[Guest Post by Lee Stranahan]
Sex scandals are really about everything but sex. They are about the reactions to the scandal. The denials, the cover-ups, the acting and the actors, the defenders, the turnabouts, the exposure, the predicable patterns of response. The way the waves ripple out from the event in the center, crashing into each other and forming other waves.
So there’s no small amount of irony that Rep. Anthony Weiner – a young-ish, ambitious politician on the way up who finds himself in the middle of a currently widening all-American new-media sex scandal – has deep, almost familial connections to the Papa Bear of modern U.S. sex scandals, former President William Jefferson Clinton.
Clinton officiated at Weiner’s wedding less than a year ago…
He’s not exactly the poster boy for matrimony, but former President Clinton got to try his hand at marriage once more this weekend.
Clinton was chosen to preside over the lavish wedding of Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., to longtime Secretary of State Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
According to a source at the wedding, the former president joked "marrying a politician can be tough because it’s ‘easy to distrust them whatever their religion,’" the New York Daily News reported.
And so it’s not hard to assume that Weiner is going to take some direction from the way President Clinton weathered his own troubles…which doesn’t bode well for any women that Weiner may have been involved with in any way.
The ugly reality is that, time and again, the liberal, Democratic strategy is to not just throw The Woman under the bus, but to then also back the bus up and drive over the body a few times to make sure it stops moving. This misogyny can be committed freely, too, because the liberal, Democratic assassins have the sanctimony of being ‘the party of women.’
Whatever your political persuasion, the most brilliant, searing and honest essay on the Bill Clinton sex scandal was written by the late liberal Marjorie Williams. You owe it to yourself to read the entire thing – seriously, it’s a great, important piece – but here’s how it opens…
OKAY, class, let’s review: The man in question has been sued for sexual harassment over an episode that allegedly included dropping his trousers to waggle his erect penis at a woman who held a $6.35-an-hour clerical job in the state government over which he presided. Another woman has charged that when she asked him for a job he invited her into his private office, fondled her breasts, and placed her hand on his crotch. A third woman conceded to friends that when she was a 21-year-old intern she began an affair with the man – much older, married, and the head of the organisation whose lowliest employee she was. Actually, it was less an affair than a service contract, in which she allegedly dashed into his office, when summoned, to perform oral sex on him. After their liaison was revealed, he denied everything, leaving her to be portrayed as a tramp and a liar. Or, in his own words, "that woman".
Let us not even mention the former lover who was steered to a state job; or the man’s alleged habit of using law-enforcement officers to solicit sexual partners for him; or his routine use of staff, lawyers, and private investigators to tar the reputation of any woman who tries to call him to account for his actions. Can you find the problems with his behaviour? Take your time: these problems are apparently of an order so subtle as to escape the notice of many of the smartest women in America – the writers, lawyers, activists, office-holders, and academics who call themselves feminists.
When news broke that Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr was investigating whether President Clinton had lied under oath about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, or encouraged others to lie, the cacophony that ensued was notable for the absence of one set of voices: the sisterly chorus that backed up Anita Hill seven years ago when her charges of sexual harassment nearly stopped Clarence Thomas’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.
With very few exceptions, feminists were either silent or dismissive this time. "If anything, it sounds like she put the moves on him," said Susan Faludi, author of Backlash. Betty Friedan weighed in, but only to huff her outrage that Clinton’s "enemies are attempting to bring him down through allegations about some dalliance with an intern… Whether it’s a fantasy, a set-up or true, I simply don’t care."
Because of the liberal Democratic street cred on women’s issue, Alpha Male Liberal Politicians attract wide-eyed idealistic young ladies. When I worked at NBC, Senator Barack Obama appeared on The Tonight Show. I saw him in the hallway, said hello and shook his hand. Standing next to me was a girl in her early twenties and her mouth was literally hanging open looking up at Obama. She was quivering. Literally quivering. I’ve seen women around some big celebrities. Rock stars, too. I’ve never in my life seen a sober woman so ready to throw herself at someone. (To his credit, I saw no sign whatsoever that his effected Senator Obama in any way.)
There’s something about the musky combination of power, prestige and claims of doing good for all the people (but especially the poor and disenfranchised with voter registration cards) that is irresistible to certain women. It’s primal. And so they flock, and she’s thrilled to become a political insider by just allowing a politician to get inside her. But it’s a snare. As soon as the going gets tough and the spotlight becomes too hot, the woman usually learn they’ve been used like a tissue.
Modern history has taught that if you’ve going to fuck a powerful Democratic politician, keep some DNA as proof. A blue dress, a love child…something. Because he’s going to deny deny deny and make you out to be a crazed stalker, which you’ll have a tough time denying, really. Professional operatives will quietly regale reporters on background with stories of your wide eyed past and after all, you approached HIM. Benefit of the doubt will go to the man in the suit, especially when his slightly stiff (but brilliant!) wife stands by her candidate. But if you have some DNA that you’re willing to produce when it all gets too crazy, he’ll cop. He’ll have to. We’ve all seen too many episodes of CSI.
Right now, even the yet-unproven accusations about Rep. Weiner don’t rise to the level of a physical affair. Maybe none of these caveats and warnings apply to the Congressman or anyone he knows. For their sake, I sure hope they don’t.
But Weiner’s casual denials, disinterest in investigation and his desire to get away from the distractions to focus on important issues A, B and C (good writing – do things in threes) should give some pause. It’s classic Clinton so far and as long as Democrats have dicks. it’s foolish to ignore that pattern.
– Lee Stranahan
