Monica Lewinsky back in the news

[Dick Whitman]

It's not like the New Republic is influential in Washington or anything.

 

[Bob Cook]

Some perspective -- there will be voters in 2016 who weren't born yet when this happened. If Hillary Clinton is derailed as a presidential candidate, it won't be because of a rehash of the Clinton years. It'll be for the same reason she lost in 2008 -- she ran a campaign of inevitability that failed to connect at any level of humanity compared with the outsider who became the front-runner.

 

[Liut]

I'm actually surprised she's still on the market. Figure she's kind of eager to take a new last name.

I would think trying not to imagine her sucking Bill Clinton's, um, chief of staff is a nonstarter for many potential suitors.

I think you're right.

 

[old_tony]

She's the victim here. Stop the slug shaming. It is very unbecoming. Monica Lewinsky is the victim. To paint her as a villain or a slug or a schemer is to dip into some very ugly gender history in this country. And it also, from a political standpoint, is a sacrificing of the high ground in conversations about gender. You don't get a slug-shame-for-free card by declaring yourself pro-choice.

Of course she's the victim here. But it's the left that did all the mental gymnastics to downplay every aspect of the story. Every woman Bill Clinton had an affair with was deemed a nut or a slug by Clinton defenders and the mainstream media (but I repeat myself). Contrast how Clinton-affair women had the media go after them to how the media went after Limbaugh for using the exact same word on Sandra Fluke. The difference is both stunning and appalling.

And yet you say it's the GOP that behaved "deplorably" and you still consider yourself a Clinton fan "with reservations," as though that pardons the fact that you took the wrong side. Anyone with an IQ above room temperature knows that you and everyone else on the left threw victims -- including one who made a very credible allegation of forced rape -- under the bus for politics. You don't get a pass now for having "reservations."

 

[MisterCreosote]

According to Lynne Cheney, this is all a Clinton campaign ploy to get the Lewinsky story "out of the way."

Cheney also apparently doesn't know when "1998" was and how it relates to our current times and the 2016 presidential election:

Cheney said that releasing the story in 2014 would allow Clinton to run for president and say the story is "old news" once the 2016 presidential campaign kicks into full gear.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/lynne-cheney-hillary-clinton-monica-lewinsky-106434.html

 

[Dick Whitman]

She's the victim here. Stop the slug shaming. It is very unbecoming. Monica Lewinsky is the victim. To paint her as a villain or a slug or a schemer is to dip into some very ugly gender history in this country. And it also, from a political standpoint, is a sacrificing of the high ground in conversations about gender. You don't get a slug-shame-for-free card by declaring yourself pro-choice.

Of course she's the victim here. But it's the left that did all the mental gymnastics to downplay every aspect of the story. Every woman Bill Clinton had an affair with was deemed a nut or a slug by Clinton defenders and the mainstream media (but I repeat myself). Contrast how Clinton-affair women had the media go after them to how the media went after Limbaugh for using the exact same word on Sandra Fluke. The difference is both stunning and appalling.

And yet you say it's the GOP that behaved "deplorably" and you still consider yourself a Clinton fan "with reservations," as though that pardons the fact that you took the wrong side. Anyone with an IQ above room temperature knows that you and everyone else on the left threw victims -- including one who made a very credible allegation of forced rape -- under the bus for politics. You don't get a pass now for having "reservations."

Took the wrong side in what? What's the wrong side?

 

[old_tony]

I didn't say she shouldn't.

So, we're quibbling over semantics?

It's not semantics. Precise language is important here.

You say that she has to answer for what you call the Clinton White House "war on women."

No, she doesn't have to answer for that. She has the woman vote. The idea that the GOP is going to force her into a position where she "has to answer" for that is laughable.

This will be a non-issue. Why you think she "has to" answer for it in order to satisfy a bunch of people who would never vote for her anyway, I don't understand. You know politics better than that.

Now: Should she? "Should" her base think more critically about her? "Should" her extended base think more critically about her? Yes, I think they "should."

