There are plenty of good reasons as to whether or not Clinton should be criticized for the Lewinsky affair. The fact that someone might have done something worse is not one of them.
I’m very tired of this false insistence that liberal feminists are okay with Bill Clinton getting blow jobs from a young intern in the White House. No, Bill’s behavior was extremely jerkish and unbecoming. I for one am sorry that I was skeptical of some of Bill’s early accusers, since in retrospect it’s obvious that he was a horndog all along who didn’t respect women’s boundaries.
Nor am I apoplectic about Trump’s “I could shoot someone and my supporters wouldn’t care” statement, in particular. It’s merely one in a long string of boastful comments he’s made. Like many of his statements, it serves to illustrate what a boor he is.
Given a choice between an intelligent asshole who shares my political views and who has some grasp of how to govern, versus an ignorant narcissist with views diametrically opposed to my own who is clueless about how government works, my opinion of the former will always be much higher.
If that’s hypocritical, I guess I’ll just have to live with myself somehow.
What Clinton did was fucked up, but was it assault?
My memory of the incident was that the act was not only consensual, but Lewinsky was quite smitten with herself at the time it happened. I remember her giggling to herself in an interview with Katie Couric (??, or whoever it was) when she recounted the time she lifted up her skirt to show Bill her panties.
The most amazing thing about that quote is that the quote alone didn’t lose him any support. He is mocking his supporters for their blind loyalty, and they somehow see that as a complement.
Monica Lewinsky was about 22 when she had sex with Bill Clinton. Yes there was an age difference and it was inappropriate because he was her boss. But she was a willing participant in what happened and consented eagerly. A woman can have sex or do porn once she turns 18, and Monica was 22.
How does what happened between Bill and Monica count as sexual assault when Monica was over 18 and a willing participant? Just because something is inappropriate doesn’t make it sexual assault. If you want an example of Bill Clinton and sexual assault, Juanita Broaddrick is a better example.
Trump has a long list of sexual assault allegations though. Multiple accusations of rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment, etc and it didn’t even make a dent in his ability to run for president and win.
Prior to last November, I would have agreed with you.
Assuming Trump actually said this (and it does sound like something he would say) it’s probably because he’s aware of the low morality and the blind-eyed devotion of the people who voted for him, and he’s mocking them for their foolishness. Keep in mind, the last Republican President was someone who declared war on a sovereign nation for completely trumped-up (heh) reasons, leading to the deaths of over 500,000 innocent civilians and sowing the seeds of the most radical, most deadly terrorist organization in human history. He went on TV a mere six months after 9/11 and told the American people, in a nutshell: “I don’t know where Osama bin Laden is, and I don’t care!” He told California to go fuck itself while his buddies at Enron raped the state of its electricity supply (and look how it turned out for them…) And yet, G.W.B. was not only re-elected in 2004, he received more votes that year than the election that stole him the office four years earlier.
Thank you for proving my point. For your information, NO ONE (not even the ultra-right) claims that Bill Clinton actually assaulted anyone, it was a completely consentual affair. It’s Trump who’s bragged, “Grab 'em by the pussy!” Not that I expect any of these facts to sink in, after all it’s people like you who still call Iraq “Obama’s War.” :rolleyes:
Hypocrisy? Republicans hold the patent on that term. Use it with care.
Your imagining that the Left was silent over this indicates you don’t spend much time with people on the Left. Democrats bitch about Clinton all the time. Why do you think so many Democrats hated Hillary? Because she not only married that asshole, she defended him. I wouldn’t vote for him.
It’s not about evil, it’s about cognitive dissonance. Once you’ve expressed support for someone, it’s very difficult to accept that you’ve identified with, or even loved, someone capable of heinous acts - even when those acts have been committed against you. It’s much easier to suppose that the facts are all wrong, or that your hero is at the center of a conspiracy. Trump would lose supporters if he were to do something so awful, but a surprising contingent would likely continue to deny any wrongdoing.
This is an extreme example, but some on the Left would do the same for their candidate of choice. Our society has become increasingly more partisan, often at the expense of common sense.
Assault would have to have her file charges, which she obviously didn’t do and wasn’t going to do. Had he been the CEO of a company, he might very well have lost his job, since the boss isn’t supposed to be hitting on the folks under him (in most US companies).
I’d say it was an abuse of power. Sleazy and shitty, but not anything that created trauma for Lewinsky. If he threatened her job or cooerced her, it would be an entirely different story. That is not to dismiss the actual assault allegations against him.
Ok, so I see that our local collection of rightists has gone running for the “but…Clinton got a blowjob!” Tactic.
Ok, fine. Clinton had moral shortcomings. You got him. Good thing he was competent as President.
Because the next GOP Preisdent, he had good personal morals but he was as far from competent that we thought we could get,
So, the President after him? Well he had strong personal morals and was pretty competent. So the Righties spent eight years insisting he wasn’t born in this county and calling his wife a transsexual.
So since Bush was the mirror opposite of Clinton, the GOP decided to idolize the mirror opposite of Obama with a President that fails utterly in both morals and competency.
I dislike this kind of hyperbole regardless of where it comes from. Naturally I tend to believe that Right-wingers are more likely to be guilty of it, but Lefties aren’t immune either, as the above post shows.
I have yet to meet any Right-wing person, and I know a bunch, who seriously proposed that Michelle Obama was transexual. That’s a really fringe kind of attack/belief, and to characterize all people on the Right as guilty of it simply makes the Left look out of touch with reality.
Sure, there were crazies who claimed that. But I doubt you can show me a mainstream cite indicating that it was routine on the Right to believe Michelle O was trannsexual.