correspondent. The White House, he said, wanted to bomb Serbia, even though our NATO allies opposed it. It is to think the unthinkable that the proposed bombing had anything to do with diverting attention from Juanita Broaddrick, of course. The thought is too overwhelming. But it is also unthinkable that we have a rapist in the White House. Who could possibly believe that, either?
– John Corry, American Spectator, April 1999
Imagine what it must be like to be one of Bill Clinton’s victims, condemned for the rest of your life to see him celebrated by celebrities and others. You never get away from him. And I thought these artists were supposed to be sensitive. Seems a bit callous to me. It should also cause us some pause the next time a Clinton-loving celebrity promotes a human rights cause. They certainly couldn’t care less about the human rights of the man’s victims, sexual or otherwise. Then again, how much can one expect from a world in which Ron Brown’s son plays golf with the man who may have ordered his father’s death? And in which Newsmax is now best friends with Clinton?
And if one thinks that all the good done by the Clinton Foundation and Global Initiative make up for his crimes and transgressions, one would think wrong. The clinical term in psychology for Clinton’s post-presidential identity as charity superstar is ‘overcompensation.’ In spiritual terms, he is quite deliberately attempting to build afterlife capital. He is so used to fooling everyone on earth, he believes he can also fool God.
Elizabeth Ward Gracen has always insisted that the rough one-night-stand — in which Clinton repeated the lip-biting tactic used to preclude the prey from pulling away — was consensual. But of course she wants to live (and of course she knew what kind of picture would inevitably be painted of her, given that she put herself in the position of being alone in an apartment with him). So about the mutual consent, one wonders whether the lady doth protest too much. Especially since the admission of the affair had started out as a six-year denial. Below is a 1999 NY Post article on the matter. Note that, once again, Clinton called in a favor to Croatia:
Elizabeth Gracen: I was a victim of Clinton’s reign of terror (NY Post, Sept. 27, 1998)
by Steve Dunleavy
…In the fall of 1983, when Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas, he invited Elizabeth to a place called Quapaw Tower in Little Rock.
“I believe the apartment was owned by one of his friends,” she told me in her trailer in Toronto.
She had earlier used the word “rendezvous,” but quickly corrected herself.
“To use the word rendezvous would give the impression it was romantic, but it was far from romantic,” she said.
Rumor mills suggested Bubba forced himself on her.
“No, not true. It was consensual. I was married at the time, and so was he. No, I am not proud of it.”
How did it all start?
“One of my friends, a girlfriend, was a baby sitter for the Clintons, and she introduced me to him back in 1979. And that was about it. I was Miss Arkansas at the time.
“Then in Hot Springs, I did a public-service announcement as Miss America. He was there.
“He offered me a lift back in his limo, and he flirted with me.”
At that stage in the interview, tears well in her eyes, and she says to her boyfriend, an investment banker: “I really should not be saying these things.”
We talk again. Composed, polite but not feeling too good, she continues.
“We did have that night in that apartment. Maybe we were there for two hours. It is not something I am proud of.”
What happened next, come 1992, was vintage Clinton.
“Everybody in Arkansas, just about everybody - and I was brought up in Russellville, Ark. - knew about Gennifer Flowers and other women. I mean it really was common knowledge.”
But whispers got out. Elizabeth had been with him for one night. The machine got going. Telephone calls, some friendly, some not, some downright threatening.
“In 1992, I came out and denied that night together with Clinton,” she said.
“I believe if I came out and admitted it, he would never have been president. And nobody wants that sort of responsibility. [Speak for yourself, girlfriend.]
…
“I learned later that movie director Harry Thomason [a Clinton friend] and White House big-wig Mickey Kantor sat down with my agent, Miles Levy, and worked out some kind of a deal that would have me deny anything to do with Bill Clinton.”
Whatever was said that day in a deli in Los Angeles between Thomason, Kantor and agent Levy, things started looking up for a pretty girl who was struggling with commercials here and there.
“I suddenly got a very good acting job, a mini-series in Croatia, of all places,” the 37-year-old said with a slight smile.
“Then I got another good, long-lasting role in Brazil. I thought, well at last they have recognized me. I think I was a little naive.
“I knew nothing about my agent talking to Clinton’s friends, but this year, late last year, I started getting calls that made things fall into place.
“Some friendly calls telling me to get out of town to dodge a subpoena from [independent counsel] Kenneth Starr. Some nasty calls saying my character was about to be assassinated…I hired lawyer Bruce Cutler and investigators.
“Yes, I was physically scared. We are talking about the presidency of the country here, and between the friendly calls on one hand telling me to get out of town for my own good and then talking about smear tactics on the other, I got scared. Yes, physically scared.
“There were always veiled threats. Always. I did nothing wrong except one stupid night a long time ago. But now this last year has become very frightening.”
Today, “Raven” debuts in New York, where Elizabeth plays Amanda, a sword-wielding immortal avenger.
“I wanted Cutler to play a cameo role where he defends me, but I would like Clinton to play a cameo role.
“Then in the series, I could cut his head off with my sword,” she added with a laugh.
…
“Monica was taken in by the president. Same charm, same cuddly little boy. Not true. How can any world leader believe him? Really.
“Every week on the show I battle evil. But all those evil people have a charming side. Have I made my point?”
Tragically, Elizabeth, you have.
Another Post article from the era: “Actress Who Claimed Sex with Bill Says IRS is Hounding Her” (Jan. 13, 1999)
…Elizabeth Ward Gracen, star of the “Highlander” TV series, has been deluged with dozens of letters from the tax man - claiming she didn’t file returns and threatening to seize her wages and property.
…
The threat of an IRS probe came from the same anonymous caller who once warned Gracen she was about to get a subpoena and should get out of town, Vento said.
…
The first call came around Christmas 1997, when Gracen was at her parents’ home in Little Rock, Ark., he said.
At the time, Jones’ lawyers were trying to get Gracen to testify about her relationship with Clinton for the sex-harassment suit.
…
Gracen wouldn’t have given the call a second thought - except that the next day, after she’d left on a trip to Las Vegas, the subpoena was served in Little Rock.
Over the next few months, Gracen - who had publicly denied an affair with Clinton in 1992 - was on the road, dodging the process-servers.
In the spring, she recanted her six-year-old denial and admitted she and Clinton had once had sex. By summer, she was in Canada, filming her new show, “Highlander: The Raven.”
In an interview with the Toronto Star about her show, she also talked about how her friends and family were intimidated and how she feared for her safety after the Clinton connection surfaced.
…
Within weeks, Gracen got another phone call at an unlisted number in Canada, and she recognized the voice from the call warning her about the subpoena eight months before, Vento said.
“They say, ‘You should really keep your mouth shut about Bill Clinton and go on with your life. You could be discredited. You could have an IRS investigation,’” the lawyer recounted.
A few weeks later, the letters from the IRS started coming in, sent to her parents’ house, which is not listed on her tax filings, Vento said.