But "should" and "has to" are miles and miles apart. This isn't "semantics." It's the kind of precise wording difference that throws you into a tizzy when science journalists use words like "likely" or evolutionary biologists use "theory."

A base incapable of thinking critically helped create the disaster of the last seven years -- Obama's five-year debacle plus the head-start provided by a Pelosi-Reid congress.

 

[old_tony]

She's the victim here. Stop the slug shaming. It is very unbecoming. Monica Lewinsky is the victim. To paint her as a villain or a slug or a schemer is to dip into some very ugly gender history in this country. And it also, from a political standpoint, is a sacrificing of the high ground in conversations about gender. You don't get a slug-shame-for-free card by declaring yourself pro-choice.

Of course she's the victim here. But it's the left that did all the mental gymnastics to downplay every aspect of the story. Every woman Bill Clinton had an affair with was deemed a nut or a slug by Clinton defenders and the mainstream media (but I repeat myself). Contrast how Clinton-affair women had the media go after them to how the media went after Limbaugh for using the exact same word on Sandra Fluke. The difference is both stunning and appalling.

And yet you say it's the GOP that behaved "deplorably" and you still consider yourself a Clinton fan "with reservations," as though that pardons the fact that you took the wrong side. Anyone with an IQ above room temperature knows that you and everyone else on the left threw victims -- including one who made a very credible allegation of forced rape -- under the bus for politics. You don't get a pass now for having "reservations."

Took the wrong side in what? What's the wrong side?

If you don't know that supporting a rapist and trashing the victims is wrong, I can't help you.

 

[jr/shotglass]

Bill bad, Bill good, Hilary bad, Hilary good, whatever.

All I know is I could have gone the rest of my life without seeing this story pop up again. So to speak.

 

[LongTimeListener]

People "in the conversation" want it to be different, want this to matter. It's equal parts ridiculous GOP politics and cable TV remembering what a ratings bonanza it was -- if you're looking for the exact time and place that whole medium went in the shirtter, this is it.

But no matter how many of those "in the conversation" people push, or how hard they push, this jut does not matter to the American people. Christ Almighty, we had a 10-year military fork-up since then, with continuing repercussions, that the same people want to say is old history that doesn't matter.

 

[YankeeFan]

So "she won't have to answer for the prior White House policies" has been narrowed to "no one will ask her directly about her husband's 'war on women' in a sit-down interview that she hand-selects."

If the media that has access to her, doesn't ask her, and influential columnists like Ruth Marcus don't call for her to answer for it, then who will?

And, it's not just her husband's "war on women" (cute that you put it in quotes by the way, considering it's a Dem term), she was a General in the war. She was a part of it.

 

[Dick Whitman]

She's the victim here. Stop the slug shaming. It is very unbecoming. Monica Lewinsky is the victim. To paint her as a villain or a slug or a schemer is to dip into some very ugly gender history in this country. And it also, from a political standpoint, is a sacrificing of the high ground in conversations about gender. You don't get a slug-shame-for-free card by declaring yourself pro-choice.

Of course she's the victim here. But it's the left that did all the mental gymnastics to downplay every aspect of the story. Every woman Bill Clinton had an affair with was deemed a nut or a slug by Clinton defenders and the mainstream media (but I repeat myself). Contrast how Clinton-affair women had the media go after them to how the media went after Limbaugh for using the exact same word on Sandra Fluke. The difference is both stunning and appalling.

And yet you say it's the GOP that behaved "deplorably" and you still consider yourself a Clinton fan "with reservations," as though that pardons the fact that you took the wrong side. Anyone with an IQ above room temperature knows that you and everyone else on the left threw victims -- including one who made a very credible allegation of forced rape -- under the bus for politics. You don't get a pass now for having "reservations."

Took the wrong side in what? What's the wrong side?

If you don't know that supporting a rapist and trashing the victims is wrong, I can't help you.

First of all, I reject the premise: "rapist." Second of all, I haven't trashed the victim. I've been supportive of her.

Do I support some of Bill Clinton's policies? Yes. Do I admire some of his personal characteristics outside of his relationships with women? Yes.

It's not binary to me.