Playing the 'Bill card' against Hillary

[lostinblue 1,989]

Playing the 'Bill card' against Hillary

It's what she gets for playing the 'war on women card' against Trump.

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.’ ”

Steinem must not have attended any human resources lectures lately. And accusations from Juanita Broaddrick are worse: Clinton persuaded her to have coffee with him in her hotel room during a conference of nursing home administrators in 1978. She alleges that he then forced her on to the bed, where he held her down, bit her lips and raped her. Broaddrick, too, was attacked by the Clinton camp, but as Alex Griswold wrote in Mediaite, “The media and Democrats alike elected not to believe a single accusation” against him, adding that “Clinton’s own stalwart ally James Carville was just as blatant: ‘Drag a $100 bill through a trailer park, there’s no telling what you’ll find,’ he said.”

Even before Trump, people — though, notably, not members of the news media — were already quizzing Hillary Clinton about her record on rape and abuse. After she tweeted that rape accusers should be believed, a woman at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire asked Hillary whether that applied to her husband’s accusers, mentioning Broaddrick, Willey and Jones. Clinton’s awkward reply: "I would say that everybody should be believed at first until they are disbelieved based on evidence."

Neither Republican candidates nor journalists have been willing to make a big issue of Bill’s shady sex-abuse record and Hillary’s enabling. Trump, on the other hand, went there, with devastating effect. Which raises a question: If Hillary can’t win by playing the “woman card,” can she win at all?

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor, is the author of The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself, and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/12/30/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-war-on-women-sexism-bill-clinton-column/78042704/

[lostinblue 1,989]

[Merle 458]

I always thought it was quite hypocritical that Hillary could talk about women's rights in any way while being married to a sexual predator for the last 40 years. I'm amazed it took this long for anyone to call her out on it.

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

I always thought it was quite hypocritical that Hillary could talk about women's rights in any way while being married to a sexual predator for the last 40 years. I'm amazed it took this long for anyone to call her out on it.

It's just a vast right wing conspiracy

[lostinblue 1,989]

I always thought it was quite hypocritical that Hillary could talk about women's rights in any way while being married to a sexual predator for the last 40 years. I'm amazed it took this long for anyone to call her out on it.

Perhaps the reason why is so many folks have died that had connections to Killary

[Dashinka 24,519]

Hillary will have a tough time with this one. The Dems have been pushing the whole "war on women" theme lately, but with Bill in the background, I can see problems. Particularly if the media ever gets the gonads to actually ask her about it.

[Dakine10 5,452]

It would be nice if Republicans could actually take advantage of this with a candidate or two who is actually electable. Instead we get Trump, Carson, and Cruz, doing their best impersonations of Larry, Curly and Moe.

[lostinblue 1,989]

When does Bill Clinton get indicted for his alleged sex crimes .. Or does the white guy get away with it ?

[lostinblue 1,989]

Two sexual predators. One charged with assault, one celebrated in the Democrat Party, even the key note speaker at their last convention.

[Dakine10 5,452]

And yet the apparent alternative would be voting for Donald Trump. SMH@partyofstupid

[smilesammich 10,727]

i got no beef with bill, and i would never give hillary credit for killing feminism.

but i'm pretty sure if trump got elected, ya'll conservatives are going to see a wave of neofeminism like nothing else before it..natural reaction to voting such a pig into office.

[Dashinka 24,519]

And yet the apparent alternative would be voting for Donald Trump. SMH@partyofstupid

Not a big Trump fan, but I would take anyone from the Republican side over Hillary. She is incapable of telling the truth, and cannot be trusted with anything that might be classified as a national security issue.

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

Saying Hillary does not share in the blame, for Bill's years as a sexual predator would be like saying a mother who knew her daughter was being sexual abusef, by her husband but did nothing to stop it is not guilty

[Dakine10 5,452]

Not a big Trump fan, but I would take anyone from the Republican side over Hillary. She is incapable of telling the truth, and cannot be trusted with anything that might be classified as a national security issue.

Unfortunately, you don't get to vote for anyone from the Republican side, you get to vote for the single nominee who wins. Thus far the so called "cream" of the Republican crop all seem to be a little off.

There are many in the middle who don't care for the Clinton's, and maybe some will just stay home on election day, but the rest - they sure aren't going to be swayed by someone like Trump. Eight years ago after Obama was elected, the Republicans talked a lot about the need to appeal to a larger demographic. They need to do more than talk.

[lostinblue 1,989]