It was Hillary Clinton who called Gennifer Flowers "trailer trash" and a "failed cabaret singer who doesn't even have much of a re'sume'," and who got on national television with her husband to ridicule Flowers, who was telling the truth. It was Hillary who called Monica Lewinsky, who was telling the truth, a "narcissistic loony toon." It was Hillary who described Bill's mistresses as "bimbos." Carl Bernstein also told how Hillary not only "thr[e]w herself into efforts to discredit Flowers," she tried to "persuade horrified campaign aides to bring out rumors that Poppy Bush had not always been faithful to Barbara."
Hillary could have stood by her man, and said nothing about the women Bill was screwing. Instead, she chose to publicly and aggressively slut-shame and ridicule those women in order to actively support her husband's lies about them. Hillary Clinton did to those women what Clarence Thomas and Alan Simpson did to Anita Hill. To quote Henneberger and Lithwick again: "If her biggest fans knew who she really blamed--other women--they might not still be fans."
That's what's causing Hillary to "tread lightly" now, and that's what you'd never know from reading this NYT article, even though it's exactly what the article purports to explain. Furthermore, the NYT and the author know these facts and have deliberately chosen to hide them within vague terms like "imperfections" and, you know, "It's complicated." For the Times, what occurred between Hillary and these women has all been so "painful" and "haunting"--for Hillary. That's a kind of rhetorical protection that the NYT would never offer one of its/the Democratic establishment's political opponents.
In other words, the NYT article is not a good-faith attempt to inform us about, and analyze, Hillary's problem. It's an effort to hide it. Rather than explain Hillary's avoidance, Ms. Chozicko mimics it.
This whole rigmarole reflects a fundamental problem: Does anybody really contend, in a principled and consistent way, that a candidate's (man or woman) personal nasty sexual behavior in itself disqualifies that person for the presidency? Or doesn't everyone actually use that issue only opportunistically--to attack the candidate they don't like for other political reasons?
Lyndon Johnson used to wave around his dick--which he called Jumbo--and once forced himself on a White House secretary, showing up at her bed and ordering her to "Move over. This is your president." Is any Democratic Party liberal going to say we should denounce his presidency solely on that behavior (straight-up rape!), or will they insist on prioritizing things like the Civil Rights Act and Medicare? (For that matter, will his opponents not prioritize things like the Vietnam War?) Will any of them judge Richard Nixon to be a better president or political persona because he was more "correct" in his sexual behavior?
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