I. Pre-emptive surrender by self-flagellation
No, this is not about arcane religious rites or a suggested form of atonement by Roy Moore.
It’s about the knee-jerk reaction by liberals(?) like Ezra Klein, Chris Hayes, Jon Chait et al. to the Roy Moore et al. harassment/predator stories. They and others have stories up about how Democrats can’t justifiably attack Moore without “acknowledging,” “coming to grips with,” or “reckoning with” Bill Clinton’s culpability, which they (we?) supposedly excused or ignored in the ‘90s. The subtext is, “Democrats cannot really oppose sexual predation unless we turn back the clock to 1998, take out the old self-flagellator and join the Federalist Society "elves” and Arkansas Clinton-hating racists at the Mena airport, while wearing Ken Starr was Right buttons 24/7.
These liberal, upstanding, “civil” writers forget we are in an information/propaganda war in which any unnecessary retreat is disastrous. It is an asymmetric “debate” where Democrats have been demonized with lies and racism for 40-50 years, while Republicans, until now, have escaped demonization, even though it’s warranted by every sociopathic policy they have. (See my diaries, Why do Republicans prefer a Pedophile to a Democrat? A Short History of Demonization; and Democrats: We care if you live or die.)
Right now, the Republicans’ first line of defense to the horrors of Roy Moore is “But Bill Clinton!,” just as it was in the 2016 election, the latter featuring a bizarre parade of Clinton accusers sitting in the debate gallery, dredged up in response to the pussy-grabbing tape — and even more bizarre because Bill wasn’t on the ballot. Yet the wronged wife was again transformed into the “enabler.”
We scoffed at the time, but you know what? It worked, with the help of the supine media, which focused on grunge-era tabloid stars like Kathleen Willey and Paula Jones much more than the 15-20 Trump accusers who surfaced after the pussy tape, all of it aided and abetted by Russia, Comey and the other “perfect storm” factors foisting the current disaster upon us.
Remember, right now the other side is busy pumping up a completely fabricated story about Uranium, Russia and HRC in an attempt to deflect, sidetrack, discredit or otherwise surmount the real story of their betrayal of our country. We revel in rebuttals by Shep Smith, the “last honest person at Fox,” which are helpful, but the other 23 hours on Fox are pounding out the lies and getting quoted in Presidential tweets, and an amnesiac, lying, Forrest Gump with the power to “investigate it” may actually do it.
Giving in to the “but Bill Clinton” argument is the first step in feeding the Roy Moore story into the “Both Sides Truth Grinder,” documented in grisly detail by [certified-blocked-by-Matthew Dowd] Driftglass.
And Chait and Klein are not even doing it as part of a response to an argument by someone on the right. It is a pre-emptive surrender to the worst of What-aboutism (as documented here in depressing but hilarious detail by John Oliver).
So, Rule No. 1 is Don’t stick your neck out and rush to self-flagellate.
II. If you have no choice but to respond
What do you do in response if Chris Hayes or a right wing guest or a guy at the office, on Facebook etc. challenges you? Here are some suggestions.
Rule No. 2 is : If you have to respond, keep it short, simple and current. (Corollary: If you have to explain, you’re losing.)
1. Neither Bill nor Hillary is running. Roy Moore is. That’s the only issue here.
2. Democrats today do not excuse sexual predators in or out of politics.
- In Minnesota right now Democrats are pulling support from a candidate for State Senate accused of Moore-ish behavior, despite the State Senate hanging in the balance.
- No Democrat defended Anthony Weiner, now in jail.
- Democrats did not defend Harvey Weinstein
- Republicans re-elected David Vitter
3. If you can’t avoid Bill Clinton: He was intimately investigated in a 7 years $70 million investigation, which included rape allegations. He was impeached. Lewinsky was consenting. (The latter gets into abuse of power sexual harassment issues, so if you reach that point, you’re explaining and therefore, losing.)
III. What do women think?
Having written the above, and at the risk of blowing at least part of my pseudonymous cover, I am disclosing that I am not a woman (as Hayes, Klein and Chait are also not).
As such, I will defer to women who convincingly argue:
(a) revisiting accusations against Bill Clinton is necessary to protect women now who make sexual assault allegations. An example of this is Michelle Goldberg’s NYT column: I believe Juanita; and
(b) this overrides Democrats’ concerns about exposing the right’s lies and sociopathy on sexual harassment, ceding territory in the long-term battle against all of the GOP’s sociopathy; and caving to Whataboutism.