If Trump was a Democrat he would have been indicted and would have been probably behind the bars. Bill Clinton was a womanizer but his biggest fault was that he was a Democrat just like Obama’s legacy is undone by the current corrupt administration only because he was a black man.
40
The Clinton's are done, kaput, finished, over!!!! Can we PUH-lease move on......
50
Ms. Dowd, you are mixing your movements with your victims. It was Ms. Lewinsky who flashed her thong, she wasn't a teenager, she was a young adult, a consenting adult at that who decided poorly. Ms. Lewinsky's age difference with Bill Clinton is 27 years. So what? Stormy Daniels and Trump's age difference is 34 years, where's the outrage? Karen McDougal and Trump's ages differ by 24 years.
The allegations made against Bill Clinton by Ms. Juanita Broaddrick that he raped her are in keeping with the #MeToo movement, because it is important to give voice to precisely these type of allegations, but poor decisions between consenting adults is clearly not a #MeToo moment. Of course Clinton should have used the opportunity to acknowledge that both he and Ms. Lewinsky made poor decisions.
Clinton still doesn't acknowledge how his affair with Lewinsky greatly damaged Gore's candidacy, and the disastrous results of GW Bush are precisely the real costs we are all still paying for both in lives and treasure lost.
52
Watching "progressives" contort themselves to justify the Clinton's behavior in the #metoo era is incredibly entertaining and also incredibly damning.
Charles Blow tried to claim the moral high ground for the Democrats in his column a couple weeks ago. It's like the jokes write themselves.
24
Enough already, you fake democrat. Monica Lewinski was not some innocent adolescent when she bragged about having a sexual encounter with the president beforehand. As a 78 year old white male and veteran, while I applaud what the #metoo movement is doing, I fail to see where dragging up a one time encounter between two consenting adults equates to the likes of a Harvey Weinstein or Donald Trump or countless others of wealth and privilege that have sullied their reputations forever. To end, I blame you're hatred of Hilary Clinton columns as one of the myriad reasons we have a total moron for president.
67
I can see Ms Dowd how happy you are now that Bill Clinton is back to be kicked around. You must have been waiting for this opportunity but let me tell you on the scale 1 to 10, if Bill Clinton is at level 1 in his sexual escapades your friend Trump is at level 10. For some reason you are fascinated by Trump, good for you and OK with us but get off the backs of Bill, Hillary and Obama. You have lost the credibility to judge them.
43
Oh please. Monica's PTSD came from the fact that she was caught. A 22 year old woman can hook up, have one night stands, date, play the field, and maybe have sex with some married men. Stop making her the victim. It is diminishing to women to alleged that they will simply hit their knees because a man is powerful and wealthy. Or maybe that is what you are saying......it seems more like her problem than Bills problem. Woman are smarter than these articles give them credit for. As I have said before in the NYT; if some man touched my wife in the wrong way she would promptly break their nose. I think Monica was definitely in control of that situation. A flash of the panties and she had Bill right where she wanted him. Give my a break. Women are smarter.
30
Maureen, why do you care? With all that's going in this world right now, what relevance does this have. When will you have called them out enough? I guess I should ask myself when will I stop reading your Old News articles. I think now.
61
why are we still wasting time talking about Bill? He's been a lifelong creep.
27
And it only took you and the other liberals 20 years to figure this one out! Give me a break! I spoke these same words to colleagues at my university, that Lewinsky was a victim, but of course, Bill could do not wrong. But Monica was not the only victim; serial victimizer Bill had raped Juanita Broaddrick and gotten away with it. He should be charged, just like Bill Cosby, but of course, neither of the Clintons ever face punishment for their crimes. They make be sick.
27
Bill Clinton and now Hillary appear to be just big tools in the Nation's consciousness now. Good riddance.
18
Really Maureen , you go too far . Properly shamed ? Being on trial , publicly impeached and forced to admitting he lied is not enough ??Your poison pen drips constant venom for the Clintons . Monica Lewinsky was publically shamed , threatened by the FBI , betrayed by Linda Tripp , Drudged thru the mud by the media , (and Matt Drudge) and Clinton caused her PTSD ???It's columns like yours that keeps her anguish alive , being the voice of the moral police . She was an adult although star struck and knew what she was doing . Leave her alone , she has earned the privacy she deserves to live her life peacefully and not stigmatized by the press .
23
I will never forget my little daughter asking me "Mom, what kind of dress is a semen-stained dress?" as she glanced at a Clinton-Lewinsky era newspaper headline. I learned to hide the newspaper for a while.
The intervening two decades have seen Bill Clinton develop into a kind of elder statesman, often photographed with Papa Bush and seeming to be trying to be of use in global charitable efforts. He spoke at my daughter's college graduation, and I was pretty darn surprised at what a great speech he gave. No doubt there were a fair share of Clinton-haters attending this large graduation, but he was not political. Rather, he was human, inspiring, downright wholesome in his words, and by the end of the speech he got a rousing round of applause.
So he was kind of like the raunchy, rascally, streaker, frat-boy, jerky guy who grows up, has a bypass, and segues into the gray-haired Grandpa years with late-in-life self control finally settling in.
However, Bill Clinton's recent interview with its defensive off-putting comments re-tarnished his image and painted him as tone-deaf, clueless, and actually creepily hostile. He managed to resurrect his sordid reputation and make us all wonder, once again, whether or not we had a molester in the White House a quarter century before the current one.
23
Maureen if I read you correctly ANY time a man in his late 40s has a sexual encounter with a women in her early 20s (Bill 49 to Monica's age 22) it is in effect and assault or criminal act?
As the most powerful man in the world with whatever his marital agreement or situation (None of my or anyone's business) it was an "assault" to engage in a sexual act with a 22 year-old intern?
Ken Starr would be proud
14
Maureen, you've certainly never been a great fan of either Clinton & have not been hesitant to hold their 4 feet to the fire. Here's one Clinton campaign worker who has appreciated your clear assesment of both Bill & Hillary. For two actually "smart" people they sure have done some dumb, self damaging stunts. That being said I'd take their thoughtful leadership 1000 times over President Lunkhead who thinks nothing of personally degrading the leaders of other countries who are actually attempting to support us.
25
This is the reason I could not vote for "her" to be the First Woman President of US
15
Move on please. We have enough problems as it is.
23
Two years is enough already for Ms. Dowd's disdain for the Clintons and for President Obama!
How about something that doesn't just rehash the past?
How about something about the attack on Ali Watkins?
Why keep the attacks up on the past, Maureen, when our democracy and the principle's of our nation are under attack by the current president?
18
I agree almost entirely with Maureen Dowd, but for one important detail: he part about public shaming. No doubt Bill Clinton is a scoundrel. But America is not Puritan country by its laws. Public shaming is out-of-bounds. There are many who would have preferred a Constitution written by the likes of a Cotton Mather. But true justice is realized by fitting the punishment to the crime, and by balancing the rights of accused with the victim. Our notion of victim and accused shifted since the 1990s. Perhaps that's also why the Constitution prohibits double jeopardy.
Many journalists put their faith in the court of public opinion. The vice of many feminists is that they are about as liberal as Islamists.
5
I'm generally with Maureen when she criticizes the Clintons, including this time.
I do not feel sorry for Bill or for Monica. Monica let herself be traumatized by Linda Tripp and it would have been fine with me if the Clintons left the stage in 2000.
But I would take Hillary over Donald any day.
15
Dowd's continuing negativity toward both Clinton's, distracts her from focusing on what's really important. Trump's, so far successful assault, on the Federal government.
She would be well received at Fox News.
42
So it's "always wrong" for a 22 year old to have a relationship with a 49 year old? Even when the 22 year old initiates the relationship? Maybe if the 22 year old has a mental defect. I am not defending Bill Clinton, but this New Puritanism is getting ridiculous. Thanks to this "moment," Monica has slowly come around to the fact that she had no agency in this relationship and it was all on Bill. How convenient. How pathetic.
38
If a man or woman intentionally flashes his or her thong, it is a sexual overture. If a consensual relationship results from that thong-flashing, that thong-flasher succeeded in getting their message across to the thong-flashed.
Monica bears responsibility for her thong-flashing, even though Clinton should have been more responsible.
30
So rather than shooting the messenger, no matter her history with "The Clintons", maybe just get the message. A former president of the United States, has never done "the right thing" - unequivocally taken responsibility for his egregious behavior. I have never heard or read Bill Clinton admitting that he in fact was the responsible party here, as the supposed adult (and parent of a daughter), and the ultimate person of power, who should have been precisely the person to refuse to engage with, and re-direct this misguided, at the time, young woman. Bill Clinton has apparently never apologized to Monica's parents for not protecting their daughter from himself. He was and is a very powerful, intelligent, influential man. He has had many opportunities to set the record straight and has not.
Someone finally asked Clinton, in my opinion, a timely appropriate question. His reaction was not the reaction of a contrite individual who has taken responsibility for or understands the consequences of his behavior. His behavior was defensive, angry and entitled. He continues to be the victim.
Just imagine what a few words from the very intelligent influential activist Bill Clinton could do right now to address the scourge of sexual harassment, sexual assault and the extremely painful fallout for its victims.
7
What would the Clintons have done with a Stormy Daniels? Given the track record, I think we know. Smear campaign, denial, etc.
The point made is well taken. We have to stop viewing the politicians from our side of the aisle through rose colored forgiving excusing glasses.
Anything else is hypocrisy.
As for taking advantage of a 22 year old - you betcha. I get it, she's an adult, etc. etc. it wasn't illegal. There is another standard here folks, it's having moral integrity to know you are dealing with an impressionable, young, and literally not a fully formed rationally thinking adult.
9
#METOO has done great good for many people--men and women. It has allowed many victims to come out of the shadows where they felt isolated.
On the other hand, Gillibrand insisted Franken go immediately--perhaps fairly-- for long-ago acts, without the Ethics investigation he requested.
Trump has been widely--and appropriately -- condemned for comments in his past about women, and more recently about Mexicans and Muslims. he also, of course led the conspiracy theorists who became known as Birthers.
But, given that set of standards, how does Gillibrand get a pass for--more recently than Franken's acts and many of Trump's statements-- welcoming on the campaign trial a man who was credibly accused of rape and other sex crimes?
Given that set of standards, how does Joy Reid still have a job after having said horrific things about gays, and for endorsing the conspiracy theory that 9/11 was an act committed by the US government?
As a victim in childhood of repeated molestation by my aunt, I highly value #METOO. Those who have spoken up help those of us who felt guilty and isolated to come forward and not to feel so very alone. They are to be applauded.
I hope more men speak up. Boys make up over 1/3 of child sex abuse victims, and females make up over 20% of child sex abusers. Neither the victims nor their abusers should be ignored.
10
Back in the 1990s many Dems looked the other way not only when it came to Bill Clinton's private behavior towards women but also when it came to his abandonment of labor unions, his deregulation of the banking and telecommunications industries, and his coziness with big donors. Why? Because he knew how to win and the party was sick of losing. Sound familiar? Donald Trump is the whirlwind we are reaping from seeds that were sown 25 years ago.
12
Meh, both Clinton and Lewinsky were operators in the abusive situation. Tacky and exploitive as his actions were, I don't buy the ingenue act being displayed. Both are drama queens looking for attention.
Behind the chaff of his personal peccadilloes, the more impacting Clinton sins are the bigger part of his con man act. The larger issues "for Bill Clinton to be properly publicly shamed for the ugly bargain at the heart of the Clinton operation" are his Rockefeller Republicanism and fundamental craven sellout (a classic Clinton pattern): callous welfare revisions, mass incarceration, drug war ratcheting, DOMA, DADT, reactionary and erroneous missile strikes, and worst, Wall Street coziness - the "Democrats'" Achilles Heel - with the disastrous Bob Rubin/Larry Summers-influenced repeal of Glass-Stegall and deregulation of derivatives.
Bill Clinton is the best friend mainstream Republicans had.
12
As a 50+ year-old life-long Dem and feminist, THANK YOU, Maureen for encapsulating so well the "problem with Bill." I have resented the Clinton machine because 'Bill was worth the cover up' since Ms. Lewinsky's name was first uttered. The Clinton/Dem party's MO when it came to this guy underpins why so many never trusted - and could not vote for - Hillary. And now our country has Trump - and they have book tours.
29
Do you people realize that Bill Clinton has not been president of the United States for some time now? And Hillary Clinton holds no public office either?
It's well past time for them to head off into the sunset.
5
Many men who have actively abused women have also been active supporters of women professionally, at least part of the time: Bill Clinton, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Don Hazen (Alternet editor).
And many men who "would never" sexually harass women perpetuate discrimination through their own inaction and implicit bias, to which they are, by definition, blind.
I myself have endured sexual harassment without complaint because at least the perpetrator supported me professionally. I chose not to complain because many of the more appropriate/PC/self-righteous men in senior positions were in fact even bigger bigots who held women to different standards and professionally minimized and ignored them, thus cutting them off from professional opportunities.
It's sad that discrimination is so pervasive and invisible that we have to tolerate gross men like Bill Clinton because of the lack of better alternatives. This double bind exists not just because men like Bill Clinton are so horrible but because the larger society is still apathetic toward gender equality.
10
Bluntly put, Monica Lewinsky should take responsibility for her actions as an adult, and Bill Clinton should take responsibility for his actions.
Monica, not Bill, is the one who offered to show Bill Clinton her green thong while delivering a pizza. Bill freely chose to say "yes" to the salacious offer. If ever there was a case of "consenting adults" willfully (perhaps eagerly) entering into a mutually desired affair, this was it. The affair did not end well for either--really, how could it possibly have done so? How could either have ever imagined otherwise?
