Democratic elites continue to ignore the multiple allegations against Clinton — and the reality of the Lewinsky affair. O ne of the grim lessons of the MeToo movement and its long backlash is this: whether someone finds a sexual abuse allegation credible largely depends on their pre-existing opinion of the man accused. This rule holds, I am sorry to say, even for women who identify themselves as feminists.
It held for Gloria Steinem, the famed feminist now in her 90s, who in defended Clinton amid his slew of sex scandals and abuse allegations in the pages of the New York Times, dismissing the allegations against him as trivial and making an unconvincing case that the offense she took at similar allegations against Clarence Thomas was different.
People who like Bill Clinton , or who find him convenient for their own goals, have a long history of underplaying the multiple allegations of sexual harassment and violence that he faces from at least four women. They say that Paula Jones, the former Arkansas state employee who sued Bill Clinton for sexual harassment after the then governor brought her to his hotel room, propositioned her and exposed himself, is lying — even though Jones has multiple corroborating witnesses, and even though her story has not changed in more than 30 years.
They say that Monica Lewinsky, the year-old unpaid intern whom Clinton carried on an affair with in the White House when he was 49 and the most powerful person in the world, technically consented to the sex acts that Clinton asked her to do — an insistence that betrays a startlingly simple-minded and willfully obtuse understanding of sexual ethics. The former president was given a prime-time speaking spot, trotted out like a prize and applauded like a hero. Are these people not embarrassed?
Do they not, at least, take note of the hypocrisy involved? After all, the election is quickly shaping up to be about gender, with the boorish Trump, creepy, sex-obsessed JD Vance and the radically anti-choice Republican party turning the contest into a referendum on the status of women in American society.
