Sexual abuse allegations revive scrutiny of Clinton, divide Dems
Staunch defense questioned years later
A torrent of sexual abuse allegations against powerful figures in politics and media has reignited the defining political fight of the 1990s.
But this time, the battle is being waged within the ranks of Democrats and their allies, including leaders of the feminist movement. A growing number now say they were wrong to have so stridently defended former President Bill Clinton against the women who over the years accused him of offenses that ranged from groping to exposing his genitals to rape.
The uncomfortable question is whether Democrats then were guilty of the sin they accuse Republicans of committing now by continuing to support President Donald Trump and Alabama GOP Senate nominee Roy Moore, despite allegations of sexual offenses: Were they also putting partisanship and their desire to hold onto power above the principles they claim to hold dear?
A remarkable exchange of fire began Thursday when Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand — Hillary Clinton’s successor as senator from New York, a staunch backer of her presidential campaign and a talkedabout presidential possibility — told the New York Times that by today’s standards, the “appropriate response” for Bill Clinton would have been to resign when his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky was revealed in 1998.
That brought a retort from longtime Hillary Clinton aide Philippe Reines on Twitter, in which he dismissed the former president’s affair with a subordinate as a “consensual” sex act. Mr. Reines lobbed an additional shot at Ms. Gillibrand: “Over 20 yrs you took the Clintons’ endorsements, money, and seat. Hypocrite. Interesting egy for 2020 primaries. Best of luck.”
In a radio interview with WABC host Rita Cosby on Friday, Hillary Clinton deflected a request for response to Ms. Gillibrand’s tweet: “I don’t exactly know what she was trying to say.”
In the radio interview, Ms. Clinton also was asked whether she should have been more supportive of his female accusers. “Every situation has to be judged on its own merit,” she said. She further said those allegations were investigated and recent comments by others about her husband are not relevant. “I don’t know that we can rewrite and revise history.”
During the 1990s, the allegations about the president’s behavior went far beyond the Lewinsky affair, which led to Mr. Clinton’s impeachment, after he lied about it under oath during a deposition in a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones. She claimed the state’s thengovernor had summoned her in 1991 to a hotel room, where he dropped his pants and asked for oral sex.
At the time, the attitude of many feminist leaders was summed up in a 1998 New York Times op-ed by Gloria Steinem, who wrote that “Mr. Clinton seems to have made a clumsy sexual pass, then accepted rejection.”
Mr. Clinton’s defenders had argued that his infidelities were a private family matter, and that his pro-feminist agenda on the issues had to be protected.