WASHINGTON – If the war and the presidential election aren’t generating enough headlines, Washington finally has the ultimate attention getter: a good, old-fashioned sex scandal.
Thank Jessica Cutler.
Her Internet diary, which graphically recorded what she claims are steamy sexploits with powerful D.C. lawyers and Bush administration honchos, has exploded like a grenade in the nation’s capital.
“They couldn’t run me out of town. If they could I would already be gone,” said Cutler, 24.
Not that they didn’t try.
When staffers in the office of Mike DeWine, the conservative GOP senator from Ohio for whom she worked, were alerted to her “blog” (short for Weblog) – called the “Washingtonienne” – she was unceremoniously fired from her $25,000 job sorting mail.
But don’t worry about her finances. She’s entertaining offers to buy the rights to her tale – and she’s also learning about fame, with top TV shows begging her to appear.
The Bush White House is notoriously straight-laced and Washington hasn’t seen a juicy sex scandal since the days of Monica Lewinsky.
“I still don’t get what all of this is about. If I was reading my own blog, I would feel my life was much more interesting,” said Cutler yesterday.
She said her blog began earlier this spring when she sought to keep friends updated on her busy social life. These included descriptions of rich older men giving her money for sexual favors.
“None of these people were geriatric or unattractive. And the money was just a gift,” said Cutler, who claims a powerful married man with a senior job in the Bush administration frequently gave her $400 after sex at a hotel.
She also says she had sex with an older, divorced lawyer from Georgetown whom she met while working as an intern in the office of Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.). The lawyer also gave her money, she said.
She hasn’t identified the men she says participated in the fun and games – or offered any proof that she wasn’t writing fiction.
But her last postings were awaited as eagerly as the latest political polls.
Her escapades burst into the spotlight after online columnist Wonkette linked her column to the blog, which has now been pulled down.