The Atlantic’s Caitlin Flanagan kicked off a mild awakening this past week when she deemed this explosive moment in sexual harassment history the perfect time for liberals to “reckon” with the longstanding allegations against former President Bill Clinton.
“Feminists saved the 42nd president of the United States in the 1990s. They were on the wrong side of history,” Flanagan wrote. “It was a pattern of behavior; it included an alleged violent assault; the women involved had far more credible evidence than many of the most notorious accusations that have come to light in the past five weeks.”
You don’t say…
In the ensuing days, many Democrats and liberal pundits have jumped on the “It’s okay to finally turn against Slick Willie” bandwagon. Of course, in doing so they have to come up with a good excuse for why they stayed quiet lo these many years, and ye olde “vast right wing conspiracy” makes for an excellent scapegoat.
“As gross and cynical and hypocritical as the right’s ‘what about Bill Clinton’ stuff is, it’s also true that Democrats and the center left are overdue for a real reckoning with the allegations against him,” MSNBC’s Chris Hayes tweeted.
In a column entitled “I Believe Juanita [Broaddrick, who accused then-gubernatorial candidate Clinton of raping her back in Arkansas],” NY Times writer Michelle Goldberg explained: “Revisiting the Clinton scandals in light of today’s politics is complicated as well as painful. Democrats are guilty of apologizing for Clinton when they shouldn’t have. At the same time, looking back at the smear campaign against the Clintons shows we can’t treat the feminist injunction to ‘believe women’ as absolute.”
In other words: Okay, okay, we got carried away with our Bill Clinton worship and it blinded us to the truth and allowed us to freely reject the extraordinarily believable claims of these poor women…but guys, how terrible are Republicans!?
In an interview with Chuck Todd, Rep. Jackie Spier, who is mounting an effort to uncover and eliminate sexual harassment on Capitol Hill, at least had the decency to admit that Clinton’s misdeeds were disgusting without using conservative media as a protective shield. “It’s bad,” she said. “I remember being a young mother of a 6-year-old at the time and having to explain to him what blowjob was and I was offended by it, so the victim-blaming absolutely was a thing of the past.”
Of course, you can’t help but notice that Democrats have chosen an awfully convenient time to finally acknowledge the crimes and unethical dalliances of Mr. Clinton. They weren’t willing to do it as recently as last year, were they? No, no, not when Miss Thang still had a shot at the White House.
But now that the Clintons are as good as ancient history? Sure, why not? It helps give them a little more street cred as they go after people like Roy Moore, it lets them clear their consciences, and, best of all, it gives them another excuse to attack right-wing media. All of this for the bargain price of exactly no political bravery at all!
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