Bill Clinton legacy in trouble as supporters jump ship
BILL Clinton’s past has come back to haunt him amid a wave of sexual assault allegations against high-profile figures like Harvey Weinstein and Roy Moore.
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BILL Clinton’s legacy is in trouble as the former US President’s name is dragged into the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
Allegations of sexual assault against Weinstein have had a domino effect, and led to allegations against high-profile figures such as Al Franken and Roy Moore.
But according to Caitlin Flanagan, a commentator for The Atlantic, Clinton didn’t suffer the career-ending ramifications Weinstein has experienced. “Clinton was not left to the swift and pitiless justice that today’s accused men have experienced,” she wrote.
Even feminist icon Gloria Steinem was quick to come to Clinton’s defence during the Lewinsky scandal.
But in 2017, sexual assault allegations are scrutinised more closely. The shift hasn’t done Clinton’s reputation any favours. A number of democratic journalists and politicians have recanted their previous support for the former President.
Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported. https://t.co/mkD69RHeBL
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 23, 2015
Columnist Michelle Goldberg wrote in the New York Times: “I Believe Juanita.” ‘Juanita’ refers to Juanita Broaddrick, who claims Clinton raped her in 1978.
“It’s fair to conclude that because of Broaddrick’s allegations, Bill Clinton no longer has a place in decent society,” Goldberg wrote.
Co-founder of Vox.com, Matthew Yglesias, followed Goldberg’s lead. He admitted he was wrong to be excited by Clinton’s survival of the Lewinsky scandal in an op-ed titled: “Bill Clinton should have resigned.”
I wonder how much healthier a place we’d be in as a society today if Bill Clinton had resigned in shame back in 1998.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) November 10, 2017
“I’ve come to see that the scandal was never about infidelity or perjury — or at least, it shouldn’t have been. It was about power in the workplace and its use,” he wrote.
The exploitation of power by high-profile men is at the heart of the controversy surrounding Weinstein, Kevin Spacey and the multiple other powerful men accused of sexual misdemeanours.
As allegations against Republican senate candidate Roy Moore emerged, it became increasingly clear Democrats could no longer apply one set of standards to Clinton and another to the Moores of the world.
As gross and cynical and hypocrtical as the right's "what about Bill Clinton" stuff is, it's also true that Democrats and the center left are overdue for a real reckoning with the allegations against him.
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) November 10, 2017
The tide is beginning to turn. Democratic Mayor of New York City Bill de Blasio admitted that if Clinton’s scandal happened today, the ramifications would be very different.
“If any president did that today, they would have to resign,” he said, according to the New York Post.
According to The Washington Post, Democratic Senator Kristen Gillibrand also said resignation would have been the “appropriate response”.
She added: “Things have changed today, and I think under those circumstances, there should be a very different reaction.”
Jason Riley, who writes for The Wall Street Journal,thinks the Democrats’ condemnation of Clinton has come too late. “The political left had a teachable moment two decades ago and didn’t learn anything from it,” he wrote.
Originally published as Bill Clinton legacy in trouble as supporters jump ship