If you see through their crocodile tears, the New York Post’s editorial board is employing logic of a certain sort. They’re really sorry, and “with far larger issues out there — jobs, terrorism, etc. — [they]’d rather the race not be dominated by talk of Bill [Clinton]’s, uh, love life.” But, the thing is, it’s not their fault that they’re writing this opinion piece. See, Hillary Clinton has “made ‘women’s issues’ central to her campaign” and “today those issues very much include things like sexual assault and harassment.”
Now, l’affaire Lewinsky was a tawdry, sordid, deplorable, depressing spectacle that no one is any mood to defend eighteen years down the line, and I’m probably not the only one who still resents feeling compelled to stand up to the Republicans’ hypocritical and hysterical reaction to it. But Bill Clinton, however gallingly horrible his personal judgment in beginning a sexual relationship with a White House intern, did not sexually assault or sexually harass Monica Lewinsky, so this really amounts to a promise by Rupert Murdoch’s media empire to bring back up every unsubstantiated allegation made by their swamp of partisan gutter-snipers in the 1990’s.
After all, we all know that Bill Clinton has not been faithful husband, but you don’t accuse a wife of enabling sexual assault and sexual harassment just because her husband cheated on her.
And, yet…
…how institutions should deal with such cases — [is a] major topic on college campuses right now.
So a campaign surrogate who also happens to be a former president impeached over his lying about an affair with a female subordinate will inevitably be “fair game” for the campaign trail.
As will asking about how one partner enables the other’s misbehavior.
College campuses are not having a major discussion about how to deal with adultery, nor how to deal with “affairs with a female subordinate,” so we’re clear here that the Post’s editorial board isn’t really talking about Lewinsky at all, but about rehashing the unproven allegations of women like Paula Jones and Juanita Broaddrick.
So, how’s this logic work?
When Hillary Clinton talks about “women’s issues” (note the scare quotes) she opens herself up to charges of hypocrisy because if she were so good on women’s issues she never would have “enabled” her husband to sexually assault and sexually harass all these women.
Note, also, that the Post can barely disguise their seething resentment that college administrators are “today” taking sexual assault and harassment seriously. This isn’t a call to embrace these efforts because they’re signs of worthy progress. Rather, this is a petulant cry that “what’s good for the goose (accusing college boys of rape) is good for the gander (accusing the ex-president of rape).”
So, it’s “inevitably fair game” for people to interrupt Hillary’s campaign appearances with hurled and unsubstantiated rape accusations against her husband.
Indeed, it’s shocking that neither Clinton seemed ready for questions on this front. You’d almost think they’d spent the last 16 years in deep denial.
I think it’s fair to say that Bill and Hillary Clinton are experienced enough dealing with their political opponents that they aren’t in denial about what kind of trash will be thrown at them. They won’t even be shocked to learn that they are responsible for inviting these libels and slanders.
Ironically, their experience and success in battling against this garbage is one of the most common points made in their favor by progressives I know who might be more ideologically inclined to support Bernie Sanders.
Whatever his faults (or her’s), partisan Democrats know that they’re aware of what is coming, that they’re fighters, and that the only one who ever beat them wasn’t a Republican.
It may be grotesquely unpleasant to contemplate revisiting the nineties, but it’s not scary.
We’ve seen all these plays before and they don’t result in touchdowns.
So the New York Post is taking cues from Trump. The whole “enabling” concept is straight out of Trump’s mouth. He certainly is running the media machine, as usual.
I remember when President Clinton was elected, and even prior to his election he and Hllary were harassed about Whitewater and a million other issues, anything the Republicans thought would discredit them. It’s the same thing happening now: throw shit against the wall and see what sticks.
And I remember the impeachment proceedings and all of the Monica Lewinsky coverage, 24/7. I was sick at heart, trying to defend Bill Clinton and yet angry that it had happened in the first place. As a loyal Democrat, the mess was a dark, frustrating period for me.
So, I’m not surprised at all that the whole mess has been revived and given life, some political zombie issue in search of brains.
I was always much more perturbed by their relationship with serial polluter (and workplace horror) Tyson Foods.
This is the problem with electing Governors from a small, corrupt poor state to the Presidency. They bring what and who they know along with themselves. WalMart and Jackson Stephens were as problematical as Tyson.
A year of so into the Clinton administration, I stumbled on to the fact that my colleagues in another office were doing a significant amount of business with an operation in Little Rock. I said, “Are you nuts! Those people are crooks.” The response was that they were FOBs (friends of Bill).
