Left Turns on Hillary After ‘Tone-Deaf’ Comments on Lewinsky

Left Turns on Hillary After ‘Tone-Deaf’ Comments on Lewinsky

I may be in the minority, but I don’t want failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to shut up because the more she talks, the more people shed her.

Hillary may have put the final nail in her coffin on Sunday when she said her husband’s affair with Monica Lewinsky was not an abuse of power or a reason to resign.

Those comments shocked many, but now the left has turned on her. Publications like Think Progress, The Guardian, and Vanity Fair published scathing articles taking Hillary to town over her comments.

Professor Jacobson wrote about Hillary’s comments, which she made during an interview with CBS:

Hillary Clinton says that her husband was right not to resign from the presidency in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, she told CBS’ “Sunday Morning.” As first lady, she stood by his side as President Bill Clinton was impeached after lying about his affair with Lewinsky, a White House intern.

The former secretary of state said she disagrees with those who now say he should have stepped down.

“In retrospect, do you think Bill should’ve resigned in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal?” correspondent Tony Dokoupil asked.

“Absolutely not,” Clinton said.

“It wasn’t an abuse of power?”

“No. No.”

Let’s not forget that four other women has accused Bill of sexual assault while Juanita Broaddrick has accused him of raping her.

ThinkProgress described Hillary’s comments as “tone deaf in any moment, but they feel particularly inappropriate in this one, with the #MeToo movement raging.”

The article also mentioned the other instances that put Hillary at odds with the #MeToo movement like when she protected adviser Burns Strider who faced sexual harassment accusations during the 2008 campaign.

Then there’s David Axelrod:

Just guessing this isn’t the story Democratic candidates were looking for in the homestretch of the midterms. https://t.co/pxYtVnI0UG

— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) October 15, 2018

The Guardian columnist Suzanne Moore wrote that Hillary’s comments revealed “a huge blind spot – one that cost her the presidency.” She wrote:

Hillary was asked this week on CBS about this affair. After all, she stood at his side after he was impeached for lying. She was asked in retrospect if he should have stood down. “Absolutely not,” she said. “It wasn’t an abuse of power?” “No, no,’” she replied. Lewinsky was an adult. The context was different.

It was not that different. Everything here is wrong. Hillary is right to say Trump should be investigated for sexual misconduct, but this does not excuse her husband. At the time, I could not understand the “feminist” support for Hillary; now, I see it clearly. This was a feminism for entitled, privileged woman; other kinds of women were dispensable. Now it is Lewinskywho emerges with class and Hillary with a blind spot so big that she never did get the prize she felt entitled to.

Vanity Fair published an article that said Hillary’s interview proves that she hasn’t learned the lessons of #MeToo. The article noted that instead of confronting the issue at hand, she deflects to President Donald Trump:

The Clintons, as a unit, have not budged far from their 20-year-old positions: Hillary then stood by her husband at the time and even blamed herself, saying she had not been “sensitive enough” to her husband’s emotions. And over the weekend, she denied there was any extra layer of unseemliness afoot; Lewinsky was an adult at the time, she told CBS, disregarding the power imbalance entirely. Asked about the role she played in criticizing her husband’s accusers—one friend claims Hillary called Lewinsky “a narcissistic loony toon”—Hillary effectively closed the door on any reconsideration of history: “No role. I take responsibility for my life and my actions.”

Politicians are rarely allowed the luxury of wrestling publicly with moral gray areas, much less the Clintons, who have faced charges of moral turpitude—some entirely made up, some not—since the moment they first emerged in national politics. But this is an extraordinary time, with so much rage, hurt, and misunderstanding about behavior from decades past and present. Hillary Clinton clearly wants to redirect this pain toward Trump, a man who surely deserves it. But in this interview, as she has so many times, Clinton has proven to be a singularly imperfect vessel for all that.

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