The Bill Clinton Problem: Saturday Political Soap Box 143

Yep,  Bill Clinton is a problem.

He's a problem because of his moral behavior.  His previous misdeeds are making it difficult to make a clear conversation about Donald Trump's truly unprecedented horrendous behavior.

At the time, I remember thinking...you know, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if he resigned and Al Gore became President.  I had and have a deep respect and admiration for Al Gore, the man who won the Presidential popular vote in 2000.  Being President would have given him a clear leg up in the next election.  Maybe enough that the Supreme Court wouldn't have coronated second place finisher George W Bush Jr.   We would've checked global warming.  We wouldn't have blown the surplus.  We wouldn't have had 9/11 nor the Iraq War.  We probably could have kept the economy together enough to have prevented the economic collapse of 2008.

But that wasn't to be.  Bill Clinton hung in there and rightfully fought off impeachment charges (they were moral charges, not constitutional ones).

At the time, Bill's behavior was considered boorish, not as a sexual predator.  Standards change.  Twenty years earlier, we probably would have known nothing about his behavior.  The number of Presidents who've had affairs are legion, and range across both parties.  They've even had them while being President.  Really, compared to some of the things past Presidents have done, his indulgences seem more kinda cheap, sleazy and relatively minor.

So why do we even know about them?  Shifting media standards was a small part of it.  A bigger part was the failed Whitewater investigation.  They couldn't turn up anything to prosecute the hated Clinton's for, but Ken Starr stumbled across some sex stuff and decided, what the hell, let's go after him for this.

The whole effect of this backfired on the Republicans.  Bill wound up more popular, not less. People sniffed out the basic unfairness and hypocrisy of this.  It was made clearer over time when one Speaker of the House was having multiple affairs, the next one nominated had to withdraw because of affairs, and the saint finally picked, since retired, is now convicted of sexual predatory behavior with underage boys.

Times have changed again, and a review of Bill's behavior could be seen as mildly sexually predatory.  At least in the sense that he had a power relationship with some of them.

So now we have a true, vicious, amoral sexual predator running for President, and some low-information voters are muting the criticism of Trump by upping the volume on Bill's past.  The bottom line for me is that Bill Clinton was a despicable horn-dog, but he liked women.  His activity is more suggestive of a cheater than a predator.  Like it or not, cheating is abundant in our society, and it is none of our business to delve into individual marriages and see how that is handled.

Hillary and Bill were able to work through their problems and remain together.  Somehow, that's seen as a weakness by Republican fanatics.  It's beyond me how.  I admire her for holding her family together.  I thought that's what we were hoping people would do.

Donald Trump is a monstrous sexual predator.  That's not my words.  Those are his own.  The alt-right is stunned when women come out and claim that he has done the very thing  HE HAS CLAIMED THAT HE HAS DONE.

Bill's behavior was disgusting.  Donald's behavior is evil.

Donald's attempts to lay the blame for this at Hillary's feet is sexist and amoral, and shows clearly, beyond any measure of doubt, what he really thinks of women.  The wife is not to blame for the husband's sexual indiscretions. They have to work that out on their own.

Bill is also a problem because of the legislative compromises in his second term.  Welfare reform, NAFTA, and particular abolishing Glass-Steagall, all seem like pretty poor decisions in the light of current times.  In some ways, I am upset by this.  In others, you have to understand how far to the right Reagan had shifted the base of the American populace.  Triangulating seemed to be the only way to survive.  The biggest, ugliest curse anyone could say to someone was to call them "LIBERAL" (and said as a sixteen syllable word and an intense snarling sneer).

It's only been recently that terms like liberal, progressive and democratic socialist have become acceptable again (thanx and big hat's tip to the bravest politician of our times, Bernie Sanders).  You kinda wish that Bill had more courage, but maybe that's the best he could do at that time.

Am I thrilled that the Clinton's are most likely returning to the White House? Not particularly.  But compared to the world ending event of the narcissistic authoritarian racist sex predator Donald Drumpf?  Let me grab him by the ballot and help make Hillary the President of the United States.

Or, as the woman in the cartoon below says....