Wednesday, January 20, 2016

"’90s Scandals Threaten to Erode Hillary Clinton’s Strength With Women"

NYT: [T]he resurfacing of the scandals of the 1990s has brought about a rethinking among some feminists about how prominent women stood by Mr. Clinton and disparaged his accusers after the “bimbo eruptions,” as a close aide to the Clintons, Betsey Wright, famously called the claims of affairs and sexual assault against Mr. Clinton in his 1992 campaign.

Even some Democrats who participated in the effort to discredit the women acknowledge privately that today, when Mrs. Clinton and other women have pleaded with the authorities on college campuses and in workplaces to take any allegation of sexual assault and sexual harassment seriously, such a campaign to attack the women’s character would be unacceptable.

Back then, Mr. Clinton’s aides, having watched Gary Hart’s presidential hopes unravel over his relationship with Donna Rice in the 1988 Democratic primary race, were determined to squash any accusations against Mr. Clinton early and aggressively, former campaign aides explained. Mrs. Clinton had supported the effort to push back against the women’s stories.

Much of her involvement played out behind the scenes, and was driven, in part, by her sense that right-wing forces were using the women and salacious stories to damage her husband’s political ambitions. Her reflex was to protect him and his future, and, early on, she turned to a longtime Clinton loyalist, Ms. Wright, to defend him against the allegations, according to multiple accounts at the time, documented in books and oral histories.

“We have to destroy her story,” Mrs. Clinton said of one of the first women to come forward during her husband’s first presidential campaign, Connie Hamzy, in 1991, according to George Stephanopoulos, a former Clinton administration aide who described the events in his memoir, “All Too Human.’’ (Three people signed sworn affidavits saying Ms. Hamzy’s story was false.)

When Gennifer Flowers later surfaced, claiming that she had a long affair with Mr. Clinton, Mrs. Clinton undertook an “aggressive, explicit direction of the campaign to discredit” Ms. Flowers, according to an exhaustive biography of Mrs. Clinton, “A Woman in Charge,” by Carl Bernstein.

Mrs. Clinton referred to Monica Lewinsky, the White House intern who had an affair with the 42nd president, as a “narcissistic loony toon,” according to one of her closest confidantes, Diane D. Blair, whose diaries were released to the University of Arkansas after her death in 2000. Ms. Lewinsky later called the comment an example of Mrs. Clinton’s impulse to “blame the woman.”

Brian Fallon, a spokeswoman for Mrs. Clinton, said that “these are attempts to draw Hillary Clinton into decades-old allegations through recent fabrications that are unsubstantiated.” He added that Mrs. Clinton “has spent her whole life standing up for women, and charges to the contrary are grossly unfair and untrue.”

21 comments:

bagoh20 said...

This is an area where Trump is strong. His wife gives him no reason to sacrifice his integrity or national security just to get his cigar in a humidor. I don't understand lapses like Bill Clinton's or David Petraeus's. We all get horny, but damn, control yourself. I give Hillary some of the blame for Bill's. She was always dependable running defense for him, so why not take advantage. Hillary facilitated rape.

bagoh20 said...

Have you heard? ISIS is cutting their fighters' pay by 50%. Democrats demand union representation. Sanders attacks ISIS leaders as greedy. Demands higher minimum wage.

Finally Obama's wage wrecking policies reach our enemies.

Leland said...

Bags, I get your comment about Trump's wife as a joke, but he had affair during his first marriage. He's on his third marriage. By comparison, Petraues has been more committed in his relationships.

As for the trouble Hillary is facing, it was as obvious as the 11:30 train the moment she decided to run on her issue of War on Women. She was the general in her own little battle on other women as her husband seeker the Presidency.

ricpic said...

Rodham tried to shut Juanita Broaddrick up about Clinton's attempted rape of Broaddrick. Of course you don't have to believe Broaddrick's account of Rodham approaching her and saying, "Bill and I appreciate everything you do. Everything." Rodham then tried to take Broaddrick's hand but Broaddrick fled from "the enforcer" at that point. Rings true to me. Especially that second "everything." For once the word chilling applies.

bagoh20 said...

I admire Kirsten Powers. She is one of the few Democrats who respects the truth and admits the obvious when she sees it. I can often see the embarrassment in her eyes when she finds herself on the wrong side of the truth, but she still usually admits it.

I haven't seen 13 Hours yet, but I will soon. HERE she admits the obvious again.

Methadras said...

bagoh20 said...

I admire Kirsten Powers. She is one of the few Democrats who respects the truth and admits the obvious when she sees it. I can often see the embarrassment in her eyes when she finds herself on the wrong side of the truth, but she still usually admits it.

I haven't seen 13 Hours yet, but I will soon. HERE she admits the obvious again.


It's great that she admits it, but she still supports these people, which is a tacit approval of their behaviors. it's one thing to be out in the open and publicly denounce this, but when the rubber meets the road, she is beholden to them like all the democrats are.

bagoh20 said...

But Meth, she's hotter than Palin.

edutcher said...

"Threaten to erode"?

It was never there. Really.

All the "experts" said women would rally around her because she had a twat.

Just like they rallied around Geraldine Ferraro, remember?

Chip Ahoy said...

I do not admire Kristen Powers. She's ALWAYS behind everyone else. And her incredibly obvious affected stuttering isn't endearing. But it is contagious and she infected all FOX with it. Didn't you notice the change upon her arrival? Affected stuttering syndrome swept the whole place instantly, took hold and set up.

If we were Trey Parker and Matt Stone and Kristen Powers were Utah Mormons we'd write a song about her and it'd go like this:

♬Kristen Powers said the same thing
We all said last week.
♬How she smiles and how she glowers
her assertations weak.
♬Dum dum dum dum duuuuuuum.

