The dark and stormy night is one of those classic Victorian opening lines to the next great melodramatic novel. It’s become a caricature and a joke – appropriately, based on its overly dramatic style.
What else recently has become much the same – a caricature and a joke due to constant melodrama? How about the news media?
Stormy Daniels, who, I am quite certain, has enjoyed many dark and stormy nights, is an American porn actress. She is quite celebrated in her world, having won such awards as “Contract Babe of the Year”; “Favorite Breasts,” which she won three times; and “Crossover Star of the Year.”
Perhaps her most noteworthy recognition is a nomination for Best Safe Sex Scene in a movie. I’m not sure if she ever sat on Harvey Weinstein’s casting couch or is part of the #MeToo movement.
She is not a Russian hooker, as she was born in Baton Rouge. She said of her childhood that she “came from an average, lower-income household[.] … [T]here were days without electricity.”
Stormy’s real name is Stephanie Clifford. And despite not having ties to Russia or Putin, she is the latest shiny object being breathlessly chased by the media. No Russian collusion, but instead an alleged affair with Donald Trump.
She is not a young White House intern, but instead a porn actress who claims to have had an affair with then-citizen Donald Trump back in 2006. Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid Stormy $130,000 in October 2016, just a few weeks before the election.
There is no dispute that Stormy was paid. Was it to buy her silence? Or to stifle another October surprise on the heels of the Billy Bush Access Hollywood tape? In lawsuits, settlements are paid to limit future costs and exposure, without any admission of guilt. Sometimes it’s just the most cost-effective path to take.
President Trump has denied the affair, as has Stormy Daniels. She wrote a letter dated January 10, 2018 denying an affair with Trump, “[s]tating with complete clarity that this is absolutely false.” She wrote, “He was gracious, professional and a complete gentleman to me and EVERYONE in my presence.” She concluded, “[T]he fact of the matter is these stories are not true.”