Sunday, January 03, 2016

Playing the 'Bill card' against Hillary

Reynolds: Playing the 'Bill card' against Hillary:
Hillary Clinton stepped in it big time. Trotting out the “war on women” card that she has played so effectively, she charged Donald Trump with sexism.
But Trump, unlike other Republican candidates in the past, wasn’t having any of it.
He fired back, on Twitter, ”If Hillary thinks she can unleash her husband, with his terrible record of women abuse, while playing the women's card on me, she's wrong!”
And boom!
The issue switched to President Clinton’s record, turning him from a campaign asset to a campaign liability.
As the only president to be impeached over sexual harassment (technically, for lying about sexual harassment), and as a political figure who has faced numerous accusations of rape and sexual abuse, Bill Clinton isn’t a good choice for feminist standard-bearer.
Worse yet, bringing up Bill’s misbehavior also brings up Hillary’s role in covering for his abuses, and in attacking and humiliating his accusers.
Even The Washington Post’sRuth Marcus concluded that Trump was right, and that Bill’s awful record with women is "fair game.”
The former president, Marcus noted, has a real problem.
“ 'Sexism' isn’t the precise word for his predatory behavior toward women or his inexcusable relationship with a 22-year-old intern.
Yet in the larger scheme of things, Bill Clinton’s conduct toward women is far worse than any of the offensive things that Trump has said. 
Trump has smeared women because of their looks
Clinton has preyed on them, and in a workplace setting where he was by far the superior. 
That is uncomfortable for Clinton supporters but it is unavoidably true.”
Yes, and it’s a pretty ugly story.
As The New York Times' Maureen Dowd wrote, feminism died when Hillary and other top Democratic women circled the wagons around Bill and attacked his accusers:
“Feminism died in 1998 when Hillary allowed henchlings and Democrats to demonize Monica (Lewinsky) as an unbalanced stalker, and when Gloria Steinem defended Mr. Clinton against Kathleen Willey and Paula Jones by saying he had merely made clumsy passes, then accepted rejection, so there was no sexual harassment involved.
As to his dallying with an emotionally immature (22-year-old), Ms. Steinem noted, ‘Welcome sexual behavior is about as relevant to sexual harassment as borrowing a car is to stealing one.’ ”...

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