 
|
|||||||||
              
|
Hidden meanings found in Clintons', Lewinsky's handwriting
Sunday, September 27, 1998 By Julia Silverman, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Always knew Monica Lewinsky was a vulnerable vixen?
Give yourself a pat on the back.
Did you figure that Bill Clinton was a smart yet self-absorbed scoundrel with a sexual libido the size of Saskatchewan?
Bingo.
Long suspected that Hillary Clinton was a cool cucumber of a conundrum?
Right on the money.
Most people probably gleaned these thumbnail profiles through the media's information overload.
Michelle Dresbold, however, knew it just by looking at how the trio dots their i's and crosses their t's.
Dresbold is a handwriting analysis expert who works as a consultant for the Pittsburgh police and performs at parties for people who don't want to pay a therapist.
Although she has been semi-following the Clinton/Lewinsky saga as it unfurls, Dresbold said she could analyze their handwriting samples as though she knew nothing about them.
"A's and O's represent your mouth -- those are your communication letters," said Dresbold, examining Lewinsky's handwriting at her Squirrel Hill home the other day.
"See how round she makes them? That means that once she starts talking, look how huge her mouth is -- boom, boom, boom."
(According to the Starr report, Lewinsky told 11 people about her affair with the president, including her mother, despite promising Clinton that her lips were sealed.)
Turns out "A" is an expressive kind of a letter. Lewinsky's lowercase "a's" vary in size, which Dresbold said means a self-consciousness about personal appearance.
And Lewinsky believes that rules were made to be broken, Dresbold said. She cited the disregard for the ruled boundaries of notepaper in Lewinsky's flourishing signature on a thank-you note to a Georgetown restaurateur.
"She uses a lot of exclamation points, and a lot of underlining, which points to someone who is prone to exaggeration," Dresbold said. "Her handwriting is fun, kind of bubblegum, rounded and teen-agerish."
And yet, Dresbold said, there may be more to Lewinsky.
For example, Dresbold said, like the president, Lewinsky completes her words all in one continuous stroke, signaling someone who is intelligent, cunning and forward thinking.
"And watch how she carefully dots her i's -- that means she is very detail-oriented," Dresbold said.
(Lewinsky's memory for minutiae -- dates, pizza toppings, soupy songs playing during presidential encounters -- is prominently displayed throughout the Starr report.)
In addition, according to her handwriting, Lewinsky has what Dresbold calls "selective hearing."
The loops on Lewinsky's "e's," the letter which represents the ears and hearing, are sometimes open, sometimes closed. That could mean that "she hears what she wants to hear," Dresbold said.
In love letters to the president and written affidavits to Starr's team, Lewinsky's handwriting loops crazily, from a slight leftward slant to straight up and down to a rightward tilt. That's a sign, Dresbold said, of an emotionally unstable individual.
In contrast, Clinton's handwriting consistently slants to the left, a universal tip-off in the world of handwriting analysis of a self-interested person.
"All his words are very close together, which means he needs to be close to other people all the time," Dresbold said. "He needs constant affection and attention, and he needs a tremendous amount of feedback for his low self-esteem."
In Clinton's distinctive handwriting, black, firm and sure in a handwritten plea for dollars from Democratic donors, the large loops on the bottoms of his script "y," "f" "g" and "p" stand out.
"That's the lower zone, representative of your physical and sexual drive," Dresbold said. "His is very large -- see how the bottoms of those letters hit the top of the next line, even though there is plenty of space there?"
(Clinton reportedly confided to Lewinsky that before turning 40, he had "hundreds of affairs," but since then, he had been trying to keep his sexual appetite under control.)
Clinton's handwriting also might confirm a "Slick Willie"-type alter ego.
"See how his 'm' could be a 'w,' or his 'u' could just as easily be an 'n'?" Dresbold said. "That's very calculating. It means he can explain things that look one way to really be another."
Unlike Lewinsky's loose lips, which may yet sink a presidential ship, Clinton is careful to close the tops of his "a's" and his "e's."
"That means he's articulate, but he won't spill his secrets all over the world. He won't reveal a darn thing before he has to," Dresbold said.
Judging from his handwriting, Dresbold said, Clinton may simply not have known when to hold and when to fold. In an inscribed photo to Lewinsky, later confiscated by Starr's agents, Clinton wrote a relatively innocuous, "To Monica, thanks for the nice tie Bill Clinton"
The lack of punctuation in the inscription is a red flag for Dresbold. "People who don't put a period or a comma don't know how or when to end something," Dresbold said.
Of the three, the first lady's handwriting is the most difficult to decipher, Dresbold said, a testament to her status as the most enigmatic of figures in this scandal. Except for brief statements affirming her support for her husband, the first lady has remained tight-lipped on the topic of Lewinsky.
"This is a very mature and ambitious woman," Dresbold said. "But look how her two halves of her 'k's' don't touch. That means she has a lot of emotional anxiety about letting herself get close to someone else."
Mrs. Clinton crosses her "t's" at the very top, revealing high goals, but her writing is not without "anger strokes," Dresbold said.
"See how sharply she dots her i?" Dresbold said. "That means she was brought up in a critical home, where there was a lot of pressure to do well and succeed."
The answer to why Hillary Clinton stays with the president may lie in the slant of her handwriting, Dresbold theorized.
"See how her writing goes uphill?" Dresbold said. "That means she's an optimist. She believes that in the end, everything will work out."
|
||||||||