There are countless men and women who have done worse by their partners, countless who have just said "no", and countless who have come to honest terms with their own actions, weaknesses, and strengths. Let's try to celebrate those who behave as responsible adults, and also try to examine the level of the offense and its impact on others to select where we focus our criticism and comments.
This column--written on the day our current president all but declared war on our longest and closest ally, based entirely on lies, bluster, and nonsense--seems a massive waste of editorial space and writing skill. To compare it to a discussion of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin is an insult to both angels and pins.
20
While I can never defend President Clinton's involvement with Ms. Lewinsky, she is not off the hook for her part. She was a grown woman when she willingly took part in the affair. We all make mistakes through life. True maturity happens when you stop blaming others for those mistakes.
17
I read this column right after reading about the Honduran immigrant who, separated from his wife and 3-year-old child, killed himself, and another about the so-called Justice Department trying to destroy the Affordable Care Act's requiring access to insurance for people who're already sick and injured.
Ms. Dowd, by all means address past scandals - Chester A. Arthur, didn't he have a mistress? Henry the Eighth, didn't he mistreat his wives? Two thousand years ago, didn't the Chinese emperor burn books?
You've got a platform in the New York Times to influence public opinion about our current leaders. Most of us don't. Know that trashing the Clintons at this particular time just empowers the Trumps. Is that really what you want to do?
72
Maureen, give it a rest. You've lost your mojo by taking your eye off the ball. Your swing lacks any snap and you're flailing at balls well out of the strike zone. Or have you decided that Trump is just too difficult -- or too much of a kindred spirit -- to hit and hit hard?
56
Larry Flynt to the rescue. All of Clinton's accusers in the Republican party were involved in similar or worse escapades as Clinton. The impeachment process was a complete farce. Triangulation reigned supreme. Never mind the Crime Bill or shutting down efforts to regulate derivatives.
17
All the media are no "innocents" for the blame of the continuing sexual harassment of women by their deafening silence and callous reusal to believe women's "tales of sexual horror."
A shortlist of Bill' serial rapes from when he first became governor of Arkansas were known as his coerced "fan club:"
Juanita Broadrick, Kathleen Willey, Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers, Elizabeth Gracen, Sally Perdue, Monica Lewinsky, etc.
The Clintons paid Paula Jones $850,000 to settle her rape court case.
Hillary participated in denigrating the women who were raped.
Hillary cast doubt on the women using words like “floozy,” “bimbo” and “stalker."
Monica was called a "narccisstic looney tune."
A name now more appropriate to Hillary.
Many other sexual harassment cases against Bill were settled out of court as well—probably from the Clinton Foundation—since Hillary claimed they "Were broke."
Why have liberals become suddenly strict moral crusaders when it comes to Republicans?
36
I am disgusted when I see such as Bill and W parading around as elder statesman, but it is disappointing that it's his personal failings rather than his policy disasters that are catching up with him. Offhand I can think of NAFTA, the bank deregulation that almost crashed the economy in 08, and the FCC deregulation that enabled the oligarchic communications industry we have today. Clinton was a major cause of our nation's deterioration and he should be held responsible.
27
I always felt bad for Monica. No matter where she goes, when someone first meets her the reaction will be connection with what we all have connected her with.
But the world has changed. So much was never discussed in "polite company" such as, oh well never mind. But, we never did. I remember when a couple decades ago, my Aunt, born in 1903 asked me, "I don't understand how two guys of the same sex even do it." At the time, I chose one of the standard ways, and felt that was enough" She was now informed, not shocked. But, she had no way of knowing and simply accepted it.
Back to Monica. Now we all understand the variety of sexual enjoyment, and the reaction to knowing the details of her's with Bill, is simply a "So what."
3
I repeat what I said in an earlier post, which was buried by the NYT comments police:
You must be giddy with delight, Ms. Dowd, to be able to attack President Clinton again.
The difference between him and the other men - like The Con Don, Harvey Weinstein, Bill O'Reilly, Roger Ailes, Bill Cosby, Charlie Rose, Matt Lauer and their "entitled" male counterparts - is that President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky's relationship was consensual. He didn't/doesn't have to force himself on anyone. The others all do.
Let's stop kidding ourselves. Girls/women often throw themselves at men they perceive to have power and/or wealth. It goes with the centuries old male-model idea that the only way women can flourish is to have a man to take care of them. Some women stay in jobs, marriages and relationships because they are afraid to go it alone.
Thankfully, hundreds of millions of women around the world are stepping up to take one-half the power to bring the world into balance. When that happens - starting now - women will no longer have to put up with abusive men to protect their jobs and/or lives.
26
Good grief, Maureen. We have a current President who is driving the country petal-to-the-metal over a cliff and you are obsessively staring out the back window looking for the Clintons and Barack.
C'mon girl, get real!
46
Pedal to the metal. It's a metaphor about speeding in a car.
6
And apparently it will take at least twenty years for Maureen Dowd to be shamed for her treatment of Hillary and Obama.
28
Trump deep-sixed the G7 and all you can write about is Clinton? You disgust me.
60
Ms. Dowd, your vendetta against the Clintons has long since become tedious and trite. With a wannabe dictator in the White House and our democratic republic under criminal assault, surely there is something more current on which to comment?
43
From years of reading Maureen Dowd, she can't wait to demean and humiliate the Clintons. No one's even talking about this story now. This is old news.
But Maureen will write another 100 columns of scathing animosity that helped cost Hillary two elections.
Calling her "shifty" and a "dominatrix." "Tired, heavier, puffier." "Godzilla" and "Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction."
Time to expand into other topics, where the nasty jibes comes less easy. This is too easy a topic-- for yet another hit job.
52
Why not... they deserve all she can dish on them
8
I am reminded of why I stopped reading Ms. Dowd's columns some time ago and why I will immediately revert to that decision. #clintonclintonclinton
44
Good article--Bill should have put on his big boy pants and showed the restraint for which he was not famous. She was a very messed-up young woman from her parents' nasty divorce; she had a five-year affair with her married high school drama teacher. She wasn't going to let Bill's marital status stop her and he was too narcissistic to resist. I was never so disappointed in anyone I helped elect.
13
I am certain that he Times will not print my comment, but here it is.
First Maureen owes her readers an apology and explanation as to how she could have voted for Trump.
Perhaps this article serves to justify Maureen in her voting for Trump even comparing Bill's behavior to Trump on one instance.
Her rarionlizing shows a person in total denial. This article especially in view of Ms Garcia's post shows why we are where we are in having Trump as president.
29
Monica was not a #MeToo. She stalked Clinton, telling her buddies she was packing her Presidential kneepads. So tired of her playing the victim. Of course he shouldn't have done it but her gripe is with Starr/Gingrich/Linda Tripp and Lucianne Goldberg. Getting really sick of your animus Maureen.
50
I guess you are saying that the President is not really very responsible for his own behavior when there are young women around who make themselves available to him and even some who do not make themselves available to him.
As Hillary said at the time it was all a right wing conspiracy against the Clintons.
We have tragically learned that for many voters this is not a very terribly persuasive or constructive argument.
2
Katela,
I guess you are saying the married President of the USA
is not really very responsible for his personal behavior if there are young women around who make themselves available?
As Hillary said at the time the Hillary story and all the other women in Bill's life was all a "right wing conspiracy."
I am not sure that is a very persuasive or constructive argument for the vast majority of American voters, as we have tragically learned.
12
Did Maureen forget that Monica came to her job with knee-pads?
24
I am simply stunned at the “Times Picks” comments defending the then-president and placing responsibility on the 22-year-old Monica. So #metoo means what? If you’re a liberal Democrat and vote in favor of feminist issues you have license to fool around on your wife and have dalliances with Jennifer Flowers, Juanita Broaddrick, and God knows how many others, and intelligent and informed women will write to the NYT and defend you? I like this. My neighbor’s daughter has been tantalizing me for years with her thong bikinis. So I’m going to donate to the Democratic candidate for senator as well as Tulsi Gabbard, and whatever happens with the neighbor girl will be “understood?” I like this. Thank you Times readers!
17
I wouldn't count on neighbor daughter's compliance.
3
At 22 my mother was a college grad, married, full time job and mother to a 2 year old - me. Asking her about being a poor immature 22 year old girl, flashing her thong at her 49 year old boss in his office and not knowing where it would lead and she would tell you to quit blaming others for your bad mistakes. Clinton was stupid, but the woman clearly wanted the dalliance. Revisionist history to suggest anything else. And I think we unwound this mystery 22 years ago and unlike today’s presidential saga, we knew many more details than most of us wanted to know about blue dresses and cigars.
8
You seem to have missed my first attempt to submit this post.
You are very gracious, Maureen. Like Weinstein, Bill should be in jail on charges of rape and molestation.
15
Either the CIA has paid you well and you are part of the corruption, or you have been threatened into this Clinton/Obama racket.
It didn't take you until 2018 to call Bill out for behavior.
You claim to be calling Bill out, but what you are really doing is softening the landing for him and Barack.
Trump is the "We" and Obama is the "I", who's the real narcissist????????
When did Gloria Steinem era feminists ever really care about women? Give me a break.
Dowd: one trick pony has-been. Sad. Covfefe
29
I plead with you to answer why you write about this 20 yr old matter but never,never write about the disgusting predator currently in the Oval Office ?? You have absolutely no credibility as a worthy journalist until you do just that.
63
Because Bill's accusations are based in fact whereas much of President Trump's are based on characterization using out of context sound bites and the ever present visceral hatred , easily channeled from the malcontents of the Left. That is all
6
Actually, she has written about him since he was elected....many times over. But, she also wrote about him while he was running for office and forgot to mention what a misogynist pig he was. She was still bad mouthing Obama.
9
Dowd is the last person who should write this column, but we should have seen it coming. She hates the Clintons with a blind rage that would make a rhoided out NFL player blush. Dowd's feckless criticisms should not be presented in decent society.
15
You are very gracious, Maureen. Like Weinstein, Bill should be in jail on charges of rape and molestation.
5
Jeez, Maureen, Trump's blowing up all of our carefully-cultivated alliances while attempting to turn us into a vassal state of Russia, and you write about....Bill Clinton and his affairs. Boy, do you have a nose for news!
42
I understand Hilary standing publicly with her husband. what I don't understand is after all these years why Bill just can't say I was wrong, and ackowledge how Monica's life was screwed up ever after. Whay can't people just give a heart felt Apology and say I was Wrong?
6
Frank, Monica, an adult, set out to seduce the president and did so. She is not the victim. She was the perpetrator, plain and simple. She made her bed and had to sleep in it.
7
If you removed the word "Clinton" from the English language, Maureen Dowd would be speechless.
52
Let's make that happen.
6
Not necessarily. "Hillary" would keep Ms. Dowd going.
1
Thank you. And could we add something else to your analysis? If Bill Clinton did not previously have a reputation as a serially sex crazed bad boy, a star struck intern would have never even considered flashing her thong? She would have expected to be thrown out of the office. If he had behaved himself before his presidency like a serious adult, Ms. Lewinsky would have behaved herself as well. Think of an intern flashing Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, or even Richard Nixon. No matter their flaws as individuals, you know that no one in their right mind would do it. The Secret Service would have been called. I'm glad that ML has finally had the chance to reconsider herself truthfully as that young and vulnerable person facing the most powerful man in the free world. It was not ok. And it was not ok that everyone did contortions to excuse it or excuse the lying about it. Clinton is now seen as the self serving scum that he was. At least Nixon had the humility to step aside and spare us the moral debate. By stepping down he acknowledged he was wrong, and we could all agree it was wrong. Clinton never acknowledged he was wrong, and we will forever have to debate it. Al Gore would have probably won. Can we now just all agree that it was wrong?
15
Clinton was a fairly good president, and a good representative for American values and interests worldwide. He was instrumental in brining peace to Northern Ireland also.
He has a flaw, but we all have a flaw. Is there any forgive and forget anymore, and maybe focus on the positive for a change?
8
Plus he inherited a huge republican debt and when he left office we had a large surplus. Now we are trillions in debt because of cowards, draft dodgers, con men, and incompetent billionaire toady's beholden to the devil himself, trump.
8
MeToo? MeToo covers women who have been assaulted from sex-related jokes to rape and murder. They are victims. Monica Lewinsky is no victim. Yes, Clinton should have sent her on her way when she snapped her thong at him. But she shouldn't have been trying to coax the President of the United States into whatever she had planned. She was a stalker with a willing target. I will never forgive her, and I blame her at least 50% for what happened. Yes, Clinton was a sexual predator. But so was Monica Lewinsky.
11
I don't recall Bill Clinton carrying on an affair with a porn actress while Hillary was at home nursing the new baby. I do recall that Bill had a highly successful tenure as president that Bush managed to fritter away. Meanwhile, Trump is making a mockery of the presidency and running the nation into the ground. Why is Ms. Dowd still writing about Bill Clinton when other more important issues abound?
20
Here is an idea. How about "consenting adults" get a room and not have sex in the Oval Office.
6
Oh give me a break!!This is stupid, why are we talking about a CONSENSUAL affair from the 90's? Lewinsky admitted herself in her Vanity Fair piece it was consensual, it wasnt sexual harassment and she doesnt blame Clinton and doesnt view herself as a victim. Lewinsky was complaining about how the public and the media treated her after the affair. Also, last I checked it was Lewinsky who came onto Clinton and Clinton asked permission to kiss her. Its sexist to claim that women dont have control over their own sexuality and any sexual agency of theirs is solely the culpibility of the man.
16
While pretending to flog the tiredest, most obvious and oldest of targets - the covert aim is - for no good reason but spite - to denounce the rich concept of "feminism' through trivializing and/or ignoring what it really might be, to identify opportunist Democratic Party Regulars as were they feminists, which they are not, by any stretch of even Dowd' denunciatory eros.
