OPINION:
Nearly a week went by before Hillary Clinton pulled together a statement about Harvey Weinstein’s abuse of women. Hillary’s against abusing women and it turns out that she took so long to say so because she was trying to find the words to describe how deep her outrage runs. Abuse of women, and even credible accusations of forcible rape, are not unknown in Hillaryworld. Perhaps she hoped to draft Bubba’s help to describe her outrage. Bubba’s good with words. Or perhaps she was so busy tabulating good ol’ Harvey’s contributions to various Clinton “charities” that she just didn’t get around to it sooner.
Others on the left took so much time drafting descriptions of their hurt and outrage that rhetoric was delayed. Barack Obama, who is rarely at a loss for eloquence, was stumped this time about what to say and how to say it. Perhaps he had help from his daughter, who interned with Mr. Weinstein. The National Organization for Women took its time to conclude that good ol’ Harvey had done something bad and had to be punished. When NOW concluded that Harvey was “a sexual predator” it asked that he be removed from the membership rolls of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
NBC News blew a chance to get an explosive follow-up to scoops by The New York Times and New Yorker magazine when a network executive, Noah Oppenheim, spiked a story that three women had come forward to say that Harvey didn’t merely fondle their lady parts but raped them, which is not only wanton and vile, but a capital crime. Mr. Oppenheim moonlights as a Hollywood screenwriter, and as such might not have wanted to offend a high-profile. Harvey Weinstein had the highest profile in town, and NBC quickly put out the word that “Noah has never had any relationship with [Harvey Weinstein], business or personal.” The network did not say anything about the large shadow that Harvey cast over Hollywood, large enough to make any independent screenwriter wary.
The problem larger than any moral or ethical concerns of glitteries in Hollywood and Washington is what to do about all those bags of cash that Harvey left lying around where the glitteries could find them. There was a rush of Democrats last week to get rid of dirty money, but not by everyone. Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York held on to his bag of $118,000; the party in Montana, Oregon and Pennsylvania was keeping smaller sums.
The Democratic National Committee, which had collected nearly $300,000 from Harvey, understanding that money is indeed fungible, began at week’s end to distribute the tainted lucre, not to Puerto Rico relief, a women’s homeless shelter or another reputable nonpartisan charity, but to Democratic and liberal organizations that will use it to protect and expand the party’s political aims. Doing the right thing is not always profitable.
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