The intersection of the two sets is not empty.
It is if both sets are empty.
You’re contending that they were not crooks AND were not Friends of Bill?
nah. I misread your statement.
what you said: “The intersection of the two sets is not empty.”
what I read: “The intersection of two sets is not empty.”
I was correcting a false statement of Boolean logic.
My bad.
Ah! I thought that might be the case. Yes, without “the”, your logic is correct.
Yup.
It all depends on your definition of “the”.
I deeply resented being put in the position of defending a serial philanderer that struts around with a Bible and all their other, likely small time, sleazy financial doings in AR.
Bible? Do you mean Jimmy Carter? He’s the only one I remember with a Bible.
Nah, she means Bill.
Fortunately, we don’t have to defend Bill anymore. Its Hillary whose running.
Molly Ivins
Meanwhile, all that “standing up for him on general principle” took attention away from all the hideous and unfair abuse of good public policies that Clinton and the GOP congress was destroying for the benefit of their Wall St. and corporate buddies. Since a goodly portion of partisan Democrats refuse to acknowledge that and partisan Republicans seem not to have an adequate number of functioning brain cells left to comprehend why they’re still living paycheck to paycheck, we are stuck with the Clintons occupying center stage on the DEM side and a semi-changing cast of whackjobs occupying the GOP side. With the result that (and assuming a Clinton ’16 win) Democrats get the WH 62.5% of the time and Republicans get Congress and state governments 33% of the time. And income/wealth inequality continues to increase and there are always new wars to engage in.
Republicans get Congress and state governments 66% of the time.
This! Galls me to no end, but was that not the point of the utterly infuriating and tax-dollar wasting ginned up impeachment? To take away attention from the really big rip-off happening – whilst the D & R Branches colluded, per usual – as well as giving Ken Starr ample opportunity to waste my tax dollars fapping away to dreams of the Clenis. Ugh.
Here and there, you’ll get details about Clinton’s really bad behavior in terms of signing away Glass Steagall, which led to the 2008 crash – or his downgrading of real welfare. But no! We’ve gotta talk and yabber and blab and scream about the Clenis, as if it’s somehow really important.
That’s not even getting into the fact that most of those R-Team hypocrites, like Newt Gingrich, were doing the exact same thing at the exact same time. But but but… it’s different because: a) IOKIYAR, and b) they didn’t get blow jobs IN the sacred Oval Office.
Clinton’s only current competitor slams Trump for focusing on Bill Clinton’s sex life. Unfortunately, a majority of Democratic primary voters don’t seem all that interested in the real and important issues that Sanders is focused on.
The GOP has never had any problem with collateral damage to their own if it advances their agenda. (Based on convictions, the Reagan administration was the most corrupt on the 20th century.) It’s not their problem is Democrats can’t/don’t/won’t take advantage of that politically. Iran-Contra and the S&L scandals quickly disappeared after Clinton became President.
wrt to ’90s sexual philandering and harassment by DC pols, a real stretch to conclude that IOKIYAR considering that Newt, Livingston, and Packwood resigned. In the near term, it’s unlikely that any of them would have been defeated in their next election. Later, Sen Larry Craig and other GOP pols resigned when their sexual behaviors were exposed.
It’s become almost impossible to demonstrate official corruption because only dumb fools engage in direct quid pro quo arrangements. As Michael Parenti pointed out decades ago, politicians like Reagan receive their big thank you checks after they leave office. As if anything Reagan could say in Japan was worth $2 million. And voters appear completely incapable of recognizing that this is evidence of corruption.
Explain why you think the repeal of Glass-Steagall led to the financial crash. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the financial crash. This obsession with GS is incomprehensible to me. I do not think repeal was a great idea, but as an issue in 2015…
Either you do not understand what set off the financial crash or this is just a bullshit way to attack the Clintons.
And you must “think” Elizabeth Warren is an idiot. And that the only reason Wall St. didn’t collapse for over sixty years is that bankers and Wall Street brokers are swell guys and it wasn’t their fault that some little rats sneaked in and made a mess of everything in the naughts.
What set-up the financial crash was was tearing down the wall between banking and investing. What set-off the crash was all the scrambling among the banksters not to be on the losing side of their stupid bets.
Sure, they took a pickaxe to the base of the dam and punctured a few holes in it, but only a small amount of water was leaking out of those holes after they left.
Totally unrelated to the dam crumbling a few years later.
Explain how “tearing down the wall between banking and investing” set up the crash. I call bullshit.