2
Bill Clinton has to think, “how did I get away with all of this??? Unwanted sexual advances, physical attacks on women”
And still the Liberal community, with its continuous grandstanding on every moral and ethical issue, as long as it doesn’t concern for the welfare of American men, somehow Bill Clinton is unscathed.
7
"The definition of “is” doesn’t depend on anything. It just is."
Brilliant closing line, Ms. Dowd. It always was, the plain meaning of "is," that is. The fact that we let ourselves get hoodwinked by an "aw-shucks" President says as much about our lack of wanting to accept the truth as much as it is hard for Bill, or even more so Donald, for that matter, to tell the truth. I wonder if either of them (or any of the other men caught in the #MeToo revelations) get that what they've done was wrong, is wrong and always will be wrong? That would require critical self-examination, to places they probably don't want to go. But if anything is to really change, we all have to go there, in one form or another.
5
I remember how when Dear Abby needed some filler for her column, she’d run a letter from someone asking her to reprint some old advice, poem, etc, because the copy the reader carried around had grown old and tattered. Abby of course said certainly and ran whatever it was.
Perhaps Dowd’s column today should have begun, I enjoyed the same column you have been writing for the last 25 years so much that I’ve been carrying it around in my wallet for, but it has become old and tattered. Could you write it again...
10
"It took 20 years for Bill Clinton to be properly publicly shamed..."
- Not true. Lots of us have been publicly shaming him since the early 90's.
Here's a fix: "It took 20 years for Bill Clinton to be properly shamed by the NY Times and other liberal media."
"His wife and other prominent feminists backed Bill..."
- Not true. Hillary is the exact opposite of a feminist. She owes all to the man she married. Without Bill we'd never know her name. She married her way to the top. Real feminists do it on their own. Politics aside, Elizabeth Warren is a "real feminist" to admire and respect.
"Bill Clinton has learned that his threadbare routine of maudlin self-pity and casting blame on everyone but himself doesn’t work anymore."
- True. But unfortunately too late. He doesn't have much influence to pedal. He and his partner in crime (literally) are both irrelevant. This perhaps the answer to the original question: Why the public shaming now?"
There's still Chelsea though. Unlike mommy who adds and drops her maiden name as her husband's popularity rises and falls, Chelsea never changed hers. Perhaps Mrs. Mezvinsky will run for office on that "good" name.
Daddy and mommy want to get back in the pay-to-play business while they're still young.
Surely Hugh and Tony have some people who would like to buy access to their niece like they did with their sister and their brother in law. No doubt they could use the money.
9
I keep being told every day that the real problem with the United States of America is the New York Times. Boy, I missed something.
Maureen, you revise your own history as a columnist to suit your own immediate reality more shamelessly than any dictator. I am so over you.
13
Seems the American left can forgive any transgression as long as you support abortion
11
Well said Mo. Lets not forget that Bill would still be denying the allegations today but for Monica's Gap dress.
Hypocrisy abounds. I remember Barbara Boxer was apoplectic to get rid of Bob Packwood. Yet she voted to "acquit" Bill Clinton because his actions were "consensual." I guess Babs didn't believe Juanita Broadderick. If only Ms. Broadderick had saved her dress.
12
the trouble with Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham is that him abusing women and her smearing them is the least of his and their crimes, which with research will show go all the way back to their college days and their subsequent involvement with the cia. His smile hides the inner good natured monster which resides within him.
5
Actually If Hillary had gained a simple majority of white women,
Hillary would be president now.
The very surprising fact was that Hillary failed to even win a majority of white women in 2016, and in a very close election in which she won the popular vote by a substantial margin Hillary's failure to win a majority of white women made the marginal difference.
Democrats need to ask for 2018 and 2020, why did white women abandon Hillary in 2016 and what can they do about it.
Maureen misses the point.
5
Thank heavens. Ms. Dowd has given her brother and Mr. Nunes an opportunity to write an editorial together.
The elephant in the room is the manifestly unfit and destructive Mr. Trump. Once again Dowd deftly ignores the pachyderm. It is possible to be right on the facts but wrong on everything that matters. Dowd's misinformation is abetting the decimation of our democracy, and aiding a white supremacist president. One can no longer give her the benefit of the doubt vis-à-vis her puzzling and troubling columns. Nunes would be proud. If Dowd had in fact written this herself.
12
May I add the following?
What is the right thing for a prior president to say or do, under present circumstances? Our democracy and its vital institutions are in jeopardy. The leadership of the present president is appalling. The likelihood of nuclear war has increased significantly. Agreements and systems that benefited all of humanity have been decimated. Both President Clinton and his interlocutors should be speaking and acting with the entirety of present circumstances in mind.
For Clinton, this should include an honest, moral, humble and contrite accounting vis-a-vis his relationship with Ms. Lewinski. According to present standards, there was a power and workplace imbalance which makes such an affair inappropriate and worse. That assertion does not take anything away from Lewinski's own responsibilities and agency.
Such an accounting however is still no more than the tail on the dog. Speaking of dogs. The Clinton impeachment was a real (and Republican) attempt to undo a democratic election. The present Trump Republican conspiracy with Russia is not their first attempt to undo an election. Focusing at all right now on Lewinski can and should read like the same Trump Fox Republican propaganda.
The present unprecedented circumstances demand with great urgency that all of our living presidents stand up and speak out. Nothing else will do.
5
BC should've resigned. Gore would've become Prez. And we wouldn't be where we are today. But, resigning is hard. Takes courage, character, self-sacrifice and that just wasn't in BC's playbook.
11
No, he shouldn't have resigned. It was a different time. I don't recall anyone asking for his resignation either.
Let's stop referring to Monica as an innocent too. She was not. Both made a mistake and both paid for it in a big way.
4
Whats the point of berating Clinton’s, both bill and hillary’s behavior, when it more then 20+ years old and both have paid for their past. I haven’t read any of the NYT editorial writers, comment on the sexual assault on Anita Hill by SCJ for life, Clarence Thomas; why does he get a pass?
11
Maureen Dowd is like Danial in the Lions den. Just like Haaretz in Israel and Julius Assange and Snowdon, in this increasingly totalitarian age we need those stubborn individuals and curmudgeons who do not just curl up and die because fantasists on both sides of the stupid political isle cannot stand having their 'heroes' and 'perfect candidates' criticized as the corrupt time servers for lobbyists money the majority of politicians are; btw there is no such thing and never will be as a 'perfect' anything; humans by nature are NOT perfect!!)
Look at all the safe spacers here who insist that writers MUST share their opinions and politics. Who accuse even fellow Democrats who are progressive and Sanders supporters of being 'useful idiots for Putin'.
Who claim, after having denied they did sabotage Sanders but now admit they did, that is is ok they did this because 'Sanders is not a real democrat'; as though running single candidates ala China is democratic, or that 'Super Delegates' (to prevent the 'rabble' (ie the people) from messing up the correct decisions by our perfect elite.
We see this in articles reflecting a contempt for elections, liberty, privacy and free speech as well as unfettered (ie a free) press. Just as the worst Republicans prayed for Obama to fail and gave him no credit so now the DNC and it's MSM posse are doing the same.
'Super predators' Bill Clinton of 'ending (FDR's) welfare as we know it'; gave us GW. And DNC Hillary gave us Trump, NOT Russia!
5
When will the' me too folks' do to the Kennedy brothers what the left did to the memory of Confederate soldiers.
7
And let's not forget how all of us, who recognized what a sleaze Bill Clinton was at the time, were demonized; and we still are.
13
Ms. Dodd, could you just lay off the Clintons, and live in the present?
10
Dowd has become completely irrelevant. She has nothing to say. Doesn't anyone wonder about young women who lay themselves out for powerful men? Surely the feminist position is that this woman is needing validation and is not self-confident. And the man falling for this "temptress"? Surely he has weaknesses. And yet, many marriages are built like that. And all this is filtered through time and changjng attitudes. Surely both have regrets and should be allowed to move on. Can we ourselves have any more to learn? In the middle of the biggest corruption scandals in US history, where porn stars and playboy models are treated like chumps along with the voters, there must be better lessons to learn.
13
Clinton's " personal peccadilloes "? Such as allegations of rape?
6
I always admire Ms. Dowd's candor. This time by revealing the truth about President Bill Clinton sexual transgressions, followed by Hillary's conspiracies to unjustly destroy Ms. Lewinsky's. What strikes me as bewildering is the undying support President Clinton earned while he was the grown up, exploiting a 22 year old bedazzled by a world leader who no sooner had her reputation destroyed ,which I considered cruel,unjust and deplorable. Still , as president I much rather have Hillary as President than the present one.
3
Excellent article — you’re 100% correct.
6
Let's remember how many of the Left blasted Conservatives who called this behavior out at the time as "prudes". Congratulations MeToo movement; it only took you 25 years to get there.
8
For all those saying "Clinton could just say he was sorry" - he already did so publicly regarding Monical Lewinsky. As for the others, it's wrong to just assume all are true and unfair to those women who really were harrassed to lump them all together. How about scrutinizing each one individually, judging each one individually as we should.
1
It was never Comey who torpedoed the election. It was always this. Even if we yield the point that Lewinsky is also being disingenuous (she was apparently the instigator and set out to seduce an older man) Bill Clinton behaved as though "that woman" and his critics were responsible for the scandal and he was a victim, just as his wife did. In my view neither were victims but one should have been mature, as Dowd notes. The victimization came afterward in the abuse of Clinton's power. No, it was not feminism's finest hour either. This gave cover for Trump, and he knew it and exploited it. We could not have it both ways.
9
We have Trump now in part because we didn't have the sense of principle to hold Clinton and so many others like him accountable. HRC was part of the smear campaign against women whose accusations were both serious and credible. When she ran against a sexist boar, her attempts to use his words against him failed. Clinton Inc. told us it is only the public face that matters. I was appalled by Bill Clinton. I was again appalled that Dems who gave Clinton a pass not only wanted to use Access Hollywood tapes as weapons, but also in support of another Clinton. It exposed how much this is just about politics, not principle. If we don't hold a Clinton accountable, we will continue to make room for a Trump.
9
Forced to face the music? My God, the guy was impeached!
8
Sorry, I don't regard Lewinsky as a victim. Yes, she regrets it but so does he, mostly for the same reasons. She was dragged through the mud, less by Clinton than by everyone else, as was he, after she blabbed to her colleague, Linda Tripp. Lewinsky was an adult, stalked him (a married man) rather than the other way around, and as far as I know, her employment was not subject to her engaging n sexual acts wth him, and then she blabbed about it. The idea that a young woman is a victim because she is 'young and impressionable' and has childish romantic stars in her eyes (for a married man?) only perpetuates the myth of woman as perrenial child. I don't regard her with disdain, just not as a victim of sexual harrassment but rather a victim of the public.
17
Men just can't help themselves. Boy that excuse is old and tired.
3
Also, I did a lot of stupid things in my twenties. I was a naive young woman, not anyone’s victim.
13
That is who is usually victimized—naive young women. The law protects them. Educate yourself.
4
The media and any many of Bill Clinton's supporters focus only on the misconduct of Clinton with regards to Monica Lewinsky when in fact over 19 women came out with allegations of misconduct. The media loves to control the conversation and it is wise that they keep the conversation on one instead of many. In the recent allegations and conviction of Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, and Matt Lauer one accuser could easily be deflected but many is a cause for concern because where there is smoke there is usually fire. Again, 19 or more women claimed sexual impropriety and at least 4 that claimed it was rape (Eileen Wellstone, Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey, and Paula Jones). All the while especially in Arkansas, the Clinton's sent private investigators, Arkansas State Troopers, Jim Carville, and Hillary to smear and ruin the accusers lives while the media sat by being complicit. If we are truly to respect the "me-too movement" then it is time to hold Bill Clinton accountable for his crimes.
10
Oh, let it go already. You with your invectives against two very flawed persons were all part of the razor thin margin that sent this country down the tubes. She was a lousy candidate and he was a cad, but look at the chaos you helped bring about. Forget them- look around you.
10
There is much, much more to be told about the total lack of morality by the Clinton's. Pizzagate, the Lolita Express, it is endless.
3
Remember when all this was going on with Bill Clinton and Putin commented that this is what real men do? What's all the fuss about? Twenty years later America elects a President to make Putin blush. Ironically, thanks not to America per se, but the Party of the Moral Majority.
6
Give it a rest, Ms. Dowd. We have a crisis on our hands with the Trump presidency. Everybody knows what Clinton was and is, and we don't need voices like yours wasted on chronic indulgence of your distaste for him while the country is going down in smoldering ruins under the worst president we ever had. Get back to useful work. You are a gifted writer and capable of doing a world of good when you aren't carping about the Clintons.
15
It's a must-read moment when Maureen Dowd takes on the former emperor of our post-Reagan political paradigm and the maladies he helped shape in bequeathing our current fractured landscape. I don't mean Ms. Dowd's columns, which are often spot on. But a core of her apparently avid readers cannot be more entertaining and explicitly atonal in their counter-narrative. The Clintonista cavalry offers a sad refrain in their unending defense of the last great Demopublican president. There is an embarrassing richness of rationalization for Bill's behavior and essential goodness in these anti-Dowd messages that predictably well up from the usual Boroughs and Beltways. At no time does Dowd defend the behaviour of the naughty 22 yr. old as reader after reader implies; nor should she decline the opportunity to evaluate the performance of the former president who privileges himself to a book tour while still oblivious to his impact on the country today. Hats off to the Bookworm8571 of North Dakota who speaks most plainly and most truthfully than the Democratic in-crowd. And thanks to Maureen Dowd for taking them on, too. Let us not forget the past for the sake of protecting one man's vanity and the press' duty to demur.