You can tell we spend a lot of time on our songs.

Hillary Clinton, goodness gracious. My friends, these are postcards from the depth of the vast catch basin. To say she is sunk is to speak from the outer world and not make any sense from within it, from within the catch basin to sink means to rise to its greatest depths. This sounds inverted to you but this is the thick heavy viscous goop of the vast catch basin.

You know what? I'd rather show you something else entirely.

Erase your chalkboard.

POP QUIZ !

Oh goodie gumdrops I love pop quizzes.

You're interpreting along and the subject is McDonalds changing in the future. "Gone are the red-and-yellow color palette and harsh lighting."

You show that directly by dropping "palette" it totally goofs up the whole thing. You don't want to stick the visual image of an artists palette in there just to satisfy the English locution when the image goofs up the simplicity of the statement. It is not a sacrifice of word or concept. It is clarity.

"In their place a sleek black-and-white logo, ambient lighting, glass and metallic interiors and… a salad bar."

You know the sign for metal

You know the sign for glass

Exact same thing innit. Because tapping your teeth means "hard material like that, you know, like glass or metal or something."

All that in a signal.

So you change the English sentence to combine them and show it throughout.

And this is why it is crucially important you brush your teeth and get that spinach out each and every time before you go out talking to people because you never know when you'll be called upon to tap your teeth to convey something hard, some material, you know, like metal or glass or something.

bagoh20 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bagoh20 said...

Maybe I should have said I admire Powers more than others on the left. I think she will at some point leave them, because the left has already moved away from what she knows in her heart is true. You can see it in the eyes.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The one thing Hillary counted on to take her to the top is also threatening her should she make too much hay out of it.

Twist of Bill.

Amartel said...

It's kind of a live by the sword, die by the sword sort of thing. IYKWIMAITYD. Ironic!
It is nice to see that some women are waking up, about 30 years late of course, to the reality of the disgusting Clinton Family Follies. They think they've got effective options: Crazy Uncle Bern, Fauxcahontas, Doddering Daddy Brown. If they didn't, they'd still be backing her. Party Uber Alles.

Amartel said...

All the lefties on Fox have their pet "conservative" issue which is supposed to inspire the Newfound Respect (like when conservative dies and is suddenly found to be a paragon compared to conservatives who continue to live). Of the lefties on Fox, Kristin is the least offensive. She found God. I used to like Juan but he has deployed stock lefty argumentation tactics far too many times to be credible. Geraldo should be shot into space. I miss Beckel.

Methadras said...

Hillary talking about anything relating to womens issues is like a rapist talking about how the women made him do it. She has less than zero credibility on this. Just because she has a vagina that we know of, that has been used only once, that we know of (and frankly I don't even want to know) doesn't make her a paragon of womens issues.

Methadras said...

bagoh20 said...

But Meth, she's hotter than Palin.


No she isn't. I mean, I wouldn't deny her, but Palin is way way way hotter.

Methadras said...

bagoh20 said...

Maybe I should have said I admire Powers more than others on the left. I think she will at some point leave them, because the left has already moved away from what she knows in her heart is true. You can see it in the eyes.


Even more so than the eyes, you can hear it when she talks. It's like she knows being a lefty is just vacuous bullshit and she doesn't even know how to come out and admit it anymore, but she's stuck in the role given to her, so she has to go through the motions. She's going to have to make a choice sooner than she thinks, because in her circle, you know she is getting her balls busted about it. You can see the conflict whenever she talks. It's like all the Baghdad Bob memes out on the internet.

Methadras said...

Amartel said...

All the lefties on Fox have their pet "conservative" issue which is supposed to inspire the Newfound Respect (like when conservative dies and is suddenly found to be a paragon compared to conservatives who continue to live). Of the lefties on Fox, Kristin is the least offensive. She found God. I used to like Juan but he has deployed stock lefty argumentation tactics far too many times to be credible. Geraldo should be shot into space. I miss Beckel.


It's funny seeing Juan go through his issues when he was at PBS and how he got ousted there, PBS being one of the last taxpayer funded bastions of leftist strongholds, and then having all of his Fox Friends circle the wagons around him in the hopes that he might change sides. Nope, even though he took the racist bullshit he took from PBS, it still didn't change his mind that his ideology and those that practice is are just devious scam artists using his melanin as a cover for their racism. In fact, lately, he's doubled down on his leftism. Geraldo is just a douchebag punk ass bitch that needs his nose broken again and permanently this time. I miss that fat fuck Beckel like a bullet misses it's casing.

Amartel said...

Beckel had a more varied and vulgar array of lefty argumentation tactics. Will Beckel drop an F-bomb? Will he leer at the nearest set of boobies while deploring the War on Women? Will he nod off and snore loudly during Bolling's segment? Has he prepared any thoughts in advance or even read the topic before he filibusters? Is he drunk or high? (Either/or question.) That's Entertainment. Juan is just going through the motions, I think. He's hired to be the voice of the left which, at this point, means defending an awful lot of indefensible stuff on a station where Media Matters does not write or even edit the script. It must be exhausting and dispiriting. Even his own kid(s) is a Republican. He's got his typical ploys (stunned amazement that anyone would think that gambling was going on, disgust that R's won't wait for "the facts" to come out before leaping to conclusions, sneaky misrepresentation/omission of facts that have -somehow- come out, Republican investigations that "never end," selective poll citation, unrealistic claims about what "the American people have spoken") in heavy rotation. He's is always a gentleman about it but it's just gotten to be such a tired schtick.

AllenS said...

Plus, after you had sex with Palin, she could grab her gun and go to the woods, and shoot dinner.

Methadras said...

AllenS said...

Plus, after you had sex with Palin, she could grab her gun and go to the woods, and shoot dinner.


Mmmm, hungry.