Elizabeth Warren is playing fast and loose with the truth. She knows GS had nothing to do with the crash. She has adopted it as a symbol. She used the financial crisis as a backdrop to introduce her reinstatement of GS. It’s bullshit and she knows it.
It doesn’t really matter to anything real and I don’t even mind Warren using it as a symbol, but it is annoying to hear Sandanistas use it to try to blame Bill Clinton for a crash that happened years after he left office.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/reinstating-an-old-rule-is-not-a-cure-for-crisis/
In my conversation with Ms. Warren she told me that one of the reasons she’s been pushing reinstating Glass-Steagall — even if it wouldn’t have prevented the financial crisis — is that it is an easy issue for the public to understand and “you can build public attention behind.”
She added that she considers Glass-Steagall more of a symbol of what needs to happen to regulations than the specifics related to the act itself.
Hi Andrew Ross Sorkin, how are you?
new troll on the block
He’s making an argument, though, it’s not just some troll comment.
hard for me to read past the inflamnatory language, I’ll try again though.
Sandanistas? is this an attack from the Hillary side – impressive. unfortunately for you, this isn’t the Orange place
don’t bother feeding the new troll
Whatever. Hillary Clinton’s negatives don’t start and end with Bill’s infidelities.
Plus, no one’s ever explained how Monica’s never explained to my satisfaction why she was buddy-buddy with Linda Tripp and Lucianne Goldberg. It’s got the smell of a psyop. Goldberg was spying on the McGovern campaign in ’72. Her peculiar behavior at the ’60 Democratic convention suggests a career of dirty tricking.
Another CIA soap opera.
No kidding. And now we’re stuck with Goldberg’s horrible son, the Doughy Pantload, enjoying his turn on the rightnut welfare gravy train. Double UGH.
Talk about a CIA psyop… Doughy Pantload’s scribblings torture the English language and deprive readers of any native intelligence.
The CIA hasn’t cornered the political Psyops.
Lewinsky was exactly what she seemed to be. A young love-struck woman that had landed one of the biggest prizes of all. Not naive enough to blab about it to her friends/peers, few of whom wouldn’t have shared it with others within hours. But when her secret conquest wasn’t developing into a full blown relationship as she had hoped it would, she needed a shoulder to cry on. An older and sympathetic woman was right there.
It did take a while for Tripp to recognize that she was sitting on some gold. (Recall the Starr investigation and Paula Jones had been around for a while by that point.) We’re unlikely ever to know how she linked up with Goldberg, but it probably was by some circuitous route and not a first choice for Tripp, but one that knew, or could find out, how better to nail it down and exploit it.
Exploitation of an opportunity dropped in one’s lap isn’t evidence of a set-up plot or conspiracy.
I resent being forced into the position of defending HRC for somehow being “responsible” for her husband’s serial philandering and somehow “enabling” what’s being speciously termed rape and sexual harassment.
I can’t be bothered to do the research needed, but I don’t remember (I could be wrong) that any of the charges of rape and harassment ever were proven in a court of law. I’m not saying that it could have never happened, but where’s the proof? And I fail to see how HRC is “responsible” for it.
I’ve said before: HRC is damned if she did and damned if she didn’t. If HRC left WJC, then the rightwing would be busily dissing her for not being “Christiany” enough to stand by her man – how dare she break up the “sanctity” of her marriage or similar rot. Trust me, that’s exactly what the story line would be.
And once again, I can go into both siderism bc let’s take a look at one of my former Governors, Schwartenegger, who isn’t called Der Gropinator for nothing. And then ends up having a “love child” behind his wife’s back when he’s in office.
Don’t forget that the GOP – before they descended into the their birtherism bullshit with the Kenyan Usperer – were bandying about the idea of somehow making it legal – by changing the laws – for Ahhhnold to run for POTUS bc he was the 2d coming of something or other.
So yeah, hypocrisy on steroids, as usual. Dragging the Clintons back in the mud is to be expected. I’m sure they’re prepared for it. If nothing else, both Clintons are smart, and they’ve scripted out these very scenarios bc they’re so easily predictable.
Standing up for the Clintons is like standing up for Charlie Brown.
You feel sympathy because most of the stuff he goes through is complete bullshit, but all of the same it wears on your nerves and you start wanting to blame the victim. If only because there’s so much talk about kite-eating trees or bullying classmates or VRWC you can take. Even people actually on Charlie’s side like Schrodinger and Peppermint Patty and even Linus had to take a break from the guy.