7
Contrast most of the comments regarding 22 year-old intern Ms. Lewinsky's act with her 49 year-old boss, who was the most powerful man in the world, with prior comments regarding 22 year-old students who engage in sex acts with other 22-year old students. In the latter case the woman can later change her mind and decide there was coercion. She can even call it rape! For some reason, many liberals won't allow Ms. Lewinsky that same privilege!
7
You must be giddy with delight, Ms. Dowd, to be able to attack President Clinton again.
The difference between him and the other men - like The Con Don, Harvey Weinstein, Bill O'Reilly, Roger Ailes, Bill Cosby, Charlie Rose, Matt Lauer and their "entitled" male counterparts - is that President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky's relationship was consensual. He didn't/doesn't have to force himself on anyone. The others all do.
Let's stop kidding ourselves. Girls/women often throw themselves at men they perceive to have power and/or wealth. It goes with the centuries old male-model idea that the only way women can flourish is to have a man to take care of them. Some women stay in jobs, marriages and relationships because they are afraid to go it alone.
Thankfully, hundreds of millions of women around the world are stepping up to take one-half the power to bring the world into balance. When that happens - starting now - women will no longer have to put up with abusive men to protect their jobs and/or lives.
14
The issue of power differential among adults -- as in, both parties over the age of 18 -- is overblown and diminishes the agency of the person seen as having "weaker" power. The fact is is that all adult human relationships are relationships of unequal power, at all times. Men tend to use money and power to get what they want. Women tend to use money, power, and physical attractiveness to get what they want. This is just the way it is.
There's no problem with businesses prohibiting certain kinds of speech or behavior while on the job. I don't want to walk into a Starbucks and be met by an employee handing me political campaign literature, or be a barista who is lobbied to join a particular religious faith by another worker behind the counter. Sexual contact between employees of a business while on the job -- ALL employees, no matter their rank -- may well be prohibited on that basis. But there are plenty of unsavory sexual relationships that happen between people of different ages and different powers, such as rock stars and groupies, or female sex tourists to the Caribbean and the men they meet, that are normal and normative. If the behavior is prohibited, that's one thing. If it breaks the law, that's another. If it's neither prohibited nor illegal (as in a situation of statutory rape, or use of force) walking away, quitting, or whatever is the solution. Or, engagement if a person wants.
4
Several of the comments by male readers express a tone of anger over the article itself (move on from the Clintons) or dismissiveness (Clintons would be better than Trump). Many of the comments by women readers express gratefulness for revealing a disappointing and disturbing truth about Bill. This gap is telling and perhaps proof that many men still don't get it or perhaps don't want to get it. So, Ms. Dowd, keep at it.
9
Poor Maureen. What would she do if she didn't have the Clinton and Obama familiarizes to kick around. Maybe she's pick on Jimmy Carter for once admitting he had lust in his heart.
Meanwhile in the here and now, our serial groper-, tantrum-thrower- and liar-in-chief is given a free pass on his character week after week.
29
Maureen, Either start dealing with the clear and present dangers in the WH or consider retirement. No one cares about this anymore.
43
Monica comes around like Haley's comet every time one of the Clintons gets good media coverage. The exposure isn't good for any of them, including the comet.
Let's understand: Bill used bad judgment and tried to get out of it. So did Monica. By her own account, she teased him, more than once, until he exercised his bad judgment. it was consensual, not forced.
Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky are not a #MeToo story. They are being reprised by the media for fun and profit while the real exploitation of women is being eclipsed.
26
Maureen, our democracy is dying, and you’re still railing on the Clintons!
36
Won't be nice when once again we have a President and wife that have no personal and fidelity scandals such as the Obamas, the Reagans, the Eisenhower's and the Trumans?
6
Eisenhower had an affair with his female jeep driver in Europe during WWII!
2
"like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, Bill should've been doing the thinking for the both of them.
Are you really saying that a 22 year old woman isn't capable of thinking for herself and needs a man to do it for her? You call yourself a feminist, but you must not understand what that word means.
15
What was tragic about the interview was twofold: Bill tried to paint himself as victim and his useful idiot in the alleged free and impartial media neglected to ask about Juanita Broderick, Kathleen Wiley, Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, et al.
It is quite possible to repeat that someone’s story has been discredit over and over and over again, but wishing a story was discredited really doesn’t make it go away.
Like it or not, the American public gets to decide elections and in 2016 they chose the least palatable candidate but one with a lot of upside potential. The only problem is the left take him literally but not seriously, whereas his supporters take him seriously but not literally. I’m not sure whether Trump’s election was a reprieve or simply a stay of execution.
It’s sort of like the Soviet Union, the sequel to it which we might see in the event of a Sanders presidency. You had two media outlets, Pravda and Izvestia. Pravda meant truth, but it contained no news. Izvestia meant news, but it contained no truth. Sort of like the state of American journalism today.
But back to the Clintons. They just need to fade away. They have nothing to offer. The greatest good bill Inton’s
Presidency achieved was in coopting Gingrich’s legislation, toning them down just enough to acquire a few dem votes, and then letting them solve the nation’s ills.
4
And those ills would be....
Peace?
Prosperity?
Environmental stability?
International respect?
Health care?
Oh, of course, you must mean that swamp they drained in Washington.
1
As the old saying goes-If you have nothing constructive to say, sit down and shut up. The USA is turning to mud on the world stage and all far too many women of the Democrats can do is cry about seeing a naked man ?
There will always be static wheever men and women are in proximity.get used to it.
It's long past time to grow up.
7
Perhaps you opinion would change if your 22YO daughter was being baited by her 47YO married predator boss.
3
Maureen, I give you credit. You've pulled back the curtain on the Wizard in no uncertain terms with this column. What a welcome surprise for as Sunday morning...
6
Maureen can drag the Clintons in the mud to her heart's content; that won't change my view. I would MUCH rather, a thousand times over, have either of the Clintons as President of this country than the ruthless mobster we now suffer under.
48
As you noted, he like most men is who he is.
Not to forgive Ms Lewinsky who cleartly had her own notch to cut, but Mr Clinton was in fact an adult with a proclivity to that sort of soft core.
Now if our citizenry can realize we, the holier than thou citizenry of our god state, have elected another equally soft minded and hard headed egotist we, however slowly, will be making progress.
Ah America, ain't it great.
2
It's easy for a partisan to criticize a man of their own party who hasn't been in office for decades. It's cheap and easy. It's doing it while they are in office that Ms. Dowd can't seem to achieve.
30
Better late than never.
Clearly you don't read her regularly. She goes after everybody all the time. Maureen weilds a non-partisan stilleto. Her only requirement is that they deserve it.
2
Agreed. Aiming for click-bait trash and false equivalencys is what put Trump in the White House. Also, last I checked Lewinsky made the first move and could be said to have sexually harassed Clinton.
5
What is the statute of limitation on rape?
3
Here’s the difference between liberals and conservatives. A liberal like Dowd will argue Bill Clinton was wrong to exploit the age/power difference between him and Lewinsky while conservatives will point out that Clinton sinned by committing adultery or lechery. Dowd doesn’t seem to think there is anything wrong with adultery.
3
Trump "doesn't seem to think there is anything wrong with adultery" seems to fit better.
4
She certainly cheered on the serial adulterer Trump all through 2016.
6
Adultery is not illegal while sexual harrassment is.
2
A married man having a relationship with his subordinate is wrong. Regardless of genders.
Ms Lewinsky's life was ruined and she has evolved as she dealt with the situation. It takes a lot of courage to deal with that situation. I admired her for saying both things.... I was an adult and a I made a bad choice that unfairly destroyed my life .... and it is also true that Bill made a bad choice that he needs to face up to."
Clinton was a stunningly brilliant man, but he has (and continues to be) tone deaf. The Christian thing to do was simply say "You're right. I sincerely apologize to Ms Lewinsky. She has suffered a great deal because of my weakness. I wish I could undo all that pain I caused for both her and my family."
If he did that, it would cease being news.
26
She is no victim. She had a huge crush on him and was the instigator. Also she was not a kid and he wasn't her first married man. Of course he shouldn't have done it but she shouldn't have either. She is not a victim. He didn't ruin her life....Ken Starr did.
7
Perhaps Bill is not quite so brilliant as he sometimes appears.
His affair with Lewinsky and the way he handled it, and Hillary handled it, was far from brilliant.
3
Thats rediculous and not even consistent with the law. It may be inappropriate but its not harassment. Lets not forget Joe Scarsborough is engaged to Mika who is his subordinate and employee. Lets also not forget Mika cheated on her 1st husband with Joe the Upstanding Moral Republican and probably does not consider herself a victim. Clinton has apologized and again, Lewinsky needs to take personal responsibility for her own actions. Blame the media and the public especially Linda Tripp and Ken Starr for her mistreatment but Bill Clinton had nothing to do with it. For a woman to not take personal responsibility and agency for her own sexuality is sexist and regressive. Also, last I checked, SHE came onto Bill, not the other way around. Lewinsky has also said her relationship with Bill was consensual.
It “is” what it “is.”
4
Thanks so much, Maureen. You've summed it all up perfectly. Nobody needs to write another word on this matter.
11
Mo was more cruel to Monica than anyone!
2
Yes, put your head back in the sand and hope that the people that Bill hurt will all go away.
3
Including Ms. Dowd.
1
For anyone who had any doubts left that Maureen Dowd is a conservative columnist pretending to be a moderate Democrat, this column burns down that facade like a raging wildfire. Yes Mo, women should never think for themselves, do what they want to do, and behave the way they see fit because a powerful man should do all the thinking for them. So glad you cleared that up for all the feminists out there!
16
True believers are always so amusing.
2
Can someone explain what this comment intends to say, and why two people have reccommended it?
I usually don't agree with Ms. Dowd's commentary, but I agree with every word here (except those about President Trump). I especially applaud this paragraph:
When Monica Lewinsky came into the Oval Office and flashed her thong, Bill Clinton should have said: “Young lady, go back to your office. I am the president of the United States.” Like Humphrey Bogart in “Casablanca,” Bill should have been doing the thinking for both of them.
Well said Ms. Dowd, well said.
19
Referring to Bogart in Casablanca to justify her argument is a bit too much.
5
You don't agree with the words "Trump-level narcissism and selfishness"? Why? Because (a) you don't believe Clinton rose to that level, or (b) you don't believe Trump is narcissistic and selfish to a level heretofore unseen in American presidents? If it's the latter, then I'm LOL.
8
@Pryor Lawson,
Thank you for replying. If you have read any of comments, you should know that I end them by saying "I support the President. I support Trump. Thank you." That should answer your question. Thank you.
I am a dyed-in-the wool democrat. BUT...Bill Clinton in his various soul-baring contemplative parading interviews has done nothing but give explanations for then and now. A simple "I am sorry" would wipe out all those years of horrendous events. He did not even care that Lewinsky's life was shattered while he (might have been $17 MM in debt), but went on to make buckets of money with his $250K speeches.
I have lost all respect for this man, whom I admired for his intellect and strategic initiatives.
Needless, to say, with Newt Gingrich playing twinkle toes in bed with Calista, while he was impeaching Clinton, was another example of the hypocrisy of republicans THEN and NOW. Trump can denigrate women, appear in undelectable episodes of B movies and yet, no republican chides him on any issue. Republicans have lost their moral compass. May be that is why they are looking to Mars??!
18
His "liberal agenda" included merciless war on the poorest of the poor and relaxing the already soft regulations on banks. C'mon! After the Dukakis debacle Bill Clinton was the best Reaganite the Democrats could find. Nothing has changed since then.
8
As a conservative, the multitude of angry responses to this incredibly gentle opinion piece regarding Bill Clinton, is truly gratifying. The responses are evidence that the vast majority of the left cannot come to grips with the long term repercussions of that event, and it’s direct contribution to the present occupant in the White House. Here’s the deal: When you angrily defended his behavior & lies, and created new rules about public vs private character, you lowered the bar for that office. Then – after 8 years of unrelenting abuse of George W (decent man), and then electing an empty suit with zero accomplishments over two decent men, John McCain and Mitt Romney – while thoroughly trashing their characters along the way – you further lowered the bar. Fast forward to 2016: Knowing that the next Republican candidate would be going up against Hilary; knowing that the “War on Women,” begun by Mitt Romney in 2012, would continue to be a battle cry for the left – the only character trait this next candidate needed, for millions of conservatives – was to throw Bill Clinton back in her face in order to muzzle her on that score. You all are as responsible for Donald Trump, as the millions of us who voted for him. But you don’t get it and never will….and that’s OK.
17
The "8 years of relentless abuse of George W (decent man)" had nothing to do with his being decent or not -- although a guy who lies his country into an entirely unnecessary war which has wound up costing hundreds of thousands of lives, destroyed the infrastructure of the country we invaded, contributed to further calamities, and has cost us upwards of $4 trillion dollars, might not qualify as "decent" under any standard -- but about his total incompetence and dismal overall performance. By any measure he was a terrible president. But, apparently, "you don't get it and never will...and that's (not) OK."
5
Couldn’t agree more. The left’s self-righteous hatred blinds them. They will never get it.
3
I agree with everything you write, Ms. Dowd, but this is very old stuff. The Bill Clinton of today is politically irrelevant-it is way past time for you to get over this issue.
Did you notice that the US currently has some really really bad problems?
9
I’ve been waiting a long time to see Bill Clinton finally recognized for what he is: a lying, disgusting cheating husband and his so-called feminist wife called to task for slamming the intern young enough to be her daughter as part of some made-up “vast right wing conspiracy.” It’s been a long time since I’ve (cared about) or agreed with anything Maureen Dowd has to say but this time she is right on the money. Now if only the Clintons would really and finally GO AWAY.
