OPINION:
Charlie Rose, formerly of PBS and CBS. Glenn Thrush of The New York Times. The collapse of the liberal establishment Masters of the Universe continues. Yet for some reason, the Democratic and liberal establishment think now is the time to condemn … Bill Clinton.
During this 25th anniversary of the year Mr. Clinton was elected to the presidency, various Democratic women leaders and pundits have declared him a very bad man and say he should have resigned after the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Kirsten Gillibrand, the senator from New York, told The New York Times exactly that, noting, “Things have changed today, and I think under those circumstances there should be a very different reaction.”
Strange. With the exception of the Democratic Party establishment, liberal activists and the Clinton mafia, everyone else understood, at the actual time, that Mr. Clinton was unfit and a predator. The only thing that has changed for liberals is being caught as enablers and hypocrites.
None of these people now complaining about Mr. Clinton have had any sort of epiphany. They just realize their defense of sexual assault in the 1990s makes it impossible for them to continue the fraud of casting conservatives as the enemies of women.
Coming out over two decades after the damage is done is called being too late. It’s also a pathetic attempt to reclaim their supposed moral authority on women’s issues that the liberal establishment has claimed for generations.
What they’re doing now is worse than a simple fib. Just like producer Harvey Weinstein, the Democrats have lied about being champions for women specifically to draw them into an environment within which to use and abuse them.
Their claims of feminism and propagators of heroic liberal policies have been a ruse, a trick, to entice women to their side, and then used as the weapon to keep them silent when assaulted.
After all, it’s one thing to worry about getting fired if you complain about someone. Add in the existential threat of harming a man who “does so much for the movement.” Or makes a difference for liberal causes. Or gives so much money to make sure liberals get elected. Or funds all the important issues.
Also required in this fraud is defining conservatives, and those who do not pay allegiance to the liberal narrative, as the actual enemy of women. It’s been quite a trick for liberal predators in media and politics to cast everyone except themselves as enslavers and abusers of the female sex, but that’s exactly what they did.
Now, their fraud and gaslighting is over.
Every day there is a new report of sexual assault. In the Charlie Rose case, eight women have come forward saying the liberal and feminist and (now fired from both) “CBS This Morning” anchor and host of PBS’ “Charlie Rose” show either groped them, walked out naked in front of them or harassed them with lewd phone calls.
Male feminist and defender of women and liberalism, Glenn Thrush, formerly of Politico and now a star New York Times White House correspondent, has been suspended after multiple allegations of sexual misconduct.
Now two women are accusing Sen. Al Franken of sexual misconduct. We are also told Congress has paid out over $15 million in taxpayer dollars, termed “shush money” by social media, to victims of sexual harassment and perhaps assault in that august institution.
Is this an exclusively liberal problem? Of course not. But people have begun to notice that liberals are tending to be the majority of the purveyors.
This could be why Ms. Gillibrand, after saying Mr. Clinton should have resigned after the Lewinsky allegations, refused to answer her MSNBC interlocutor when asked if Mr. Franken should resign from the Senate when facing photographic evidence of assault on a sleeping woman.
And why not? Perhaps Democrats fear the precedent that a resignation would set for sexual misconduct once we find out what exactly has been happening in Congress requiring $15 million in payouts to victims.
Heck, until we get the details, we could imagine the Democrats in the Senate losing half their seats to resignations. The GOP would lose some seats as well, no doubt, but not as many. And good riddance to all of them.
The other irony in this entire trash heap is the effort to virtue signal about Mr. Clinton by throwing him under the bus. It reveals the Democrats have known all along about how awful Billy Jeff treated women, and they simply didn’t care at the time. Now liberals and Democrats are reaping the message of that era. Those who complained about Mr. Clinton’s treatment of women were accused by his supporters of “sexual McCarthyism.” Women in his Cabinet came out and defended him. First lady Hillary Clinton led a team to disparage and destroy his accusers.
We now realize the legacy of the Democrats from that time for their own base is this: Liberal men can do as they please. They can abuse women, because the good policy implemented by our predators helps so many. Predators learned if you signal your feminism strongly enough, at the very least women in your realm will be silent, and they may actually defend you. Just ask Hillary and Bill.
• Tammy Bruce, author and Fox News contributor, is a radio talk show host.
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