Obama has a lot of flaws, but one thing I genuinely appreciate about his administration is being able to fly under the radar when it comes to scurrilous media attacks.
People keep claiming that Hillary’s history is a weakness, but I don’t see it that way. Opponents have been trying to take down the Clintons for more than 25 years. It hasn’t worked yet. At this point, most Americans either assume that there’s no actual crimes in their history, or that the GOP is too horrifically incompetent to prove anything. If they came up with something new, most would assume it was a political ploy, just like all the rest. Hillary’s been here, done this, and she always comes out ahead.
This. A mixture of both is my bet.
Not only is there not enough for the Republicans to prove it, but they’ve screamed that the sky is falling for so long that most people immediately stop paying attention as soon as a Republican starts saying Clinton.
The Clintons can defend themselves. They know what they did and when they did it. Maybe they even had some fun. They also know that they (yes THEY, the nascent dynasty that morphed into a foundation taking money from places like Saudi) repealed Glass-Steagall and that the consequences were horrendous. But they don’t want to talk about this. Maybe the sexcapades are a welcome diversion as Bernie Sanders gets into his stride, joining Elizabeth Warren in trying to get Glas-Steagall reinstated. The true scandals and perversions of the Clintons never surface clearly: corporatism, conflict of interest between the family foundation and her stint as SoS, destruction of a basic welfare system, etc…..money, money, money….glitter, glitter and more bing. The Clinton Foundation is the good, old, proverbial elephant standing in the room, and if Clinton’s opponents start sinking their teeth into that a few feathers will be more than ruffled. On this site Bernie Sanders hardly exists: Clinton gossip as everywhere in the mainstream. A discussion of Democratic ideas or lack of them would be more constructive.
I dont feel compelled to defend the Clintons from bullshit.
Propublica
Who were some of those “wealthy investors?” Peruse the “Maiden Lane I, II, III” payouts for a sampling.
Usually, I don’t defend, but attack using the same exact argument. Republicans aren’t usually bright, and when you are aggressive with them, they usually either walk away, or you can turn it right around on them.
Be sure to smile, and smirk, while doing so.
Gone are the days when Bill Moyers would remind us that the conservatives had a point of view that was worth listening to. I was happy to watch as he would then invite them onto his show to demonstrate the value of their views as the other side of the coin of progressive thinking. Now I’m afraid the conservatives have simply gone insane, to the point of their views having lost all value. I no longer care what they think, only what they do. That single activity I care about is whether they vote or not.
I remember quite well the nightmare of Ronald Reagan who only escaped impeachment because it was too soon after Nixon had left office in disgrace to eject another Republican from office. Then we had another four years of GHWB who was up to his eyeballs in the very crimes that Reagan escaped but so many of Reagan’s administration were convicted. Finally we had a Democrat in the White House and I so hoped he would at least echo JFK. I may be wrong about this but I felt the Republicans were demoralized to the point where the conservative movement might lose enough momentum to face reversal.
At first I thought Bill Clinton was quite clever to make Republican issues his own that we affectionately called triangulation. With hindsight we now know that tactic hurt a lot people and to this day still hurts a lot of people, things that took decades to undo with still more to be undone. Bill was certainly no JFK.
For all the horrors of having a Democratic President sign things into law no Republican could ever accomplish was not the worst of it. Showing his character, when confronted with a willing young woman working as an intern he took the opportunity to get blow jobs in the oval office leaving his DNA evidence on that famous blue dress.
Now back to that important Republican activity, if they vote. What I witnessed at the time was a virtual explosion of enthusiasm on the Republican side with a corresponding demoralization on the Democratic side. Net result was eight years of GWB with that maniac Dick Chaney a heartbeat from the Presidency.
I have a hard time believing any woman would ever make an accusation of rape unless it was true. We now have Juanita Broaddrick saying “I was 35 years old when Bill Clinton, Ark. Attorney General raped me and Hillary tried to silence me. I am now 73….it never goes away.” If you put this in a Bill Cosby type context, is it not hard to believe people would think it true? Trump will think so.
I think this decision shows a disqualifying and appalling lack of judgment on the part of Hillary Clinton to allow Bill Clinton with his horrible baggage anywhere near her campaign. I must remember the rule; when your opponent is self destructing, don’t interfere. If we actually nominate her, this could end very badly.
I’m hoping having him more prominent on the campaign trail right now will give some an extra push in the direction of Sanders.