24
I can easily imagine Barack Obama saying "Go back to your office" because of his own moral code or his younger age or any number of different aspects of his upbringing. But it's difficult if not impossible to imagine any number of other men--and yes, women--with their own "moral" code of what a red-blooded male does. When Clinton ran, voters already knew about his history with Jennifer Flowers and they still voted for him, just as people voted for Trump despite all that they already knew about his sexual dealings with women. That doesn't mean we give Trump or Clinton a pass, but it does mean that we start dealing with our youngest Americans differently, giving young boys a different way to think about sexual practices and what it means to be a "man" and helping them to know that being a man doesn't simply mean never being able to turn it down. It doesn't mean grabbing everything in sight that isn't nailed down, taking every sexual freebie in sight, and abusing their power in every way. The "me-too" movement will help mightily in this regard. But we must all work hard to not let things slip back to the past as they are doing every day these days and normalized when males fail to take responsibility for their abuse of power. And it will take First Ladies speaking truth to power, even packing their bags if need be. Please Melania, keep speaking back; know that we are all standing behind you.
8
On what possible basis can you imagine -- or not imagine -- what President Obama (or any other President) would do in such a situation? We have no idea who are elected officials really *are* in their private lives, just as we had no clue that affable athletes are spousal abusers and murderers. It's all pretend.
5
Obama had no history of infidelity or any such allegations against him, so that is the basis. Of course, conservatives had the made-up birther, muslim, socialist, one-world government, taking your guns cards to play which were effective enough in taking the house, senate, state governments. All of that was much scarier to their base.
2
That was then, and this rolling catastrophe is now. I suggest Ms. Dowd prioritize her concerns.
Clinton's #metoo stuff was all pre-Monica. Can't you at least keep that straight? No case where a 22 year old and 49 year old can't engage sexually? Does that include Michael Douglas, George Clooney, et al?
5
A principle at any school would get fired for having a consenual affair with an intern in the school office. A president should be held to that same standard, at least. It's not about consent between adults, but the terrible judgement and abuse of power from one adult, Bill Clinton. Use the Oval Office as your lair, and you should get fired. Some say the lie is the issue, but it shouldn't be the issue. The issue is the act. Lie or tell the truth about it, it should not matter. The act itself is deplorabe, trashy, and grounds for termination.
11
High school students are underage. Monica Lewis was 22 years old, an adult. Nobody put a gun to her head, she was not raped. She had sex with the president out of her own free will.
3
@HL
Read my post again. If a principle has sex with an adult intern in his/her office, he/she would/should be fired. Principles and President should both not be able to keep their jobs after they have sex with another consenting adult at work, in the office. Right?
3
I am severely disappointed that many Times readers continue to give Bill Clinton a pass on his sexual misconduct. I suppose they side with Gloria Steinem. The Atlantic last November published a reasonable article on Bill Clinton and his egregious behavior. Here is the link in case you missed it.
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/11/reckoning-with...
17
I don't think women can have it both ways. Was Monica Lewinski at age 22 a victim of Bill Clinton not acting like the "adult in the room" by rejecting her advances or was she also an adult in the room who should take responsibilities for her actions?
I get the imbalance of power here but if she instigated the sex then she's as responsible as Bill C for the fact that it ended up happening.
I wish Maureen Dowd would give this a rest and I wish I hadn't taken the click-bait.
23
Agree. Bill Clinton left the presidency 17 years ago. What is this obsession especially in light of the presidential crisis going on now. And the focus on Monica Lewinsky as victim. She knew what she was doing and relished the attention. Until It didn’t go the way she thought it would. None of it was wise, but it was not a situation with unwelcome, predatory advances. She also knew it was wrong. How long does this chastising need to go on? Get over it, Dowd. Your obsession with wanting a pound of flesh from the Clintons is so ridiculous. Your smug, self-righteousness is exhausting and pointless.
I hope you and your family are happy with the completely corrupt, intellectual zero, narcissistic sociopath in the White House casting off our allies as “dishonest and weak” while praising Putin and Kim Jong Un. Ranting about how he can do anything he wants, including shooting people. Complaining about a swamp while installing corrupt cabinet members. Dismissing any unfavorable or unflattering media coverage or dissent as “fake news.” And on with continuing madness. But sure, let’s complain about Bill Clinton. And Hillary. Make sure your next column grumbles about her - and be sure not to say anything positive about the good they have done.
6
That last line says it all. Bravo!
4
“The definition of ‘is’ doesn’t depend on anything. It just is.”
Actually, this “is,” is quite interesting. When he says “is” as in, “is and never has been,” he’s using the copula is; e.g. “There is no cat on the mat and never has been a cat on the mat.” However, if “is means there is none,” well; he’s using the negation of the existential operator; which means that, “there is none” which translates to “for every situation in all history, nothing ever happened.” Then, “if someone had asked me...that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no.” So, if on some “past” day; he “was” asked that something “is” going on, the answer would have been “no.” Of course, it would have been no, for at that time; at the time, he was asked, nothing like that “was” or “is” occurring!
3
Now after reading trump blowing off G-& summit and picking fight with all, particularly with our neighbor Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, i wish Bill Clinton or Barack Obama were still our President !
Donald J. trump thinks he is the self made king ?
What a fool, let me remind all " Who is Roseanne" ?
After trump steps down or removed from the office, he will be totally forgotten, the World will forget his existence .
9
Dream on
"And Bill Clinton has learned that his threadbare routine of maudlin self-pity and casting blame on everyone but himself doesn’t work anymore."
No one believes this.
6
Talk about taking your eye off the ball. On the very morning we learn Trump walked away from the G7 meeting, insulted our allies and advocated for Russian interests (again), Maureen Dowd writes about....drum roll...Bill Clinton! Enough please! We have much bigger challenges. While our deluded president threatens our very democracy your criticisms of the Clintons, both of them, and Obama seem pointless.
26
"As a politician, the former president was gifted."
Only for the willfully blind.
3
What goes around, comes around. Even to the Clintons.
2
Thanks, Maureen. Great column.
16
So suddenly Maureen and all the other fine media leftists who protected Bill Clinton from the charges of all those victims of his sexual assaults and improprieties twenty years ago, are now standing up and acting as though they were above the fray and finally going after him. Had the woman who tried to destroy the victims of her husband’s sexual assaults won the Election as all of the aforementioned hypocrites hoped for, they would have clammed-up and old horn-dog Bill would have skated by for at least four more years.
10
second week in a row. What a waste of time. EPA is run by the chemical industry,trump's,"where's waldo tour" storms through Quebec on his way to singapore while immigration officials look the other way while we turn unaccompanied minors at the border into indentured servants. and what do you write about? the Clinton's!
19
Exactly. Well said.
5
Sure, Keep hating nationally recognized names, don't add new ones. Surest path to victory. Thanks Dowd, you are playing the Republican's tune. It should be Clintan AND, not "not Clinton, someone else". No Pelosi,No Clinton, no-- who else is there? It doesn't matter, just let the Republs roll over us, and we pave over the ones we know. Great.
5
Bill Clinton remains a cottage industry for journalists almost two decades after leaving office.
8
The Lewinski matter is clear and on record. Done with it. But why does Clinton still get a pass on the women who clearly said they were assaulted, nothing consensual about it? The press wasn't interested then, and is not interested now. Why?
14
Because he’s a democrat
6
After all this time I have to ask. Why? As of November 2016 the Clintons became irrelevant. And we have had so much worse from Bush starting an unprovoked war in Iraq to the current resident, the ill informed blowhard that conducts policy based solely on his own deeply held prejudices. So why write about Bill again, ancient history.
8
I am only reading the comments regarding this opinion piece--not the piece itself. I feel like most readers could easily do the same as all Dowd's columns make the same point over and over and over again. There are so many up to date targets who are doing irreparable harm to our nation, why not zero in on them? I am talking about serious transgressions that may have worldwide consequences. If you must bring up this old error, why not bring up Linda Tripp? It is possible she engineered the whole episode.
8
What most women do not understand is that testosterone is a powerful drug. It's surprising that men do so well keeping it under control.
3
Oh, please. Really?
4
“Young lady, go back to your office. I am the president of the United States.”
Absolutely. Thank you, Ms. Dowd.
4
How about get that woman out of the White House and out of government service!
1
I'm confused. People are saying that that comparing a consensual affair to sexual harassment is a false equivalence. I thought the power differential between a boss and a subordinate meant that any sexual relationship was considered harassment. I don't think an affair between a CEO and an intern would go over too well in the workplace today.
4
Unless it’s a young NYT reporter and an older congressman...
1
Maureen, I wish you'd take a look at the following in which I mention Bill Clinton:
"In-depth: How We Waded Into The Sexual Harassment Quagmire -- Taking the Long, Hard Path Out: One Man's View" http://malemattersusa.wordpress.com/2011/12/11/the-sexual-harassment-qua...
Though some may consider this commentary shocking, it's probably the most thorough analysis you can find of what I believe has for many decades been the sexes' most alienating and destructive behavioral difference.
This difference, supported by both sexes, spawns not only most of the "ordinary" sexual harassment we hear of, but also much of the sexual coercion of women.
“I’m beginning to entertain the notion that in such a circumstance the idea of consent might well be rendered moot.”
great. here in these words lies the problem with "me too". it is beginning to trivialize real rape and harassment. if miss presidential knee pads is now a member of the club? the club needs some new bylaws. on the other hand what monica suffered from the public shaming in the press and the invasion of her personal life can be traced to a confidant that turned her in to get at bill and receive her own 15 minutes of infamy.
10
No. The "poor Monica" club has been at it for decades, and need no newer excuse, you may be sure. Her jokes to friends about her "presidential knee-pads" aside, her keeping her lover's DNA for future reference is sufficient to render the idea of dewy innocence a delusion purveyed by partisans for their own purposes. It never depended on "me, too" and would be going on full-bore, so to speak, without it.
9
Monica Lewinsky was the victim of the Republican Congress and a Special Counsel (who forced her to testify) that had been stalking Bill Clinton since the 1992 election.
Republicans are completely comfortable indicting any Democrat ( Al Franken) and demand immediate banishment while accepting and ignoring any and all infractions (Trump, Pruitt) by Republicans. The malice and hypocrisy is bottomless.
30
Trump is not a republican and most of us that voted for him aren’t either. Chew on that for a bit...
2
Uh, it was the Democrats in the Senate who pushed Franken out, not the Republicans.
6
Clinton is accused of worse behavior than with Monica. And clearly many American companies even at that point would have fired a CEO who dallied with a 22 subordinate. Still, the event shouldn't have evolved into an impeachment. A president should not be brought down over personal affairs or else we risk becoming a banana republic.
And while Monica is somewhat the victim, she clearly played an active role in this. And to say that a 22 year can't give consent because of the power differential is whacky unless there was coercion. We send boys to war at 18, hold all accountable for crimes they commit when teens, hire them into adult jobs. So while there was clearly a power difference of great proportion, unless Bill coerced her, she has to take responsibility as well.
And while the left is marching to defend Bill and calls this 20 year old news, if this were a Repub they'd be all over it.
4
If you watch Lewinsky's presentations, she does/did take responsibility.
Both things (being a responsible adult and being influenced) are true at the same time.
The real issue is Clinton's inability to admit his responsibility. If he did simply say "I made a bad mistake. I hurt both Ms Lewinsky and my family. I apologize to all those that I hurt. I have dedicated my life to doing better. " Etc.
At that point, everybody would be bored and move on.
5
Maureen, yes Bill Clinton didn't answer the questions the way you liked, but you've had this thing about Bill Clinton since he was first elected President that is a bit uncomfortable.
I'm not defending Bill Clinton, in that I think he has paid a heavy price for what he did or didn't do, but at least he acknowledged on Stephen Colbert he was wrong and could have answered it better, something for whatever reason Donald Trump has gotten a free pass on.
I typically love you columns and take on things, but you need to let go of the Bill and Hillary Clinton obsession, it's old hat and getting a bit tired.
Donald Trump is worst in every respect when it comes to behavior with woman, decency and honesty; and I think it's partly what the press and media has allowed him to manipulate you all to his advantage.
I think it's time you and the rest of the press and media focus like a laser beam on the Harvey Weinstein of politics, Donald Trump.
13
Dowd's column is right on the mark. She could also delve deeper into her practices while covering the scandal. She was merciless towards Lewinsky - indeed, Dowd once wrote that Lewinsky approached her in a restaurant and asked her why she said such mean things about her.
Also, Clinton should not have sent Lewinsky back to her office. He should have told his Chief of Staff immediately to move her to a different department and out of the White House.
7
Finally. What Bill and Hillary did to the long line of women is only a glimpse of what they were doing to us all.
4
It strikes me that so many of these self inflicted wounds by men like Bill Clinton would be avoided if, as people suggest, they would have just admitted their transgressions at the outset. I doubt their enemies would have let it stop there, however. I don't agree that Bill Clinton was not punished - he was impeached after all. And I wish people would stop blaming Hillary for his disgusting behavior. But please, Ms. Dowd, would you move on? Our current president is overseas with a wrecking ball destroying our relationship with our friends. Would you please pay attention to that?
7
Can we blame Hillary for smearing the women involved with him? For her hit jobs on them?
1
I was appalled by Bill Clinton’s behavior in the 90s and still am, though I don’t let Monica off the hook. She was 22, a legal adult, and she chose her behavior with the married President of the United States. Clinton held the power and should have known better. Another question is why men in power act this way and feel so entitled. Unfortunately, it seems to be common behavior in the President. Maybe you have to have an oversized ego and an overactive libido and flexible morals to think you should run for the office. I still voted Democrat after that, but Bill Clinton’s hijinks and Hillary’s response to them had a lot to do with why I very reluctantly voted for Hillary last round.
