This is the waves. This is the waves. This is the waves. This is the waves. This is the waves.

Welcome to the waves. Slates podcast about gender, feminism, and really just never being able to

stop talking about the 90s. Every episode you get a new pair of women to talk about the thing.

We can't get off our minds and today you've got me, Shayna Roth, podcast producer at Slate,

including for the waves. And you've got me, Alicia Montgomery, executive producer of Slate

podcasts. Now, when I found out that Ryan Murphy, he of the gaudy campy, salacious American horror

story, but also the poignant people versus OJ Simpson was going to make a series on the Clinton

impeachment. I think my first thought was, ooh, that's juicy. Because for better or worse,

the story of a White House intern, turned presidential mistress, turned media pariah is probably one

that our nation has never been able to let go. I know I've really never been able to let this go.

This is something that it will come up either because a book came out or a podcast or something,

and I will just have to hear the same story over and over again. And it's one of those things where

if you love gossip and listening in on other people's drama, this is a story that you always just

want more of. So I guess it makes sense that we're getting yet another retelling of the Clinton

Lewinsky scandal. Though personally, I think that Slate's own season two of slow burn really said

all that needed to be said on the story. But while American crime story impeachment claims to be a

sort of feminist retelling of the story, a way to sort of take back the Monica Lewinsky narrative.

I mean, she did, after all, get input in I think pretty much every scene. I was left feeling

underwhelmed and left with a lot more questions than answers about what the show was trying to say,

and what it was trying to add to this tale that has been uttered a zillion times. Alicia,

why did you want to talk about this? I wanted to talk about it because for me and for a lot of

women in Washington and women journalists, this was both personal and business. I was at the very

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