Unfortunately I don’t think Hillary sees it as losing votes to Bernie. I think her decision to use Bill is in desperation because she’s losing in New Hampshire while Bernie is gaining on her in Iowa. The larger issue is trying to preserve the bullshit that Bill Clinton made a great black president. Even with DWS limiting the debates to keep Bernie’s name recognition low, a win or tie in Iowa and win in New Hampshire would convince the AA community, just like Obama, that he could win resulting in Hillary going down in flames just like 2008.
Bernie has already weighed in defending her against things Trump has already said about Bill’s sex life. Damage will be only be done if Hillary gets the nomination and Trump uses this to energize the Republicans and demoralize Democrats by reminding us just what the core of the Clinton machine looks like.
Meanwhile things still look bad as DWS digs in as chair of the DNC providing another boost for Trump if Hillary wins the nomination.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/debbie-wasserman-schultz-resign-dnc_568d86c2e4b0cad15e6335f9
Not that you would know it from this site or from the Bernie blackout by corporate media but Bernie gave a barn burner of a speech in New York about Wall Street reform.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6e47vJ89p0
With Bernie talking only in lofty terms and Hillary offering half measures she can make the case there is no difference between her and Bernie plus Bernie is a socialist, as she just did on Chris Matthews, and her half measures are more realistic and even better.
I think this was Bernie’s best speech of the campaign because gave just enough specifics and detail to directly challenge Hillary’s half measures that still favor Wall Street. Maybe this will inspire some pundits to actually start discussing the struggle going on for the soul of the Democratic Party.
If Bernie repeats this with other issues such as criminal just reform and institutional racism he’s going to win.
So good to hear!! I’ve been and will be for months inundated with work and not able to follow closely. do you know anything what’s happening with the AA community re: Sanders? I can’t see AA voters getting over Bill’s treatment of Obama in 08. seems to me the “AA voters support Clinton” is mostly a meme for white folks, but I may be wrong (hope not).
DWS is more and more obvious and outrageous
Unfortunately, there are women that have lied about being raped. It’s a small percentage of reported rapes, but it does exist.
It’s also not uncommon, unfortunately, for women to be consenting in the moment and later having deep regrets. That’s one reason why long-after the fact reports of rape are so difficult to verify.
Unfortunately for HRC, she took the super-strong position of taking the victim at her word, i.e. accused guilty until proven otherwise. I have some sympathy for HRC on this since, sadly, in the vast majority of cases this turned out to be the case. But there’s a difference between ‘all’ and ‘vast majority’ and it was very stupid of her to do this given Bill’s own history.
Assuming that she doesn’t do something crazy like saying that Broaddrick must be believed, HRC will be forced to walk the statement back. And we’ll be forced to add yet another article to the steadily growing pile of HRC’s flip-flops.
And while you’re at it, tell me another yarn about how HRC doesn’t have to worry about any future political attacks because she’s been inoculated from all of the petty bullshit and the RWNJs don’t have any more material.
Evidence that HRC doesn’t practice what she preaches doesn’t seem to hurt her with this inclined to vote and vote for her. They like her sermons and aren’t all that interested in facts.
While I’m not inclined to believe that Bill Clinton has ever raped a woman, there are few people for which I’d say, “no way.”
If you’re looking for such a “yarn,” I’m not that storyteller. I have merely noted that old stories that were previously exhaustively reported on and publicly aired have little currency later on except for opponents that never let it go and/or it links directly to something new and current. For example, in 2004 I remained interested in GWB’s TANG story, but also recognized that it held little interest for the public at large. Nothing wrong with Mapes and Rather pursuing it, but they aired it before getting it nailed down and now nobody is interested in the truth at all. Over the years, Clinton opponents were even less careful in hurrying to make their accusations public. A lot of it was half-baked fantasy crap which does turn the general public off. The number of things they claimed also decreased the credibility of all of them.
I agree that there are women who may have lied about being raped but even more women never report being raped because of their own behavior, feeling guilty about being at the wrong place, allowing the man in their room or wearing the wrong clothing.
I also agree that women sometimes have consensual sex then later regret doing it. I don’t think women are traumatized by having consensual sex but women can be traumatized by violent sexual assault and remain so for many years. What stood out for me was Juniata in her recent tweet saying, “I am now 73….it never goes away.” Watch the VOX Dateline interview then tell me if you think Juniata was traumatized:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juanita_Broaddrick
http://www.vox.com/2016/1/6/10722580/bill-clinton-juanita-broaddrick
Once again, the relevant part of this story is when Hillary continued to squeeze Juniata’s hand to say, “Do you understand? Everything that you do.” Juniata says this was the first time she was really afraid of Hillary with it sending chills down her spine. It sends chills down my spine as well to think this woman is now leading in the national polls for the Democratic nomination of POTUS.
