Ubiquitous
2017-11-19 10:52:51 UTC
In the longstanding liberal narrative about Bill Clinton and his
scandals, the one pushed by Clinton courtiers and ratified in media
coverage of his post-presidency, our 42nd president was only guilty of
being a horndog, his affairs were nobodys business but his familys,
and oral sex with Monica Lewinsky was a small thing that should never
have put his presidency in peril.
That narrative could not survive the current wave of outrage over male
sexual misconduct.
So now a new one may be forming for the age of Harvey Weinstein and
Donald Trump. In this story, Kenneth Starr and the Republicans are
still dismissed as partisan witch hunters. But liberals might be
willing to concede that the Lewinsky affair was a pretty big deal
morally, a clear abuse of sexual power, for which Clinton probably
should have been pressured to resign.
This new narrative lines up with whats often been my own assessment of
the Clinton scandals. I have never been a Clinton hater; indeed, Ive
always been a little mystified by the scale of Republican dislike for
the most centrist of recent Democratic leaders. So Ive generally held
what Ive considered a sensible middle-ground position on his sins
that he should have stepped down when the Lewinsky affair came to
light, but that the Republican effort to impeach him was a hopeless
attempt to legislate against dishonor.
But a moment of reassessment is a good time to reassess things for
yourself, so I spent this week reading about the lost world of the
1990s. I skimmed the Starr Report. I leafed through books by George
Stephanopoulos and Joe Klein and Michael Isikoff. I dug into
Troopergate and Whitewater and other first-term scandals. I
reacquainted myself with Gennifer Flowers and Webb Hubbell, James Riady
and Marc Rich.
After doing all this reading, Im not sure my reasonable middle ground
is actually reasonable. It may be that the conservatives of the 1990s
were simply _right_ about Clinton, that once he failed to resign he
really deserved to be impeached.
Yes, the Republicans were too partisan, the Starr Report was too
prurient and Clintons haters generated various absurd conspiracy
theories.
But the Clinton operation was also extraordinarily sordid, in ways that
should be thrown into particular relief by the absence of similar
scandals in the Obama administration, which had perfervid enemies and
circling investigators as well.
The sexual misconduct was the heart of things, but everything connected
to Clintons priapism was bad: the use of the perks of office to
procure women, willing and unwilling; the frequent use of that same
power to buy silence and bully victims; and yes, the brazen public lies
and perjury.
Something like Troopergate, for instance, in which Arkansas state
troopers claimed to have served as Clintons panderers and been offered
jobs to buy their silence, is often recalled as just a right-wing hit
job. But if you read The Los Angeles Timess reporting on the
allegations (which included phone records confirming the troopers
account of a mistress Clinton was seeing during his presidential
transition) and Stephanopouloss portrayal of Clintons behavior in the
White House when the story broke, the story seems like it was probably
mostly true.
I have less confidence about what was real in the miasma of Whitewater.
But with Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky, we know what happened: A
president being sued for sexual harassment tried to buy off a
mistress-turned-potential-witness with White House favors, and then
committed perjury serious enough to merit disbarment. Which also
brought forward a compelling allegation from Juanita Broaddrick that
the president had raped her.
The longer I spent with these old stories, the more I came back to a
question: If exploiting a willing intern is a serious enough abuse of
power to warrant resignation, why is obstructing justice in a sexual
harassment case not serious enough to warrant impeachment? Especially
when the behavior is part of a longstanding pattern that also may
extend to rape? Would any feminist today hesitate to take a similar
opportunity to remove a predatory studio head or C.E.O.?
There is a common liberal argument that our present polarization is the
result of constant partisan escalations on the right the rise of Newt
Gingrich, the steady Hannitization of right-wing media.
Some of this is true. But returning to the impeachment imbroglio made
me think that in that case the most important escalators were the
Democrats. They had an opportunity, with Al Gore waiting in the wings,
to show a predator the door and establish some moral common ground for
a polarizing country.
And what they did instead turning their party into an accessory to
Clintons appetites, shamelessly abandoning feminist principle,
smearing victims and blithely ignoring his most credible accuser, _all
because Republicans funded the investigations and theyre prudes and
its all just Sexual McCarthyism_ feels in the cold clarity of
hindsight like a great act of partisan deformation.
