President and pariah
The latest fashion among Democrats is to hop into the wayback machine and say President Bill Clinton should have resigned for having had an affair with Monica Lewinsky, then lying about it. The sentiment has been expressed most notably by Hillary Clinton’s Senate successor, Kirsten Gillibrand, a noble warrior against sexual misconduct in the military and in the halls of Congress.
She is wrong. Bill Clinton’s legacy demands a reassessment, but he was right to stay in office.
Recent months have triggered a long-overdue awakening about the disgusting, abusive, sometimes criminal behavior of powerful men. Predators are in the crosshairs whether they are Democratic donors, Republican Senate candidates or even former Presidents.
As Bill Clinton’s bad behavior has been put under the microscope once more, his legacy has suffered. It should. Indeed, in retrospect, it is fair to say voters should have been harsher judges in 1992 of Clinton’s already revealed character. Had they been, they might have chosen someone else.
But they didn’t. With awareness of his deep flaws, citizens made Clinton President, then reelected him. Similarly, voters opted for Donald Trump despite more than a dozen women having come forward to credibly accuse him of groping or forcibly kissing them without consent, and a videotape on which he boasted of worse.
Though we, in sum, believe those women, we don’t retrospectively insist upon Trump’s resignation over their claims. That would be madness.
Once Clinton became President, Republicans pursued impeachment for a different sin: lying about sexual relations with a White House intern, as revealed in the course of the off-the-rails investigation by Independent Counsel Ken Starr. (It began as a probe into an Arkansas land deal.)
Consensual though it was, Oval Office oral sex between the President and a young intern clearly constituted workplace sexual harassment. It was an abuse of power and a stain on the nation’s honor. We said so at the time.
Clinton was also wrong to lie under oath, and deserved punishment for doing so. Perjury is a serious offense, particularly for a President.
But his forcible removal on that basis alone would have been hyperbolic then, just as it would be now. Resignation would have been a capitulation to the misbegotten impeachment push.
In retrospect, however, Democrats must own up to how, blinded by partisanship, they consistently failed to take seriously the many accusations against Clinton over the course of his life. They even launched smear campaigns to discredit women claiming to have been victimized.
In that harsh light, while he might rightly be revered as a steward of the economy who did other good things in office, Clinton must also be remembered as a man who repeatedly misused his authority to take advantage of women.
Paula Jones said that in 1991, Clinton had her brought up to his hotel room, where he exposed himself and propositioned her.
Kathleen Willey accused Clinton of fondling her breasts and forcing her to touch his crotch in a 1993 Oval Office meeting.
Most seriously, Juanita Broaddrick, whose allegation surfaced in 1999, claims that, in 1978, Clinton raped her in her hotel room.
Broaddrick’s friends say she told them what had happened at the time, and revealed evidence of a lip injury she sustained. The FBI probed the allegation in the course of Starr’s investigation and determined the evidence to be inconclusive.
Women often have good reason to wait years before making credible claims of sexual assault. This does not mean every claim is to be taken as Gospel; some allegations unravel under scrutiny.
But it does mean that when many women allege a consistent pattern of abuse by a particular man, they are very likely on to something.
Clinton must answer for his conduct. And any institution that seeks to put him on a pedestal should be made to do the same.