Cult of Monica hits the Internet

A voluptuous young woman with big hair, pouty mouth and black leather pants curls on top of the US President's desk, an American…

A voluptuous young woman with big hair, pouty mouth and black leather pants curls on top of the US President's desk, an American flag draped behind her.

In another scene, she sits barefoot on a rug in the Oval Office, her knees over the presidential seal.

This is not a trailer for a low-budget TV movie on the White House scandal, but shots from the new commercial for Tommy Hilfiger jeans. American companies are not above promoting their products with titillating suggestions of sex and superpower.

Monica fever has hit the US, infecting everyone from Madison Avenue advertising executives to street traders hawking T-shirts of "That Intern Girl".

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Fans can browse among some 300 Internet sites devoted to The Cult of Monica. Internet experts suggest that Ms Lewinsky is only second to the late Princess Diana in the number of web pages created in her honour. And as with Princess Diana, the tributes range from reverential to utterly tasteless.

In New York the gourmet food store, Dean & Deluca, has brought out a range of iced cookies decorated with the faces of the President, Mrs Clinton and Ms Lewinsky.

Monica fever has even spread overseas. In Jerusalem an Israeli soap-powder company is using the alleged DNA matter at the centre of the Lewinsky story to sell stainremoving detergent. A television ad for Biomat detergent shows mock FBI agents entering the home of a Monica Lavinsky (sic) to remove, wash and return a dress.

It has been a hectic time for Monica junkies on the world wide web. There are so many web pages dedicated to her that one (www.gomonica.com) now ranks the "Top 100 Monica sites".

As the former White House intern prepared to testified for a second time this week, fans were glued to an Internet site with a camera permanently trained on her lawyers' office building.

The "Monicacam" is one of the most popular web sites for obsessive Lewinskywatchers. Several thousand times a day, online fans visit this page hoping to catch a glimpse of Ms Lewinsky.

For those interested in the fine detail of the White House scandal there is access to newspaper archives, on sites such as Zippergate News.

On the salacious side, some on-line pornography distributors use Ms Lewinsky's name and promise illicit photos of her on pay-for-membership sites. Inevitably, there are hundreds of Monica jokes on the web.

After the jeans, the T-shirts and the cookies, who can wait for the book and the film?