5
One would think that Clinton would have prepared for the inevitable question about the Lewinsky scandal in the context of the #me too movement. He only needed to say he was sorry and that he should have treated Lewinsky to a solid rejection of her sexual advances and a dismissal from her internship at the White House. I continue to have very little sympathy for Lewinsky, especially in the context of the #me too movement. Her actions toward President Clinton were, in my opinion, a form of sexual harassment that should have been reject by her "Supervisor" and dealt with by immediate dismissal.
4
When I was a 22 year old woman, I believed (and still do) that I was responsible for my own actions. There's plenty of blame to go around in this instance. Absolving Monica Lewinsky of her share of the responsibility is not necessary in order to give Bill Clinton his share. It just removes her agency as an adult with a free will. As a feminist, I can't go there.
21
I would edit this paragraph, which I think is important in our current context because I believe Trump supporters are making a similar deal with the devil, to read a little differently:
The desire among his supporters for a liberal agenda was held hostage to Bill Clinton’s libertine appetites. Let Bill be regressive and transgressive with women he was attracted to, and he would be progressive for all women.
I would replace the last line to read, "and he would be progressive for the rest."
... because I don't think you can exploit a subset of women and claim you are being progressive for all women. I think that is exactly the deal Bill Clinton made and is still trying to defend. I don't think we can sell principles to advance principles.
2
I’ve always viewed the tax payer funded Starr investigations and the resultant impeachment proceedings, which were hypocritically led by the likes of Henry Hyde and co., as an attempted coup to undo the popular vote for a twice elected president. Ms. Dowd’s vitriolic columns contributed to these efforts. If she had fulfilled her role as a responsible journalist she would have alerted us to this danger, rather than abetting it.
25
Monika Lewinsky was not a child in 1998 when the median age of married women was 26.
Dowd underscores the age differential between the two: Clinton was 49 and Lewinsky 22. She also mentions the powerful position of Clinton influencing Lewinsky's involvement.
If that criterion is to be applied to others, is Dowd ready to criticize the following powerful men who entered relationships with much younger women:
Trump was 52 when he met Melania who was 28;
Rupert Murdoch was 68 when he married Wendy Deng who was 30;
Hugh Heffner was 86 when married Crystal Harris who was 26;
Humphrey Bogart who was 45 when he married Lauren Bacall who was20;
Bing Crosby who was 50 when he married Kathryn who was 24;
Frank Sinatra was 51 when he married Mia Farrow who was 21.
10
How does a string of men who married younger women have anything to do with a man who was married and cheated on his wife with an intern? It would be relevant only if Bill had divorced Hillary and married Monica. No one disputes that older men are attracted to younger women, or that younger women trade their attractiveness for money and power. I would love to be a fly on the wall if Hillary and Ivana Trump were ever having a candid conversation, but let's acknowledge that the Clinton affair is what permitted a twice divorced man like Donald Trump to even aspire to run for office. Ronald Reagan was the first divorced President. That propped the door open, but Clinton and his defenders just blew the doors off the morality argument forever. Public and private morality are different remember. And Trump is blowing the doors off the public civility requirement. We will never be the same.
1
Most of us like Bill Clinton, most of the time. But his insatiable lust for lime-light and and insecurity for continued acceptance makes us wish that he would just go away instead of reliving, re-justifying his accomplishments and reawakening his weakness.
We know now most of the story and most of the truth. Thats all we and the future generations need to know and judge your service to the nation.
Just go away and and stop reliving your glory days. We dont have time to dwell on you anymore. We have major problems that the country faces and so go live in Peace and gratitude.
History will be the judge and none of us can change that.
I think Bill Clinton was very attractive to women, was naturally attracted to many of them, and took "no" for an answer. On the other hand, he actively pursued short-term adventures and, worst of all, refused to be candid about what he was doing. A man of his age at the time, and with his responsibilities should have known better.
In our present times, the foregoing statement has exceedingly minor importance, and the Republican/Confederate Party will use it as fodder in their propaganda machine.
If the aim is to provide #metoo insights, the writer can find more edifying incidents and personalities. If the aim is to bash the Clintons, the Republicans have already cornered the market.
5
Finally, 'the truth be told' and now it has been. On the left we all knew we were playing around with the truth . But parsing and spinning and protecting 'our' guy doesn't work any more. It doesn't hide the truth, it doesn't fool everybody, and it never gets that terrible stench of lies and deceit out of the air or out of our minds. And it never sets us free to truly move on.
2
I started as a "cub reporter" (which is what it was called back then) in 1968. In Canada the minimum wage for women was legally less then for men. Things were different. When unwanted sexual attention from me was assumed or demanded, the professional norm was to get yourself out of the situation without causing embarrassment to the aggressor, especially since the men I was interviewing were usually high-ranking businessmen or politicians. fortunately, I had a managing editor who would back me up when men threatened that if I didn't co-operate they would tell my editor I came on to them.
Second wave feminism. CR (consciousness-raising) groups, women's equality - a lot changed, thankfully. That was 50 years ago. Bill Clinton was 25 years ago and a lot has changed since then. Yes, President Clinton should have declined the invitation. Yes, the invitation shouldn't have been made. But to judge that now has to be done with nuance. It's too easy to say she should have been more professional and to put all the blame on an intern in the context of a Presidential office. The power balance wasn't equal. High office/positions of responsibility and trust have to be lived up to. It will take decades more to change the concept and suspicion of a woman succeeding by "sleeping her way to the top".
The #metoo movement has raised awareness. But in a situation where one person has or had power of some form over another, there is/was no place for sexual gratification.
3
Always amusing to see how easily triggered and reactionary the die-hard Clintonites can become. Trying to defend or minimize the Clintons tag-team "kinder,gentler" attack dog tactics towards the women that Bill had affairs with, or allegedly tried to assault, is as laughable as trying to defend Trumps tactics towards the women he's had affairs with.
2
The harsh fact of the matter is that Monica Lewinsky came on to Clinton. While Clinton should not have accepted her invitation, Lewinsky is the author of her own misfortune. She was a more than willing participant. Let’s not rewrite the facts.
9
A fair and exacting review of Bill Clinton's failure to tell the truth and apologize - back in the day.
Compare then to now - Senator Franklin's resignation under Democratic Party leadership's pressure for credible allegations of groping, including a photo confirming a sophmoric attitude of his liberties.
Senator Franklin's resignation is redeeming for American politics and his correct thinking to depart is to his credit. The entire history of mankind subjugating women's potential could be viewed as a deep well of resentment or as an opportunity to root-out male actions stifling women's freedoms.
Those who attempt to parse the importance of #MeToo will be wishing they had alienated the demographic of "my way or the highway" white men instead.
4
From the article:
"It was Trump-level narcissism and selfishness on Bill Clinton’s part to force the high-ranking women in his inner circle — Hillary, Madeleine Albright and Donna Shalala — to go before the cameras and vouch for him when he knew the truth and could simply have admitted it, rather than lying, parsing and besmirching."
Nice turn of phrase but the wrong premise. I think it should be clear to anybody who can read that Trump is acting with Clinton-narcissism and selfishness.
1
Can you think of any more RECENT examples to make your point, Maureen, particularly with respect to the "ugly bargain" at the heart of supporters' willingness to tolerate bad behavior?
Particularly when one more recent example claims absolute power to pardon himself, and whose lawyers argue that he cannot obstruct justice because that would be obstructing himself? Therefore he has done nothing wrong because he says so? Ring any bells?
I guess the news cycle must be really slow, with nothing to report. Because the nadir of moral turpitude was reached once and for all time by Bill Clinton.
Never forget.
(And never apply the lessons to current events).
13
There is much truth to the history that Ms Dowd reviews. But it is now a trivially unimportant sidelight to the human comedy in comparison to the present existential threat to America and the world. She should devote whatever writing talent she is assumed to possess to write about what is the fundamental risk of today, the raging lunatic that currently occupies the White House and is trashing the Constitution, the rule of law, basic human compassion and dignity, and our democracy itself.
4
What great irony: we've now witnessed two 90's icons, Bill Clinton and Roseanne Barr, go down in flames this month in deference to their own ids. Maureen, you must feel some consolation that your narrative, also well preserved in amber, continues to resonate well.
There may still be new moral lessons to learn here, And there is a difference in our new world between recycling and compost. While a re-inquisition of Bill Clinton's trysts could reside in either, I think we all can agree that your efforts remind us that good journalism still belongs in the latter!
2
I don't know why I'm still reading about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.
13
Why are we still reading about the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary? They still crave the spotlight and $$$ because they can neither have enough of both.
4
agree 100%
2
I stopped reading ms dowd ages ago - same old same old spitefulness and sarcasm. I do read many of the comments, however, and enjoy the common sense and decency of the commenters countering her venom. Thank you all.
13
Nancy, stop being passive-aggressive. Either read Dowd's columns, AND the comments, or neither.
3
Hi, Maureen. FYI, it's 2018. Bill's been out of power for nearly two decades. The final nail was driven in two years ago. If you want to worry about Clinton resurgence, you need to start arming yourself against Chelsea. Perhaps a new line of Original Sin columns to start?
You also might do better than to try and perpetuate the victimhood myth about the thong flasher. What fits the facts is much closer to a honey-trap extortion scheme that failed extravagantly on a personal level. The last time I looked, 22 was well past the age of consent.
Meanwhile, there's this Trump fellow...I think you know him.
Oh, sorry...you're trying to improve your standing with your brother, for the annual Thanksgiving dinner/column, I presume? Can't you handle this privately?
10
Then tell him to go away
1
The greatest show on earth is playing right now and somehow you seem to miss most of it because you are turned backward, facing the past. Fueled by grievances that span 30 years and apparently free of pesky Editors, you are turning into crazy Aunt Maureen. Just one more wacky public figure we have to endure every Sunday. It's just exhausting.
7
As I read in the NYT about Bill Clinton's defensive meltdown re Lewinsky and #metoo, one of my first thoughts was that Maureen Dowd will be delighted to have more Clinton fodder for a column. Boring.
8
It took 20 years for the left to finally come clean about this disgusting pig of a man. He is a grifter and a sexual predator. Proper place for the man is prison.
5
What would you write about if you didn't have the Clintons to kick around? Have you ever thought that your obsession with them is unhealthy?
7
Ms. Dowd calls herself an Opinion Columnist but she only opines on really old events. If she worked for Breitbart and drudged up this old (and distorted) stuff I would say she is trying to earn her salary but she is serving this up to NYT readers who elected Bill and Barack and Hillary (yes she won the popular vote ) every week and I can not understand why shy gets space to spread her ancient evil.
5
Maureen just can't resist her favorite topic: Hating the Clintons. Here she lets herself go and allows her hatred to express itself in full flower. Not admirable Maureen.
11
Maureen, you are a broken record. Your fellow columnist, Frank Bruni, already wrote about this very topic last week. How about getting an original idea?
5
Ms. Dowd is 2018. Bill Clinton is not coming back neither is Hillary. So Mr. Clinton had sex, did sex, bought sex, visited sex, wrote a book about sex, I don't care. If Mr. Clinton's sex life is so important to you, write and record a song about your boy Bill.
9
Clintonworld and its seemy underside made Trumpworld possible for which I will never be able to forgive Bill and those who aided and abetted him.
Some of the comments praising Ms Lewinsky are really just excuses to bash Hillary Clinton. Somehow she becomes responsible for what happened between her husband and an ADULT woman. Really?? Clearly Ms Dowd is not the only one here who has misogynistic attitudes.
7
As foolish and arrogant as Mr. Clinton was in his conduct and denials, there is something creepy about insisting that any self-appointed guardian of morality should be able to whip him any time she wishes.
8
I will never forgive Bill Clinton for sabotaging Gore's run for president that gave us creeping republicanism that horribly culminates with drumpf. We would be in a different place today, a greener and liberal place today. He gave democrat Americans the finger when he sought self gratification of getting head rather than using his head for the welfare of the country. Bill Clinton is a pathetic narcissist. Please tell him to hide in shame and leave the public arena!
4
Why does Maureen Dowd find it necessary to denigrate Bill Clinton in the same fashion as Frank Bruni did less than a week ago?
Can she not find more pressing matters about which to write in these tumultuous times, or is it that Clinton is her catnip? That was rhetorical; we know the answer.
9
Another shot at the Clinton's by Maureen Dowd. Yawn!
11
“When Monica Lewinsky came into the Oval Office and flashed her thong, Bill Clinton should have said: ‘Young lady, go back to your office. I am the president of the United States.’ Like Humphrey Bogart in ‘Casablanca,’ Bill should have been doing the thinking for both of them.” How generously feminist of you Maureen! I marvel and re-marvel at the generosity of the Times management in keeping you on their payroll. Good grief!
10
It has been decades since Maureen Dowd has been obsessed with Bill Clinton. Why is that? Her arguments suffer from ridiculousness. Is it Dowd's argument that having sex with women, not your wife, is inherently abusive? If so then women should stay home because they have no agency.
4
I’m sure Bill Clinton wasn’t the first sociopath to occupy the white house but he is one none the less. When question on the Today show about the scandal he attacks the reporter, classic sociopathic behavior. He then chastised the reporter for being wrong on the facts. The reporter should have responded:
The facts are you seduced an unpaid intern in the white house to perform oral sex on you while you were on a phone call with a US senator. Then you perjured yourself under oath about it, which is unforgivable as a sitting president and attorney. Next you went on national television to tell Americans that “you never had sex with that woman, miss Lewinsky”. Lastly, your behavior set a new low which contributed to the present environment where a candidate for president can be heard on tape describing how women like to be fondled against their will and still get elected.
The reporter should have sat back and watch Bill Clinton’s head explode.
6
Point of fact: he did not seduce her, she admitted to having seduced him.
6
It wouldn't have taken 20 years if you and the other groupie journalists had done your job at the time.
Guess what, he has not really apologized for Lewinsky, or the women he raped, and he still smiles and defies decency.