Trump can never leave this alone now that she’s using Bill on the campaign trail.
I hadn’t read about Juanita Broaddrick before now – partly because so few credible instances imo Katherine Willey seemed like a grifter situation. But the objection that Broadderick should have “cut ties with her rapist” is pertinent to stranger rape, but this instance is in the sexual harassment category – i.e. why didn’t Anita Hill quit her job kind of question -suggesting harassment should drive qualified woman out of great job.
Agree with your observations.
IMO, JB’s story is closer to stranger rape than on-the-job sexual harassment. I don’t fault or criticize a woman for choosing not to go through the horrible experience of reporting a rape, but choosing to be in the presence of one’s rapist and acting as if nothing is amiss requires an extraordinary explanation and that wasn’t offered by JB.
not saying it’s not rpe, just the aftermath dynamic is that of harassment because of ongoing contact in the workplace
Not buying the implication of the “Do you understand …” part of the story. Here’s why: While I don’t accept that HRC was blind to Bill’s philandering (but remember this was in 1978 when she would have been less aware than later), are we to believe that one day he came home and said, “Hi honey. By the way I raped a woman. She won’t report it but might need you to work her over a bit so that the doesn’t.”
Very difficult for me to imagine that a mere six weeks after the alleged rape that HRC would have had any idea that JB was other than a BC supporter. If, a very big if, she knew or suspected that BC and JB had had some sort of sexual encounter, why issue a thinly veiled threat to JB to remain silent? The Clintons weren’t powerful at that time, and HRC had no way of knowing what this woman could do and/or was considering doing. If HRC met Broaddrick at that event, shook her hand, and thanked her for whatever help she’d offered the campaign, it would have been routine and nearly five months before the election.
HRC is not a natural political campaigner. She’s stiff, has an odd sense of humor, and doesn’t connect with others on an emotional level. And that’s after almost forty years experience. In ’78 she might have been dreadful.
I don’t know what, if anything, happened between BC and JB in that hotel room. We only have her story as to what didn’t happen before then. And I’m not going to waste any time speculating about something that can’t be known.
Two things did stand out to me in the Dateline presentation. JB and her husband claimed to have donated to both Democrats and Republicans. That means that they had been more politically active than most people since a very small number of people donate to political campaigns. That undermines the claim that she couldn’t possibly have a political motivation.
The second thing was when she was explaining why she hadn’t reported the incident earlier. For a split second she caught herself but it was difficult to backtrack from it. What she said was, “… afraid that I would be destroyed like so many of the other women have been.” What other women? When were they destroyed? And when did JB learn about those other women? It would have been long after the alleged rape that she could have learned any of that.
A problem with she said/he said long after the alleged incident is that the human mind isn’t such a great recorder. Stuff gets jumbled up and reinterpreted because any thought or recounting of the past is always a recreation and little is encoded and stable without any alteration over time. Even traumatic events.
“Hi honey. By the way I raped a woman. She won’t report it but might need you to work her over a bit so that [she] doesn’t.”
It’s a bit of a loaded question to ask me what I think both Clintons are capable of doing when political power is at stake, but I’ll try.
Bill had already met Juniata during his visit to her nursing home as part of his campaign for Governor of Arkansas. She was a supporter who wanted to volunteer to work on his campaign. Knowing she was rather attractive, he talked his way into her room, “to avoid reporters in the coffee shop.” He then violently raped her, no doubt in my mind. Afterward he puts his sunglasses back on, heading out the door, advises her to put some ice on that lip he had so creepily injured.
Juniata was indeed married but also having an affair with her soon to be second husband. She felt it was her fault for allowing him into her room. This becoming public would be the last thing someone whose marriage was on the rocks during an active affair would want, especially in a small town.
Juniata was sharing the hotel room with her friend and employee Norma Rodgers who was attending a nursing conference that morning, the reason the two women were in Little Rock. Upon returning to the room Norma found Juniata in a state of shock with her panty hose torn sporting a badly swollen lip. Juniata told not only Norma but also her future husband David Broaddrick what had happened. The secret was kept from her husband at the time, Gary Hickey.
