Bill Clinton left behind many victims of his raging carnality but Hillary Clinton was not one of them. In response to a Washington Post article which glossed over the most sordid details of the Clintons’ past, The Weekly Standard provides additional background on Hillary Clinton’s aiding and abetting of Bill’s innumerable trysts and dalliances. The picture that emerges is that even before their marriage, Hillary knew exactly what he was up to and, as she saw Bill’s political star was rising, she helped cover his tracks because he was always her vehicle to get to where she is now, to where she always wanted to be.
Contrast this with the sad and tawdry story of Hillary Clinton’s closest aide and confidante, Huma Abedin, whose own soon-to-be ex-husband seems a prisoner to the same libidinous addictions. Anthony Weiner’s political career and his marriage are now in shambles after the latest revelations that he was sending explicit messages to a 15-year-old girl. He is now the subject of multiple investigations and hopefully will receive jail time and counseling for his deplorable (to borrow a word) behavior. Now, just imagine if Bill had faced the same scrutiny back in the 1970’s when he was running for Attorney General of Arkansas. How many of Bill’s victims would have been spared?
One may wonder if Hillary Clinton stays up late at night, like some modern day Lady Macbeth, haunted by visions of these women that she and her husband have wronged. Surely she feels deeply wounded by Bill’s perpetual infidelity (which by all accounts remains insatiable to this day). Some part of her must be moved by the knowledge that her own suffering is multiplied in the hearts of the women who were harrassed, seduced, and discarded by her husband. Then again, perhaps she has convinced herself that her lust for power justifies her schemes to discredit and cajole the victims of Bill’s own lustful enterprises.
Like a Shakespearean tragedy then, Bill and Hillary are perfect for each other, because they have a dark co-dependency upon each other in the pursuit of their unlimited appetites and ambitions. Bill was only able to continue his priapic romps unabated because Hillary allowed it and protected him from unwanted publicity. By the same token, Hillary was only able to intimidate and quash the stories of his victims because of her power and influence as Bill’s dutiful wife. Whatever pain she may have felt in the early days of their relationship, even the fawning Washington Post article seems to think that it’s a good thing that Hillary’s heart has now become hardened with “steely determination” to “savage [Bill’s] enemies,” which is to say, his jilted lovers.
Now we are in the final act of this tragedy as every week brings new revelations about Hillary’s abuses of power. Whether out of genuine hurt and the romantic notion of undying love described by the Washington Post piece or the callous machinations and scorched earth defensiveness catalogued by the Weekly Standard, whatever her motives, she has spent a lifetime honing her skills of dissimulation and manipulation. With so much practice, perhaps she no longer even realizes that she is even doing anything wrong when she misuses government resources or hands out political favors.
Giving Hillary Clinton the benefit of the doubt, perhaps the truth lies somewhere between these two accounts. However, the compliant media which once styled themselves as “adversarial” and who so vehemently “spoke truth to power” in the Bush years are now wrought up into the highest pitch of alarum at even the slightest possibility that Donald Trump might actually win the election. The Washington Post piece is part of a full-on media blitz that will not let up until election day to justify and excuse whatever new scandals and bombshells emerge about the Clinton family.
In the debate, millennial feminists on the Left criticized Trump for interrupting Hillary and talking over her and other such imagined slights of the evil patriarchy. Clearly they did not watch Trump in the Republican primary debates where he just as aggressively attacked all of his male opponents. If anything, Trump showed Hillary the respect of treating her as an equal. If feminists want to talk about women being mistreated, let’s start by talking about the Clintons.