For which, its safe to say, we have all been amply punished since.
scandals, the one pushed by Clinton courtiers and ratified in media
coverage of his post-presidency, our 42nd president was only guilty of
being a horndog, his affairs were nobodys business but his familys,
and oral sex with Monica Lewinsky was a small thing that should never
have put his presidency in peril.
That narrative could not survive the current wave of outrage over male
sexual misconduct.
So now a new one may be forming for the age of Harvey Weinstein and
Donald Trump. In this story, Kenneth Starr and the Republicans are
still dismissed as partisan witch hunters. But liberals might be
willing to concede that the Lewinsky affair was a pretty big deal
morally, a clear abuse of sexual power, for which Clinton probably
should have been pressured to resign.
This new narrative lines up with whats often been my own assessment of
the Clinton scandals. I have never been a Clinton hater; indeed, Ive
always been a little mystified by the scale of Republican dislike for
the most centrist of recent Democratic leaders. So Ive generally held
what Ive considered a sensible middle-ground position on his sins
that he should have stepped down when the Lewinsky affair came to
light, but that the Republican effort to impeach him was a hopeless
attempt to legislate against dishonor.
But a moment of reassessment is a good time to reassess things for
yourself, so I spent this week reading about the lost world of the
1990s. I skimmed the Starr Report. I leafed through books by George
Stephanopoulos and Joe Klein and Michael Isikoff. I dug into
Troopergate and Whitewater and other first-term scandals. I
reacquainted myself with Gennifer Flowers and Webb Hubbell, James Riady
and Marc Rich.
After doing all this reading, Im not sure my reasonable middle ground
is actually reasonable. It may be that the conservatives of the 1990s
were simply _right_ about Clinton, that once he failed to resign he
really deserved to be impeached.
Yes, the Republicans were too partisan, the Starr Report was too
prurient and Clintons haters generated various absurd conspiracy
theories.
But the Clinton operation was also extraordinarily sordid, in ways that
should be thrown into particular relief by the absence of similar
scandals in the Obama administration, which had perfervid enemies and
circling investigators as well.
The sexual misconduct was the heart of things, but everything connected
to Clintons priapism was bad: the use of the perks of office to
procure women, willing and unwilling; the frequent use of that same
power to buy silence and bully victims; and yes, the brazen public lies
and perjury.
Something like Troopergate, for instance, in which Arkansas state
troopers claimed to have served as Clintons panderers and been offered
jobs to buy their silence, is often recalled as just a right-wing hit
job. But if you read The Los Angeles Timess reporting on the
allegations (which included phone records confirming the troopers
account of a mistress Clinton was seeing during his presidential
transition) and Stephanopouloss portrayal of Clintons behavior in the
White House when the story broke, the story seems like it was probably
mostly true.
I have less confidence about what was real in the miasma of Whitewater.
But with Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky, we know what happened: A
president being sued for sexual harassment tried to buy off a
mistress-turned-potential-witness with White House favors, and then
committed perjury serious enough to merit disbarment. Which also
brought forward a compelling allegation from Juanita Broaddrick that
the president had raped her.
The longer I spent with these old stories, the more I came back to a
question: If exploiting a willing intern is a serious enough abuse of
power to warrant resignation, why is obstructing justice in a sexual
harassment case not serious enough to warrant impeachment? Especially
when the behavior is part of a longstanding pattern that also may
extend to rape? Would any feminist today hesitate to take a similar
opportunity to remove a predatory studio head or C.E.O.?
There is a common liberal argument that our present polarization is the
result of constant partisan escalations on the right the rise of Newt
Gingrich, the steady Hannitization of right-wing media.
Some of this is true. But returning to the impeachment imbroglio made
me think that in that case the most important escalators were the
Democrats. They had an opportunity, with Al Gore waiting in the wings,
to show a predator the door and establish some moral common ground for
a polarizing country.
And what they did instead turning their party into an accessory to
Clintons appetites, shamelessly abandoning feminist principle,
smearing victims and blithely ignoring his most credible accuser, _all
because Republicans funded the investigations and theyre prudes and
its all just Sexual McCarthyism_ feels in the cold clarity of
hindsight like a great act of partisan deformation.
For which, its safe to say, we have all been amply punished since.
--
Dems & the media want Trump to be more like Obama, but then he'd
have to audit liberals & wire tap reporters' phones.
Dems & the media want Trump to be more like Obama, but then he'd
have to audit liberals & wire tap reporters' phones.