‘It is a perverse reality that Trump is given a ho-hum pass by the public for repeated allegations … that would have convulsed the country in Clinton’s day…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) A defense of former President Bill Clinton published online Monday by The Atlantic underscored the disingenuousness of the Left’s #MeToo movement and other “social justice” demands when accountability proves politically inconvenient.
Clinton has again resurfaced in recent headlines since the arrest and subsequent death of pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The former president is reported to have taken more than two dozen trips on Epstein’s private jet, dubbed the “Lolita Express,” and to have visited his private tropical paradise, unofficially known as “Pedophile Island.”
Following Epstein’s purported suicide by hanging in a Manhattan jail cell, additional speculation arose that the Clintons may have had a hand in it, with many—up to and including current President Donald Trump—revisiting the long list of Clinton associates who died under suspicious circumstances amid prior scandal investigations.
The Atlantic article, nonetheless, sought to rehab Clinton’s tarnished image, painting a false equivalency with other presidents in order to gripe that the he had been unfairly treated.
“[W]hat should have been these golden years are turning out to be leaden,” bemoaned the article.
“Clinton is not quite a full-on pariah in the modern Democratic Party—the one he did so much to reshape and rebuild,” it said. “But some of his signature policies are the butt of attacks by the current crop of Democratic contenders…”
As the article noted, Clinton—only after being presented with DNA evidence during the course of special prosecutor Ken Starr‘s investigation—acknowledged his infidelity in the Monica Lewinsky affair, which also resulted in his impeachment for obstruction of justice and perjury.
However, the article attempted to equate Clinton’s “serious allegations of predation” while in office—using his position of power to coerce subordinates into sexual entanglements—with claims from porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy bunny Karen McDougal that Trump conducted consensual affairs with them more than a decade before running for office.
“It is a perverse reality that Trump is given a ho-hum pass by the public for repeated allegations of sexual misconduct and comments that would have convulsed the country in Clinton’s day—and that indeed did so—while Clinton’s reputation has been retroactively punished further,” whined the Atlantic. “Both men should bear responsibility for their actions.”
Other women who have claimed sexual assault against Trump have not presented formal testimony or credible evidence to support their allegations, while Clinton accusers like Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick and Kathleen Willey have—in the face of such testimony—had their own character impugned.
Conveniently, it seems, it was only after Trump’s election that left-wingers in the public sphere humored the notions that powerful public figures should be held accountable or that women’s rape allegations should be believed.
Yet, even while invoking the tu quoque fallacy to deflect blame from Clinton by accusing Trump, the article, following an all-too-familiar holding pattern, also continued to downplay and excuse Clinton’s moral turpitude.
It did so by comparing him with several presidents—including Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush—all of whom ended their presidencies unpopular only to recast themselves as respected elder statesmen who transcended petty politics.
By contrast, Clinton, aided and abetted by left-wing media, not only finished his term with strong approval ratings—despite his impeachment scandal—but also enjoyed nearly two decades of post-hoc media protection while his wife, Hillary, continued to field serious political aspirations.
Only now have Democrats begun to engage in honest discussions of Clinton’s conduct—and only to the end that it aligns with their own devices.
“Through the lens of contemporary politics, it is hard not to see him as having had a hand, through his own lapses in judgment, in opening the door to a new media and societal environment in which salacious personal behavior became fit fodder for public scrutiny and debate,” confessed The Atlantic.
“No one—not even his most ardent supporters—could really argue that he conducted his life or his presidency on a morally flawless plane,” it continued.
But still, the article tipped its hand to reveal why, in the Left’s estimation, it was willing to allow serial abusers like Clinton and the Kennedys a free pass: because it supported their agendas.
“Clinton, at his best, stood for something basic and decent about the American idea: the aspiration of citizens for a better life and a fairer shake,” the article waxed sentimentally.
Unfortunately, in the grand scheme of history, Clinton’s value, like the Left’s sense of moral outrage, was only as good as its utility to the cause and was readily cast aside once it reached obsoletion.
Far from being a hapless victim of changing social paradigms concerning female empowerment, Clinton was, in fact, hoisted with his own petard.
He was ultimately spurned by the fleeting, superficial and hypocritical whimsy of his party—the very thing that preserved him for so long.