"Bill Clinton should have resigned"

@maxdancona,

Quote:

...at least get the facts straight. Bill Clinton did pay off at least one of his accusers (Paula Jones).

Yeah, one case that was litigated. It wasn't a non-disclosure agreement.

I'm not defending any of these people, I'm criticizing your presumptions. It's simplistic to claim that Cluinton's actions are "the same" as the other three people you mentioned.

Quote:

The bandwagon fallacy is committed by arguments that appeal to the growing popularity of an idea as a reason for accepting it as true. They take the mere fact that an idea suddenly attracting adherents as a reason for us to join in with the trend and become adherents of the idea ourselves.

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@hightor,

Quote:

Yet let us not forget the sex crimes of which the younger, stronger Bill Clinton was very credibly accused in the 1990s. Juanita Broaddrick reported that when she was a volunteer on one of his gubernatorial campaigns, she had arranged to meet him in a hotel coffee shop. At the last minute, he had changed the location to her room in the hotel, where she says he very violently raped her. She said that she fought against Clinton throughout a rape that left her bloodied. At a different Arkansas hotel, he caught sight of a minor state employee named Paula Jones, and, Jones said, he sent a couple of state troopers to invite her to his suite, where he exposed his penis to her and told her to kiss it. Kathleen Willey said that she met him in the Oval Office for personal and professional advice and that he groped her, rubbed his erect penis on her, and pushed her hand to his crotch.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/11/reckoning-with-bill-clintons-sex-crimes/545729/

Ok, so you don't want to lump Bill Clinton in with the "other three" because "it is simplistic". The question then becomes; where do you draw the line?

Are you saying that there is no line here? Are Cinton and Cosby and Roger Ailes and Roy Moore all separate stories that can't be grouped together?

Or are you saying that Bill Clinton is special? The facts are that there are credible accusations from multiple women against Bill Clinton for some pretty despicable behavior including an accusation of rape.

Do you defend Bill Clinton more then you defend Roy Moore or Roger Ailes?

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I don't side with Max that often, but I do in this instance.

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If Trump needs to resign, it doesn't necessarily follow that Bill Clinton should have resigned for doing the same things. The thing is, they are from different political eras, even though they are the same age. It's quite possible that many presidents from the distant past did much worse. We know all about thomas Jefferson and what he was guilty of, as just one example.

EDIT -- but see my next post.

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@maxdancona,

However, if he raped someone, he should have resigned.

Rape was considered one of the worst crimes in his era as well.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

Or are you saying that Bill Clinton is special?

No more "special" than Cosby, Ailes, Trump, Weinstein, Franken, Spacey, Kennedy, or Moore — or any of the victims. You don't seem to understand. I'm not defending Clinton. If you had singled out Moore and said he was "the same" as the others I'd have called you on that. I don't see what good it does to blur the differences in all these cases. Every instance is unique; one perpetrator might physically overpower a victim, another might use alcohol or drugs to incapacitate someone, or a person in a powerful position might threaten economic reprisals. All different means to the same end.

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@edgarblythe,

Quote:

I don't side with Max that often, but I do in this instance.

Whatever floats your boat, Cap.

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@Kolyo,

Kolyo wrote:

If Trump needs to resign, it doesn't necessarily follow that Bill Clinton should have resigned for doing the same things.

Oh yes it does. This nonsense about the rules not needing to apply to Democrats is untenable.

Kolyo wrote:

The thing is, they are from different political eras, even though they are the same age.

Nonsense. The feminists were spouting the same crap about sexual assault back then that they are trying to pull today.

The political standards back then were exactly the same as they are today. The Democrats are just looking for an excuse to avoid the fact that they declared themselves to be above the law.

No one is going to excuse them. The left needs to just pipe down and accept the fact that they have no standing to complain about wrongdoing in other people.

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@Kolyo,

I agree, the operative word being "if." I realize it is thought politically incorrect to say now in this period of time, but I never did find the rape allegations too credible given the political atmosphere at the time when Ken Star was going after everything he possibly could to bring the Clintons down. I doubt there has been a more investigated couple in the US history. At the end of the day, the only things which were provable was he mislead in the Paula Jones case and in his testimony under oath. He got impeached, he lost his license to practice law, he paid in settlements to end the case and his name will forever more be associated with all that crap despite of any good he did as President. He apologized to the nation for misleading on his affair with Monica Lewinsky. So when people say he got away with it, they were entirely wrong. Did all of that rise to level of impeachment and removal from office, no it did not.

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@Kolyo,

Quote:

However, if he raped someone, he should have resigned.

Had Broaddrick pressed charges in 1978 and he had been found guilty he never would even have been president.

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@hightor,

If the responsibility rests on the victims, then Bill Clinton Is still no different than any of the other perpetrators.

Would you make a comment like that about Judge Moore or Roger Ailes?

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@revelette1,

revelette1 wrote:

I never did find the rape allegations too credible given the political atmosphere at the time when Ken Star was going after everything he possibly could to bring the Clintons down.

Ken Starr was not going after everything he possibly could. He confined his investigations to the issues that Attorney General Janet Reno asked him to investigate.

And if you think it would be wrong for a special prosecutor to go after anything and everything to try to damage a president, you must really object to the Mueller investigation?

revelette1 wrote:

At the end of the day, the only things which were provable was he mislead in the Paula Jones case and in his testimony under oath.

You're referring to the crime of perjury there, both when he lied under oath in the Paula Jones case and when he lied under oath before the Starr grand jury.