Now the trouble starts because two people know the Arkansas Attorney General running for Governor had violently sexually assaulted Juniata. This would have been a very difficult secret to keep among close friends. The last person on earth I would have expected to come clean would have been Bill Clinton, but I suspect word did work its way back to both Clintons during those three weeks, not only what had happened but the fact that word was starting to leak out.
Juniata had a vested interest to keep this private. The fundraiser at the dentist’s home must have been planned long before the incident. People at this event must have been in Juniata’s small town social circle complete with one of her friends picking up the Clintons from airport. Juniata would have had no choice other than act as if nothing had happened if she wanted this to remain private.
At that fundraiser it would have a big risk for Bill to come anywhere near Juniata so Hillary had to step up. I agree with you that Hillary would have been even more socially awkward back then than as she is today. I think Hillary was attempting to apologize to Juniata for what Bill had done but it came out sounding like Michael Corleone, “I know how to return a favor.”
So what do I think both Clintons are capable of doing when political power is at stake; most anything.
fascinating, thanks
Not so fast. If JB and Rodgers were sharing a hotel room, then wouldn’t JB have had to tell Rodgers why she would be skipping the convention event that morning? And also something when Rodgers returned to the room during the lunch break?
Again — speculating on whatever happened or didn’t happen between BC and JB is a waste of time.
JB said that she only told Rodgers and her lover and nobody else in the immediate aftermath. It was not widely known. And while twenty years later both of them said that JB told them she’d been raped, no way to determine if that’s what she said then or sometime later.
Again — I’m not questioning why a woman wouldn’t report a rape. Most don’t. But most don’t choose to be anywhere near their violent rapist at a social or political event a few weeks later. And don’t give me the crap that she had no choice; women can come up with a million “reasons” why they aren’t available for a party, event, date.
The other women that corroborated her story didn’t disclose when she told them. It’s not as if at some point during BC’s tenure as Gov or election as POTUS that a “get BC” political faction didn’t exist. It’s why that whole AR project (mostly a tissue of lies) was able to string together “stories” from those folks. All of whom by the time of their corroboration were familiar with Paula Jones’ tale, as was JB, her husband, and Rodgers. The difference being that when Jones said “stop” he did and when JB said “stop (I’m a proper married woman), he didn’t.
What I am saying is that HRC issuing a thinly veiled threat to JB in June ’78 didn’t happen. Nor can we so casually dismiss the fact that JB told a different story in different depositions.
There is nothing disgusting that rightwing sufferers of Clinton derangement syndrome won’t believe about the Clintons. Similarly BC’s Democratic fans can excuse or deny anything disgusting about the two. I’m in neither camp and consider both delusional. wrt BC’s extramarital sexual activities, I accept what Bernstein presented in “A Woman in Charge,” much of what Gennifer Flowers has said, and almost all that Norris Church Mailer said, (almost b/c fuzziness over time sets in, and it was a juicy bit in her memoir that easily lent itself to embellishment).
There’s not much that power junkies won’t do to get and maintain their power. However, once one has a certain amount of power, others take care of such details, often with no need for the junkie to request, order, or even be aware that such-and-such needs to be done.
There is something wonderful about the truth that allows us to tell the difference between truth and lies. The quality the truth has is that it fits, timeline, motivation, everything. That is why I believe Juniata. The fact I believe Juniata does not make me a “rightwing sufferer of Clinton derangement syndrome.”
Are you saying that Bill Clinton is not a sexual predator capable of committing a violent sexual assault? Do you believe Juniata, meeting Clinton to volunteer to work on his campaign, made this whole thing up as a right wing conspiracy, traumatized herself, tore the crotch from her own panty hose then bit her own lip? Do you think the stain on that famous blue dress did not contain Bill’s DNA? Do you think Hillary knew nothing about any of this?
I think you’ve already proven my original point that this is an explosive electoral topic. Bill’s sexual predator conduct in the past has energized Republicans and demoralized Democrats resulting in us being stuck with eight years of GWB. It’s a stupid decision for Hillary to reopen these old wounds by putting Bill Clinton on the campaign trail for maybe a small political gain. Yes, Hillary will certainly do most anything when political power is at stake. Brace yourself for President Trump.
Not getting the point of several of your questions as I previously stated that I don’t accept that HRC was blind to BC’s philandering. However, that doesn’t mean that she ever knew the full extent of it or in real time was informed. But she knew it was a problem for their political aspirations and did participate in cover-ups. (In real time, HRC lost me with her TV appearance — “the vast rightwing conspiracy” defense wrt the initial reports of the BC-Lewinsky scandal. Not that it was then publicly known that the affair was true, but because her comment was so obviously contrived and an over the top accusation against the accusers. When the truth came out, seem clear enough to me that HRC had known it before that TV appearance and I dislike liars.)
