@blatham,
Very "bright?"
This is a perfect example of intellect and eloquence used to emit a very dark
brightness. I admit to not being familiar with Ms. Goldberg, but I have taken note of her here. I fully expect to see her increase her presence and influence and to become one of blatham's most favored scribes. She is a rising propaganda rock star
This column is stunningly cynical and an obvious attempt at having one's cake and eating it too.
At long last, some on the Left are coming to grips with their egregious hypocrisy and, worse, betrayal of the feminist ideals they claimed to hold in such high honor, for the sake of a shabby and purely partisan advantage
In defending Bill Clinton, the sexual predator and acts for which they would have sought crucifixion, if he had been Republican, the Left (and most glaringly, the Feminist left) revealed the shallow nature of their principles, and the truth (of which many of us were already well aware) that despite the image they sought to manufacture, their claim to idealism was no different than the roundly condemned vehicle their hated opponents on the Right used in their pursuit of power.
For decades after their progressive hero, the brilliant, but deeply bent Clinton used his power and privilege to seduce vulnerable teenagers, intimidate the objects of his lust, and grope, manhandle and even rape the very women whose rights he professed to champion, the Left has stalwartly refused to veer from their rigid insistence that the president who earned the moniker "Slick Willy" was guilty of nothing more than being something of a randy rogue. His sins were trifling in a public context and only his long-suffering and long expectant wife Hillary was entitled to judge him. If she was willing to endure his philandering in order to exploit his political power and brilliance to further her own ambitions, who were we to intrude?
It was just a blowjob damn it!
To what should be their shame they either joined Hilary in castigating the
bimbos who by accusing her husband of sexual abuse threatened to render all of her suffering for naught, or defended her as the sympathetic female victim who was desperate to salvage her wretched marriage. Incredibly some even attempted to deny that a smear campaign was ever orchestrated by Hillary and the Clinton Machine.
As recently as a few days ago the A2K defense of Clinton was unshakeable, but just recently snood made a distinct point to offer criticism of Bill Clinton, and blatham began to go wobbly on the matter.
Why this sea change?
Apparently, as a result of the seismic shocks of recent revelations about the sexual predation of identifiably left-wing entertainers and journalists, the mortar in the Clinton wall of defense has begun to crumble. It was one thing to defend Clinton when the greater danger was the possibility of the enemy's victory but something very different when they were standing on network and social media soap boxes decrying the toxic masculinity of Harvey Weinstein, Mark Halperin, Tyler Grasham, Kevin Spacey, Casey Afleck, Louis CK and so many others for acts identical or very similar to those of which Clinton has been accused. The weight of hypocrisy became too great for the wall to bear.
Then came the allegations against the despised and feared Roy Moore. Even those who had clung to the security of the liberal double standard for decades found it difficult to hold true to it while righteously roaring condemnation of the would-be Alabama Senator. It was tougher than ever before to draw a distinction between Clinton and curs like Moore, Bill O'Reilly, and Roger Ailes, and since it was clear to them that the Right would never, in it's efforts to distract attention from the current crop of conservative knaves, give up on resurrecting the sins of Bill Clinton, sexual predator, it was decided the best response was to throw Bill under the bus and take him off the board. After all, since he was president he's done very little for the cause other than to embarrass it with his continued escapades and the corruption of his foundation, and his long-suffering wife who benefits from the defensive has proved herself to be a colossal loser who will never win again and someone a great many Democrats hope would just go away. What good was the unshakeable defense?
Most importantly though, there is a new generation of left-wing activists who, in their youthful folly, actually seem to take feminist principles seriously and are not willing to give liberal predators a pass because they might vote to expand abortion rights. For some time now they have seen Bill Clinton for what he is and they are quite aware of Hillary's attempt to brutalize, for a second time, her husband's victims. Fleetwood Mac songs don't trigger nostalgic waves for them and the feeble, leering old goat holds no allure for them, even when he bites his lower lip. They are the new clutch of young ideological monsters perfectly willing to turn on and destroy their creators, and they are not having any of the Slick Will apologia. Their creators have not given up trying to harness and exploit them and so are not prepared to court their rage by maintaining a facade that no longer serves any purpose but stubbornness.
Michele Goldberg, (a black belt in epistemological martial arts) attempts with this piece to straddle both the old and new left-wing worlds, and like Hayes (and perhaps snood and blatham) get out in front of the inevitable banishment of Bill Clinton into the pits of ignominy and his wife to that circle of Hell devoted to pathetic losers.
At once she attempts to stake her claim for representation of the New Left with the title of her piece alone: "I Believe Juanita." This one phrase signals that she is a
true feminist who gives the (alleged) victim's claim far greater credence than the accused's defenses. It also nicely puts a period to the matter. "I believe Juanita, period. Bill Clinton was a predatory pig, and now that we've put that issue to bed let's move on to the evil that is the Republican party, and the predatory pig who we can't allow to win a seat in the Senate."
However, mindful that the older generation of her readers may not be quite ready to see Slick Willy paraded down Broadway wearing a dunce cap and a placard identifying him as an enemy of Women and the People in general; all the while jeered at and taunted by radical students in surgical masks, she presents a "bright" switcheroo of which Marc Antony might be proud.
Yeah, I believe her now (mostly), but those of you who didn't back in the day were justified in your skepticism because of the vile bad faith of the Republican Smear Machine. Clinton was a pig, but he's irrelevant. He no longer has a place in decent society (despite the fact that less than a year ago you were all wildly cheering him and shedding tears of nostalgia when he appeared at his wife's convention) so you don't need to feel bad about your defense of him. You couldn't help it, you weren't defending a sexual predator, you were defending the nation against the vile Right. Besides, he can't do anything for us anymore, so it's OK to kick him to the gutter where he belongs. But hey don't let this become a habit because the Right is going to keep up their attacks against all that is decent, by trying to use our perverts against us. That defensive wall may come in handy down the line if we manage to put another abuser of women in the White House. I now absolve you of all of your sins.
It will work too.