It was also proven that he committed obstruction of justice when he sent Betty Curry out to remove gifts that he had given Lewinsky before they could be seized by the Starr investigation, and that he committed witness tampering when he tried to coach Betty Curie on how she should testify.

There is also proof that he had sex with a subordinate (Lewinsky) and sexually assaulted Kathleen Wiley.

revelette1 wrote:

He got impeached, he lost his license to practice law, he paid in settlements to end the case and his name will forever more be associated with all that crap despite of any good he did as President. He apologized to the nation for misleading on his affair with Monica Lewinsky. So when people say he got away with it, they were entirely wrong. Did all of that rise to level of impeachment and removal from office, no it did not.

Fine. So none of this supposed wrongdoing by Republicans rises to the level of removal from office either then. I'm sure you'll join me in supporting Roy Moore's right to become a US Senator if the people of his state elect him.

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@maxdancona,

My biggest problem with this line of reasoning, is that it allows anyone across the politica spectrum almost impunity in regards to sexual offenses, with the defense being: "the other side gets away with it too!"

I don't think that's a desirable outcome in this debate. Perhaps what should be done then, is to sue all political prominents accused of sexual offences for the last quarter of a century or so at the same time: it seems better than to leave this problem at the status quo.

PS. Yes, Bill Clinton should have resigned. If he had done so, in all likelihood Hillary Clinton wouldn't have run for the presidency last year either (don't see how she could pull that of if her husband had been accused of sexual offences).

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@revelette1,

Quote:

I realize it is thought politically incorrect to say now in this period of time, but I never did find the rape allegations too credible given the political atmosphere at the time when Ken Star was going after everything he possibly could to bring the Clintons down.

This is nonsense! The rape allegations were made in the 1990s; long before Ken Starr. The allegations against Bill Clinton are just as convincing as those against Kevin Spacey, or Roger Ailes, or Judge More.

It is pure hypocrisy for the Clinton defenders to denounce these other men.

revellette wrote:

but I never did find the rape allegations too credible given the political atmosphere at the time when Ken Star was going after everything he possibly could to bring the Clintons down

Bill Clinton used exactly the same defense that Roy Moore is using. They are both claiming that allegations against them are part of a political conspiracy. Bill Clinton had the "vast right wing conspiracy". Roy Moore claims that the allegations are "a political, direct attack on this campaign".

The response of the Clintons, and Roy Moore to these allegations are quite similar.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

If the responsibility rests on the victims...

I didn't say that. I don't know why charges weren't pressed earlier. Do you? But the fact is, had he been convicted of a crime forty years ago he wouldn't have had a successful political career.

Quote:

Would you make a comment like that about Judge Moore or Roger Ailes?

Sure. It's likely that corporate HR departments weren't that sensitive to workplace discrimination issues when Aisles started his career and as with Moore, if no actual laws were broken it's hard to see how they could have been prosecuted. Duh.

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@najmelliw,

Quote:

My biggest problem with this line of reasoning, is that it allows anyone across the politica spectrum almost impunity in regards to sexual offenses, with the defense being: "the other side gets away with it too!"

Do you really think that sexual harassment should be politicized? If you are condemn sexual harassment, assault and abuse of power, it seems to me that you should do it without any regard to political side.

I am not saying that Roy Moore shouldn't be condemned. If you condemn political harassment committed by Roy Moore, but but then Bill Clinton... this seems like hypocrisy.

You could condemn both... that would be more logical... for some reason people don't want to condemn Bill Clinton.

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@hightor,

Oh boy, are you wrong here!

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@hightor,

Clinton paid settlements—like Weinstein—and threatened his powerless victims.

Try suing a powerful person.

It doesn’t work.

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See why we hate the Clintons. You cultists are a bit late to the party, but better late than never.

You’ll purge yourselves of Clintons and their dirty, disgusting Neera Tanden/Podesta pieces of **** and re-organize with Justice Democrats. You may win then.

Do it now.

http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-clinton-hillary-revisionism-democrats-2017-11

Many liberals and Democrats have begun a reckoning in recent days of Bill Clinton's presidency and the Clintons' domination of Democratic politics for the past two decades.
It would have been much more convenient for Democrats to have rid themselves of the Clintons years ago.

As some liberals have come to realize in recent days that a president having sex with a White House intern is a very bad thing that shouldn't be waved off, some conservative commentators have carped that this timing is awfully convenient - Democrats are only discarding the Clintons once they weren't needed anymore.

This is wrong. This timing is decidedly inconvenient.

It would have been much more convenient for the Democratic Party to jettison the Clintons years ago. There would probably even be a Democratic president right now.

The reputational vortex that drowned us all
As Matt Yglesias notes, Democrats couldn't find the time to break with Bill Clinton over the sex stuff because Hillary's political career was starting just as his was ending.

"Once Hillary Clinton threw her hat into the ring, she immediately became America's presumptive first woman president, creating a kind of reputational vortex that shielded her husband's behavior from scrutiny," Yglesias writes.

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@Lash,

Quote:

Clinton paid settlements—like Weinstein—and threatened his powerless victims.

I know he paid off Paula Jones but I don't recall any factual account of him forcing women to sign non-disclosure agreements and paying out hundreds of thousands of dollars. A million in one reported instance.

Quote:

Try suing a powerful person.

He wasn't that powerful, or that wealthy, in 1978.

1 Reply

"Bill Clinton should have resigned"

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