Giving Bill Clinton a pass adds to the bonfire of the left media as your approval, credibility, and viability speeds toward irrelevance.
Godspeed!
3
Has Ms. Dowd done her own soul-searching? If I remember correctly, she rode Monica Lewinsky to a Pulitzer Prize, flogging her mercilessly as a dumb, grasping, manipulative little sexpot. Perhaps Ms. Dowd needs to take a #MeToo moment and issue an apology of her own for putting a kid through hell.
11
Dowd - pitiful old bag. Absolutely consumed with Clinton-hatred. Consumed. Ugly and sad.
5
The Clintstones Bill and Hill are and were a pair of Trump-like self servers. With those two, like the chump, Don el Dough Trump, everything they say begins and ends with "me me me."
Dowd doesn't forget all the snide stuff she wrote about Monica Lewinsky. She does not fail to remind us about Monica's thong.
But I like Maureen. She wrote about me in 1992, in one of her last columns before becoming a columnist. Enter "jacklegs jumping up" in the front page archive slot and see for yourself!
I called her on the telephone, in 1992, after reading her "Bush Barnstorms New Hampshire article January 16, 1992.
She answered and when I identified myself the Jacklegs she was breathless and said, "Please hold I want to get a cup of coffee." 34 seconds later her line went dead.
Moe willfully ignored the unknown "poet prophet candidate" on behalf of her future, covering the Bush clan.
I bring to the political table a Television Scripture to perform from whirled wide on all channels at once, as old blind Homer, dusk until dawn with every line a delicate sensible "mull tie ling well" rhyme.
You are interested of course. Sadly Maureen is not.
P.S. To the moderators: Because I bring to the table words for all man kind you moderate my every word. Censorship of the "Prophet Lev" is your policy.
http://thegovernmentinexile.live
1
Leave it to Mo to write a column about the Clintons the day after 45 demonstrated hostility to our allies at the G7. This country is on the precipice of disaster and she is still ragging on the Clintons! Do something for your fellow citizens, Mo and expose this jerk who holds the highest position in our country! Expose Putin! Jeez Mo, get with the program!
27
Thanks, Maureen!
I bet that you would once again focus on the Clintons this week. And I won! You are Ahab and the Clintons are your white whale. Donald Trump? Nothing to see here! #sopredictable
30
Bill's #Not Me Too Fake Farce Face was exposed.
Bill Clinton's affair with a White House intern in the Oval Office of our White House was the business of the American people. But it was not an impeachable offense. Bill's adultery was Hillary's problem. But Bill's sexual harassment was our concern.
The Clinton's slinked off to collect and count coin "earned" from their "public service". But Monica Lewinsky faded into the shadows. Miss Lewinsky had Bill 's semen stains on her blue dress. Which brought the meaning of oral sex and is to the forefront.
Bill and Hillary Clinton were the Master and Mistress of Mass Incarceration, Welfare Deformation, Corporate Plutocrat Oligarch Welfare and War Mongering. Bill Clinton's white condescending paternalism with the black journalist Craig Melvin was despicable and typical.
7
Good grief, Mo; dug up that dead horse and whipped it good, huh? :(
Why do you hate Bill and Hill so much? :/
13
Remember the good old days, when 22-year-olds were considered adults? To wit, Clinton should have gone to HR to report Ms. Lewinsky's sexual misconduct, rather than getting sucked into HER power. Was her advance "wanted"? Was it appropriate for the workplace? Yes, he was her boss and yes, he should have fired her for sexual harassment.
Lines like this: "Like Humphrey Bogart in “Casablanca,” Bill should have been doing the thinking for both of them" convey that one member in the party is incapable of knowing how to behave. Has Down read Lewinsky's book? She had the hots to the point of obsession. Could it possibly be that two persons lost their senses -- being human, and all?
The so-called "friend" in whom Lewinsky confided, betrayed that confidence. And so a scandal was born.
This narrative that men hold all the power is not feminist. Women wield great sexual power over men and they need to be taught to respect that power, rather than purvey this denial that it doesn't exist.
That's not equality. It's willful narcissism on the part of women and this woman is getting really tired of it.
25
More needs to be written about Newt Gingrich’s SIMULTANEOUS condemnation of Clinton/Lewinski and Newt’s own long term extra marital affair.
Why don’t you invest some writing work time on that one? Because you would have to do some actual research instead of trotting out the same essay yet again Maureen?
58
Such typical leftist deflection
4
Dear New York Times Opinion Editor--
Perhaps if you can't find a more credible columnist you should quit and look for work elsewhere. All the horrendous things that are happening in America today and she can't let go of Bill Clinton? We have a man in the White House who has said and done equally abusive actions and words toward women and we give him a big pass. Clinton was impeached for this. When is enough, enough? #basta.
A Disgusted 66-year-old Woman Reader
26
Apparently, my initially submitted comment on this piece was too scathing to be printed by the Times. Suffice it to say that Dowd’s need to boil down all of the good things that Bill Clinton did for our country during his presidency, to his proclivity for immoral behavior, and his inability to take responsibility for it in a way that satisfies her, was reignited during his recent book tour appearances on television. Lewinsky, who was previously skewered by Dowd for her provocative seduction of Clinton, is now the PTSD survivor of a man taking advantage of a young adult. Only Dowd can know why she has turned away from writing about the veritable undoing of our democratic institutions by trump, his immoral behavior notwithstanding, and choosing instead to focus her snark on Clinton’s twenty year old misdeed.
29
"all the good things that Bill Clinton did for our country" were entirely the consequence of being held hostage (and controlled) by a Republican Congress led by Newt Gringich.
2
Really Maureen? When Monica flashed her thong? Shame on you. Do you know that that really happened? You just shifted the blame on that poor young lady. Maybe you need a #metoo moment.
9
Well, in fairness, I do have to say that it never occurred to me to keep a lover's body fluids wrapped in air-tight plastic for any future purpose as did Ms. Lewinsky. But maybe that's just me.
6
You love to trash Clintons. You probably love Kennedy's aspecially JFK. JFK has done so much worse to women that Clinton ever did. JFK saved us from nuclear disaster and started to find solutions to Civil Rights movement.
You are a purist when it comes to Clintons. You should write about how your educated brother admires Trump to the detriment of all of us. W.Bush was a good husband and did not cheat on his wife or any womanizing reported. He gave us Iraq war which led to ISIS. Trillions of dollars spent on the war. I will take Clinton over W. Bush anytime as so many others would.
You go ahead and feel all good how you attack Clintons.
27
The Clintons deserve every bit of hatred and loathing they get
3
So what specific point in this article do you dispute?
1
Many of us ask day and day out, why doesn't Congress stop our current horror show of an administration? Same can be asked of the Times about Maureen Dowd. When will you ever retire her tired pen?
Do Times editors not rad the comments here? Or care? Week after week the vast majority of readers rue the wasted space. We are sick of Dowd resurrecting the same whipping boys (Clinton and Obama, not to mention Hilary) with not very creative or new renditions of the same old tropes we've heard from her a million times already.
The Times is truly irresponsible for letting this go on. I know I'm sick of it and then some. Dowd's glory days as a columnist are long done. She's not even resting on laurels, but, instead, trolling the gutter.
25
I’m not tired of it at all.
3
Give it a rest Dowd. Your Clinton obsession is as embarrassing as listening to Bill try to explain the whole thing away.
20
Two comment:
First, the age of the adults in question here is completely irrelevant. Dowd's attempt to rhetorically infantize an adult is pathetic. You're 22. You've had plenty of sex. You sought out sex. You are an adult, not a thong enthusiast girl-child. [Aside: This "adult/child" reversal reminds me of Natalie Holloway's Mom's attempt to portray her daughter (18) as a child and Van der Sloot (17) as a man. Interesting that the press never once called out this rhetoric.]. This case was and is about workplace power. If Monica had been 31 would the **issue** really be any different? It shouldn't be.
Second, that Dowd had to make Republicans into adverse verbs over this issue is sad. There are plenty of Democrats you can make into such verbs, starting with Hillary.
6
"But with the Clintons, the public and private were always intertwined in an inextricable and unappetizing way."
Clintons hell! That is the essence of Leftist politics, to make every detail of every person's private life a matter of public business to be regulated and adjudicated by the State.
How's that for "explainin' stuff"?
8
This is funny, coming from the rightist obsessions over other people's sexual habits and access to contraception and choices. The party with a nose in every bedroom, a hatred for other people's religious choices, a demand that we not even say Happy Holidays. The prying, faux-Puritans who forgive every sin of their pals and none of anyone else. Hypocrisy has built itself an empire in right wing America, and no mistake.
5
Let me be clear... I am behind the metoo movement.
But will you please stop your obsessive hatred of the Clintons?
16
Not good enough. Once a scumbag, always a scumbag. Hillary should have dumped him the minute they left the WH. Blech.
8
Hillary, the co-conspirator, is as bad
3
Reader--She's not wonderful, but she's not the monster you, and yours, like to think of her. You're entitled to your opinion, and I'll defend "to the death" your right to be wrong.
1
Why didn't Jackie dump JFK? No one knows anything about someone else's marriage.
I find this obsession for a 20 year old consensual affair stupid. We currently have a president who is destroying our country.
3
In the 2000 election there were women who voted their anger by choosing Bush. They must have thought that Al Gore was involved with Monica too. Just at the Trumpkins did with Trump, they adopted a "failed America" posture. And we got a moral Christian in office for eight years. That worked out okay, didn't it?
Anyway, complaints about Clinton are decidedly passé; the evangelical movement, no less, has endorsed Donald Trump's adultery, bitter insults, and degradation of women. If the Christian movement, that fiduciary bastion of morality, endorses Trump's behavior, then it's okay. Trump won the presidency over Clinton, in case anyone has forgotten. He *didn't* win the popular vote, of course; there's still hope. But Trump's victory vitiates any effect from righteous indignation over Bill Clinton.
We can only dredge up the past; it's as effective as Black street riots, Teddy Kennedy's demonstration in the 1980 Democratic presidential nominating convention, and backing third party candidates such as Perot, Nader and Wallace, to vote one's anger. It will advantage Trump and his trumpkins.
Dems are the best with guilt; with Democratic hand wringing, Republicans don't need any victory strategy going forward. I, for one, would like to have that economy and nearly balanced federal budget that was at the end of the Clinton presidency. I'm not going to destroy things like an angry child. Trump and his trumpkins do that.
33
We're in the middle of a national leadership crisis, you have an opportunity to write weekly about it in the Sunday New York Times and this is what you choose to do instead. Unreal.
101
MoDO's hatred of all things Clinton surpasses any actual ethics or values that she has (or purports to have).
4
Clinton has repeatedly reinserted himself into the public eye since he left the White House. His book tour does so again. He is now facing the music for his sexual transgressions. It's about time, despite the ability of his admirers to try to tell us that his disgusting behavior towards women is all water under the bridge.
3
The most interesting thing in this piece was the Anita Hill reference. I wish you had written about that, Maureen. Did you decide not to because you feel it's been adequately discussed? Every word in this column today has been written by you before...at least 50 times. Yes, Maureen. Bill Clinton is slime and Hillary enabled him. I wish you had been as unwavering on Trump's sliminess when he was running for the Oval. As I vividly recall, you wrote some columns in which you described him as highly entertaining and really not as bad as all that. How's that working out for you? So, thanks for the 100th column on your hatred of the Clintons. Maybe the Times will give you a watch for achieving the milestone. Or maybe an editor of this paper will suggest you write about something else once in a while.
33
Did you not, Ms. Dowd, do some of the "besmirching" yourself?
24
Although I am infuriated by Ms. Dowd's snotty, patronizing treatment of Barack Obama, I have to agree with this column. Ms. Lewinsky treated herself like a piece of meat when she flashed her thong at President Clinton, but she was in her early 20's. President Clinton was the grown up in the room and the President of the United States. He was also Ms. Lewinsky's boss. He also knew that Congressional Republicans were watching every move he made. When he recklessly went for the bait she offered, he demeaned her, himself and his office. He had all of us Liberals behind him and he sold us out for a back alley fling with a girl half his age. In my opinion, Democrats and the country would be better off today if he had resigned his office.
29
Not all liberals looked the other way. Please don't speak for all of us.
1
Does this mean that women are to be forgiven all misbehavior-including driving while drunk-but men will always be held responsible? The point Ms Culliton makes is precisely that which has been used to show why woimen-weak and unable to control their passions and sexual urges-needed to be reined in and controlled by intelligent and powe reful men.
After all-no men or boys screamed in the aisles and tore off the clothes of the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. Men stood by and looked on with worry and the the common wisdom was "There wasn't a dry seat in the house"
OK, then, Ms Cullton-maybe we are in agreement-Women mst be controlled when near men.
Really, Maureen. As a nation, the greatest threat to democracy and our freedom resides in the White House. And you spend a valuable Sunday telling us about circumstances from twenty years ago.....I wonder about your obsession and your inability to focus on the germane.
75
No, Maureen. #MeToo moments are for women. And Monica Lewinsky is still awaiting hers. Bill and Hillary Clinton still haven't worked through his "bimbo problem," and their inability to apologize to her and the other women Donald Trump conspicuosly and cleverly brought to the debate cost them the 2016 election. Ironically, a woman lost to the latest alpha male with his own Harvey Weinstein level bimbo problem. Perhaps that's for a later column now that you've bashed Bill and Barry.
10
Obviously Maureen has drawers full of these things and is just waiting for a reason to drag one of them out. Vacation week!! just a few adjustments and back to the beach.
And then we all stupidly respond but are convincing no one. Clinton haters,like Trump supporters, Can't be persuaded by facts.
14
Great piece. So truthful.
The question NBC's reporter should have asked Clinton is...
