Can We Talk?

Bill Clinton should have died for your sins.

For me, it started yesterday morning with Matt Yglesias:

In her 2014 Vanity Fair article looking back on the scandal, Lewinsky wrote, “I will always remain firm on this point: it was a consensual relationship. Any ‘abuse’ came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position.”

Bill Clinton, according to Yglesias, should have resigned.  And while Lewinsky said herself, at the time (unlike Yglesias I was an adult at the time, and father of a new born daughter to boot), that she pursued Clinton because he was Clinton (and probably because he was the President), Clinton is responsible for her "abuse."  She was 22 at the time, and the "abuse" (she puts it in quotes) came from dallying with a President.  Lots of people have faced "abuse" for being friends or even family of Presidents.  The leader must be protected for the sake of the nation, even if the protection is only of his/her ability to show leadership.  Intern or family member (anybody remember Jimmy Carter's brother?  I don't think Yglesias is old enough to.), you can find yourself on the wrong end of that need.  It comes with the office.  I don't quite see how that is grounds for resignation.

Should Clinton not have had an affair with Lewinsky?  No doubt.  Should Kennedy have resigned, then? Johnson (yes, LBJ)?  How far back do we go to "correct" history? (I'm old enough to remember Kennedy, though an "affair" at that time would have meant nothing at all to me.  You'd have had to explain "sex" first.  It was a more innocent era.).

And now, we have to acknowledge Bill Clinton was a "cad" (a delightfully archaic term.  I mean, when was the last time anybody said that outside a '40's movie?):

I’m not saying Bill Clinton explains the world. There are multiple cultural trends at work here. Bad people have been doing bad things since time immemorial, so we can’t lay everything that happens at the feet of Bill Clinton (or the men and women who enabled his behavior). What is more, Hollywood (I’m thinking of shows like Mad Men, Californication, and Entourage and movies like Woody Allen’s Manhattan—but I’m sure there are tons of others) has also contributed to mainstreaming norms that are suddenly no longer condoned as… normal.

Ah, where to begin with analysis like that?  "Mad Men" is not praise of Madison Avenue in the '60's: it's rather as if James Bond was much more introspective about his "loves 'em and leaves 'em" attitude.  If anything, I ended that series feeling sorry for the wreck that was Don Draper.  I mean, what's the point of looking like a cartoon pilot (hat tip to Tina Fey) if you're as empty as one of Eliot's "Hollow Men"?  "Californication" I'll give you; but it was a Showtime show meant to be soft-core porn and provide an excuse for women to take off their clothes and mimic sexual activity for people paying premium dollars for fresh access to that stuff (I watched it on Netflix).  "Entourage" I skipped, but I'm reminded frequently of P.G. Wodehouse's quaint (and subtle) criticisms of Hollywood churning out stories that depended on sex to sell tickets (Wodehouse was writing about movies in the '30's, sexually as quaint as "I Wanna Hold Your Hand".  The fundamental, however, hasn't changed, only how blatant, or "graphic," the sex (and the violence) is.  Those "cultural trends," in other words, have been at work for a long, long time before Bill Clinton came along.)

"Manhattan"?  Oh, please; can't we let that tired malarkey go?  There were no sex scenes in the movie, I don't even remember a kiss (there must have been one), and Muriel Hemingway played a young woman mature beyond her years.  It was an honorable and remarkable performance, and yet the only way we can speak of it is as the first indication Allen was a sleaze (still not quite sure why, since there are no stories of Allen exposing himself to women, or masturbating in front of them, or actually dating young girls.  The worst I know is, according to Hemingway, he came to ask her parents' permission to take her to Paris for a weekend.  She declined the offer, and he politely and quietly went away.  Not exactly Roy Moore territory, any of that.  The question of his wife is a separate matter.  They started dating after Allen had ended his relationship with Mia Farrow; and when they married, both were adults.)  This whole discussion of "cultural trends" inevitably leads to some kind of Puritanism we both want and don't want, and it also puts responsibility on someone else, not on me.  In this case, we're pushing responsibility all the way back to Bill Clinton.  Why?  Because these writers don't remember JFK?  Clinton did.

Irony is a harsh mistress.  In a proof she is not dead, you can find links to all the major on-line outlets concerned with this topic, at the New York Times.  How the universe does not eat its own tail at this point is quite beyond me.

I understand the desire to "take the women seriously."  But considering the utter nonsense that was "Whitewater" (or, now Hillary's e-mails and "Uranium One") James Carville's dismissive comment about Paula Jones (“If you drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you’ll find.”) has a context of its own.  Should we reconsider the stories of Ms. Jones and Anita Broaddrick?  Probably; but does that prove Clinton was a rapist?  No; anymore than Beverly Young Nelson's accusations prove Roy Moore is guilty of criminal assault.  It certainly does raise the question of his fitness for office, which has been the argument in response to the defense that there is no proof Moore committed any crimes.  The criminal standard of evidence, however, is not the political standard for voters.

And last I looked, Bill Clinton wasn't running for office anymore.  Should we take him down a peg or two, regardless?  Well, I have no problem with acknowledging the humanity and fallibility of Thomas Jefferson or Alexander Hamilton or even Abraham Lincoln.  Hagiography is always a problem.  And I've never considered Bill Clinton one of the unspoiled exemplars of American exceptionalism.  On the other hand, purging our history by re-writing it, or wishing we could, seems kind of pointless to me.  Retroactively damning Bill Clinton for his affair with Monica Lewinsky sounds like a lame attempt to clean up your own attitudes and bring your history in line with your preferred present, or imagined future.  Maybe you need to do that for yourself, but the adult thing to do is to take responsibility for what you did, and move on.  Bill Clinton did that; why don't we, as well?

Besides, looking to punish people so you feel better, is a mug's game.  What Bill Clinton did to his victims is one thing; what he did to you, me, or Matt Yglesias, is another.  We don't square that circle by wishing now we could punish him, or anyone, then.