You’ve got one side of a story decades after the alleged incident. Are you absolutely sure that twenty years after the fact that someone couldn’t come out with a story that accused you of some horrible deed, you couldn’t prove that it was impossible for you to have been at that location at that time, and you have no recollection of the incident and barely any recollection of the accuser that you briefly met some time before the alleged incident? (Have you never known a groupie? After they’ve aged and it’s in their interests to denigrate groupie and also deny having been one themselves? People lie about sex all the time.)
There is a difference between a sexual philanderer and predator. If BC were such a sexual predator, why have the three women that publicly admit to consenting sexual affairs with him denied any predatory or sexually violent behavior on his part? Why only from a few with easily identifiable anti-Clinton leanings or associations that just happen to post-date their alleged encounters? Again not saying that he isn’t, but the public stories to date are, if not crap, deeply flawed or suspect.
I don’t know if JB is telling the truth or lying or distorted what she says took place. Nor do you. And I’m not going to condemn anyone based on long after the fact she said/he said, etc. with no other irrefutable evidence.
I deeply dislike the Clinton politics and public policies that IMHO are highly damaging to people and this country. I would like nothing better than to boot them off the national stage. However, unlike some involved in politics, I’m not willing to cross the line into using unsupportable smears, allegations, and innuendo to achieve my objective. Regardless of how tempting it is because a) it would make me no better than what I suspect they are and b) it’s weak tea against those with substantial power.
If JB’s story didn’t take down the a Clinton in 1999 when it was aired, whatever makes anyone think it will have any power now? It was in November 2000 that HRC was elected to the Senate. Were NY voters living under a rock?
There is a big difference between being a groupie and a sexual assault victim. The largest difference is the groupie is not traumatized while the sexual assault victim is. Do you remember when JKF was assassinated, what you were doing with details of that day staying with you for years, maybe the rest of your life? That is what being traumatized look like so I don’t buy your years later fuzzy memory argument.
A philanderer is a man whore who has less than no regard for women and frequently and casually uses them for his own sexual pleasure, only to rid himself of them once their “duty” for him is done. That definition might fit some of the other things in Bill Clinton’s sexual adventures but not Juniata’s story. That one is straight up rape, violent sexual assault done by a sexual predator. If you don’t believe Juniata was raped by Bill Clinton then your answers to all my questions must be yes.
Leading up to and during Bill’s impeachment I paid no attention to this story because I thought the Republicans were on one of their stupid witch hunts. We fast forward to the present where Hillary puts Bill on the campaign trail with Trump immediately attacking. Then I saw the tweet from Juniata, “…I am now 73….it never goes away.” For the first time I watched the interview where after resisting for a long time, Juniata decided to tell her story. For better or worse, I believed her.
I wondered if I was making too much of this so yesterday I told my millennial daughter what I had found so as to gage the importance of this revelation. Her answer was: “It doesn’t matter. I can’t stand Hillary anyway; there is really no difference between Bill and Hillary, intellectually speaking. I wouldn’t trust either of them with running the country. Trump is worse than Hillary but not by much. If Bernie loses, I’m leaving the country.” Her grandparents are from Austria and we still have extended family there. Education is free with chances of upward mobility much better than here without some major reforms.
Unless we’re willing to at least try fix this mess, my daughter’s sad message is a loss of confidence in our political system. When people feel this way, they don’t bother to vote. This is what the Clinton Machine is doing to the Obama coalition. Hillary is going to lose, either to Bernie or to Trump.
let’s hope she loses to Bernie.
thanks for making the point about traumatic memory.
As JB is now a Trump supporter, it’s even more difficult for me to view her as credible.
is she really a T supporter or just most viable candidate vs HRC?
THEY ARE IN THE MUD
because they do shyt that they’re not supposed to do.
And, then, expect folks to defend them.
You can go at it.
I’m not defending shyt.
I’ve had 8 years of No Drama Obama.
I shouldn’t have to lower the standards set by President Obama.
Exactly. Clinton apologists justify the drama surrounding them with ‘it’s not them, the right-wing noise machine would’ve done the same to any Dem!’ but then we have Obama, to a lesser extent Gore, and to a much lesser but still non-negative extent Kerry.
Even if you conclude that the drama isn’t a result of their actions, you still can’t really deny that they invite more in than other contemporary Dems.