"To what degree did your diminishment of workplace sexual harrassment 20 years ago, your ongoing obfuscation of the cold, hard truth about what you were guilty of PAVE THE WAY for today's Weinstein's, and Cosby's, and Lauer's, and O'Reilly's, and Ailes's, and Rose's, and Nasser's?"
That would have been an apt question that might have made Clinton's head explode all over Patterson.
Clinton did not create workplace sexual harassment, or create the Harvey Weinstein's of our world... but when the President of the United States does what Clinton did, and behaved the way he did (along with those around him) in the aftermath of his crime, well, suffice to say that my prediction to my wife about what this would wreak down the road has come to fruition. Clinton, in a way, legitimized workplace sexual harassment for many, as well as other abhorrent behaviors that so many "men leading double lives" have been emboldened to engage in.
23
Consensual affairs between adults are not crimes. Just want to point that out to you.
5
Do you seriously think harassment wasn't part of everyday life before Clinton came along?
The "legitimization" of sexual harassment at the workplace started the day the first woman ever hired appeared for work.
2
Grammar.
The plurals are Weinsteins, not Weinstein's, Cosbys not Cosby's, etc.
Bill Clinton exercised very poor judgement with Monica Lewinsky. Personally, I have felt residual anger for the way Monica was treated by all Americans. Hawthorne certainly described our society in "The Scarlet Letter" and Monica felt the full force of Puritanical disdain. I am hopeful when I see full fledged defenses of Stormy Daniels character despite her sexual activities. However, such aggressive attacks on Bill Clinton dismay me. First, he too is human with sexual actions that don't always meet Puritanical standards. I question whether sexual actions with consenting adults should define anybody. If Monica's affair with Bill had never been revealed, how much further ahead would Monica have been in her life goals? Simply, we had no business in someone's personal/sexual business unless there was no consent or recognizable abuse. The prying into personal lives was done for political motives only. It was given traction by the public's desire to hear salacious details about the behavior of others. As we well know a number of the accusers had sexual behaviors that also did not meet Puritanical standards. The goal was not censure, it was to politically destroy Clinton.
17
Best comment I have read
2
Yeah yeah yeah, all true and semi slimey no doubt but he’s not POTUS anymore and neither is his wife! This is old news that was painfully adjudicated over 20 years ago. As you note, at least President Clinton was good at the job he was paid to do, much less can be said of President Corporal Dotard Molester Bonespurs.
29
Once again, the writer wants to share her feel-good attitude after bashing a Clinton.
Instead of mentioning an old and questionable abuse of power, why not address the fact that half the country actually voted for an individual who openly claimed abuse of women and power?
25
We are facing an existintial crisis in democracy and world order and you are concerned with a scandal that's two decades old?
37
Kev...yes. Things are horrifying. Trump has the economy and market en fuego, has NK in a box, has destroyed isis, reformed our tax system, pushed NATO to pull their weight in their own defense, is working to control our borders...etc., yes, we've problems right here in river city.
4
This is Ms. Dowd's opening salvo in support of Trump for 2020. She did it before, and she can do it again!
15
Typical liberal "us or them" partisanship. This may come as a shock to some, but you can, and should, be opposed to all pigs, republican or democrat
2
well done maureen. The trump supporters are applauding your column!
16
You bet! Well said Maureen.
1
Thank you for this. I remember a traumatic meeting at NOW in NYC where the leadership insisted that we support Clinton in the midst of the Lewinsky crisis because he had been a dependable supporter of abortion rights. I felt that we should be calling him out. I lost. It is now clear that had we called him out then we could have gotten the #MeToo movement started a generation earlier.
14
Thank for exposing the hypocrisy of the Left on this issue.
There is no excuse for Bill Clinton’s behavior but what has been worse are those that enable and defend his behavior.
We need to start a complimentary #YouToo movement that holds these enablers and defenders equally accountable.
Then our culture will truly change.
18
Yeah, we don't have any hypocrites on the right in this country. How supposedly "Christian" folk can support the serial womanizer, adulterer and liar currently holding office doesn't indicate any kind of double standard. At least WJC wasn't racist.
2
No. You, BC, don't get to dismiss the opinions of feminists who experienced sexism/misogyny/assaults during the 90's just because we call out the misbehavior of BOTH Clinton and Lewinsky.
In my early 20's I knew what the implication was were i to "flash my thong" at a man with whom I worked, whether a contemporary or one in a higher position. I knew better, and so did Monica. Her actions were intentional.
2
How bizarre and pathetic that, apparently Hillary was able to move on and get over it but Maureen Down and much of this country cannot. He owed Hillary an apology and no one else.
19
He owed (and owes) Monica an apology. As does Hillary owe her one.
3
So you prefer 45, I take it?
16
Maureen, we are in big trouble in the US, our country is frrplu divided by a president who lies, bullies and threatens anyone who disagrees with his modus operandi, which now, sadly, includes our Canadian, French, German and Japanese allies. Each day he rides roughshod on the norms of our country, through his insults and form of "governing" we are indeed a fractured country. I am troubled that you are still talking about Hillary and Bill Clinton. President Clinton acted badly. yes I admit that he did He asked for forgiveness and has gone on to do much good in the world. Maureen, are you not gravely concerned about this current administration and our standing with the rest of the world? Please let this be your last opinion piece on the Clintons. I feel despair, and you are not helping.
27
pardon me, I meant to write "deeply divided" -- frrplu was my covefe!
2
Clinton was the adult. He should have known better. Ironically Trump used Clinton as his excuse for the Access Hollywood tapes. That he and Clinton said even more vulgar things about women in their locker room chats. Americans are remarkably forgiving when it involves the morality and sexual indiscretions of their leaders. They know they are electing men of the world not men of the clergy.
6
I ceased reading Maureen Dowd years ago due to her unrelenting personal attacks against the Clintons. Apparently, she's still unable to acknowledge how much she and Bill have in common.
15
If you ceased reading her, how can you reply to this?
3
To Hey Joe and his negative comments about Hillary Clinton:
Those nasty things you say about HRC are just nasty things that belie the true facts of her character. HRC, throughout her life, has shown herself to be a woman of great intellect and compassion. She worked tirelessly on behalf of children since her early days. She recognized the importance of healthcare for all ahead of everyone else. She demonstrated her savvy political nuts as an outstanding New York state Senator and world respected US Secretary of State.
I and reminded daily of how better our country would be now under Hillary's leadership instead of the divisive, ignorant, greedy, egomaniacal, destructive Trump. The US would be moving forward not leaping backward, and we would have friends, not enemies, around the world.
"T" as in Treason and Trump is why we are now in decline. If you can't see that, there is something seriously wrong with you or you're just another Republican hell bent on power and the almighty dollar (in your pocket and the pockets of your wealthy donors).
22
Yes, everyone becomes a multi millionaire by working tirelessly for women and children.
4
Who cares what Bill Clinton says/does in this day of national horror? Except Maureen Dowd.
What patriots care about is the survival of the United States of America. The nation we love, the nation that once stood for democracy, republican government, the rule of law, pursuit of justice, pursuit of happiness, respect for truth, our allies, human rights.
But no, Ms. Dowd wants to capitalize on her hatred of the Clintons. Similar to how one might reflect on someone who took advantage of them decades in the past...and they still can not let go and forget.
While our nation faces the greatest threat to its survival, Ms. Dowd chooses to express her animus of the Clintons. How appropriate!
Well Ms. Dowd, I expect if Russia launched a thousand missiles carrying nuclear weapons at the US, as they entered our air space, you would choose to contemplate how unfair it was that Bill Clinton survived the absolute and extraordinary hypocritical attacks of Gingrich, the moral priest of the GOP.
Your perspective Ms. Dowd, is quite simply dowdy, inelegant, inappropriate, focused on a fly in the eye of a swirling, destructive tornado, and decades dated. And so, instead of wasting our time, focused on saving America, why don't you waste your time attacking JFK, FDR, AJ, AH, TJ or GW?
Perhaps you can reach deep, give us a quote from a Shakespearean play or a line written by Jane Austen to show in some way, some how, past personal grievances inform us on our clear and present national danger?!
12
Bill Clinton behaved abominably and still can't see it. On the other hand, Lewinsky (and her mother) didn't send that dress to the clearners, did they.
Nobody comes out of this smelling like roses. Nor does Maureen Dowd, pretend-feminist and pretend-political columnist. Your columns don't have the right to be forgotten.
5
I don't disagree with her. However, Maureen needs a hobby. Her fixation on the Clintons is not healthy.
14
...it’s an inexcusable abuse of power...
Perhaps it's also an inexcusable abuse of power for Maureen to use her great power as Sunday columnist for the Times to tear down the Clintons at every opportunity instead of taking a look at what's really going on in the US. Does Trump have a PP tape on her, or what?
13
basically it would not have mattered if Bill Clinton had been a saint like Obama, you still would have found some reason to screwer him as you do Obama. Never mind the jury that impeached him- The reprehensible, narcissist Newt that left two of his wives high and dry, one with cancer ,while having his affair with his own Monica and then Henry Hyde who did the same and then there was Ken Starr who presided over a rape culture at Baylor... Where are those epitaphs? by the way there is a 'Stalin to be' ruining our country while you attempt to distract us with your petty grudge column on your favorite scapegoats... yet again. If i had to pick a woman to represent true grit, intelligence, strength, smarts and her own enduring grace and contribution to feminist rise to leadership, it would not be you. Not even a shade!
14
I will never understand why, other than Clinton lying under oath, this ‘affair’ was anyone’s business.
Clinton treated some women as sexual objects with which to gratify himself, Ms. Lewinsky deluded herself into thinking she was important to him. Whose fault was that? His and hers.
I am tired of the conflation of Trump and Clinton; their behavior isn’t similar, wasn’t the same and the only people who believe that there isn’t any difference between the two are Ms. Dowd and Mr. Trump.
Heckuva job you did helping Donnie Dorko get to the White House Maureen. Heckuva job.
21
It would be in the best interests of the Democratic Party and indeed the nation if Bill and Hillary Clinton finally exited the stage and stopped making excuses for each other and reacting with righteous indignation when called out for their behavior. It is truly unfortunate that such a talented , gifted and incredibly smart man like Bill Clinton in the end is no better morally than Donald Trump. IT is devastating for women and especially for the alleged causes he and his wife claim to champion. His behavior then with " that Ms. Lewinsky " , and in the interview this week was offensive and reprehensible. He tarnishes everything he accomplished and claims to stand for with his condescending and unapologetic attitude. He truly makes us look no better than " them" .
6
Lewinsky or no Lewinsky, the litmus test is this: do male politicians who actively preach feminist ideals actually practice them in their private lives? Yes or no? If we, the voters, can't reconcile their "do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do" behavior, then no matter how talented or brilliant they are, they cannot represent 50% of the population. And it's the reason that brilliant guys like Franken, Spitzer, Weiner, Edwards, and Schneiderman are sitting on the sidelines--rightly so, I might add.
Gentlemen who fancy themselves leadership material: we see you. The days of turning a blind eye to bad business are over.
3
From anyone but you Maureen.... I might listen. Do Ms. Lewinsky a favour and stay off your favourite topic. I know we need various opinions but you’ve been beating up on the Clintons as your favourite pastime for so long, I’m beginning to wonder if it’s and obsession. Your opinion is creating the counter intuitive argument that Bill is right on this matter and I think all the men and that “nosy friend” Lynda Tripp are all responsibilities for the cruel treatment of Ms Lewinsky. They and the press... and you dragged Monica through the mud for years.
12
Donald Trump is trying to bully the rest of the G7 into re-admitting Russia - when his tax returns are still secret, hiding Russia's financial influence over him - yet this columnist harps on affairs from decades ago that occurred during the most successful presidency in modern times.
Clearly the Clintons are an unhealthy obsession for this columnist. A quick google search just now on 'how to move on from unhealthy obsessions' led me to a website of a relationship coach, Dr. Harra, who pledges to help guide people through the detachment process:
1. Start your day with empowerment
2. Replace your obsession
3. Turn to others for inspiration
4. Practice self-care
5. Get into a new routine
"Like anything else, detachment takes time and it's a process. But the results are remarkably liberating: a life in which unhealthy obsession doesn't dominate your day-to-day thoughts and actions." And it would be remarkably liberating for readers, too!
I propose that Donald Trump - who generally escapes the scathing attention you turn on the Clintons - would be an excellent replacement obsession. In addition to his sexual assault bragging, he has also assaulted civil rights, dumped toxins in our environment, praised neo-Nazis as many fine people, encouraged the proliferation of assault weapons, and defrauded companies who built his buildings and students who attended his fake university.
President Trump will be an excellently fresh object of obsession, and far more clickbait-worthy.
11
Maureen wrote that Monica "came into Bill's office and flashed her thong". That statement speaks volumes for it shows that Monica was the aggressor. She wanted the affiar. This was nothing more than a consensual affair and Monica is not a victim. That she saved the blue dress suggests that she was setting up Bill for blackmail. Maybe she should be in jail.
9
"But by 1998, feminism had been flowering for 30 years."
And it was hardly a secret. Monica Lewinsky and every other 22-year old must have know that feminists in this country were working assiduously to gain ground and establish ourselves in the positions we wanted, needed, were educated for and were capable of doing. Certainly time and place counted largely in this equation.
So there you are, having landed an internship in the White House, one of the most important addresses on the planet and what do you do? Take advantage of your incredibly good fortune to improve yourself, polish up your cv, further your career, push the boundaries for your future and that of all women? No... and the rest is history and 'tis a pity.
Another old goat and a young chick: Two tangoed. So enough with the hand-wringing, blame-shame already.
10
I realize that that Democrats can't get over the fact that Hillary and Bill Clinton will never be President and an illegal shadow president respectively, ever. Maybe they could talk with Bill Clinton and Bill could poke a pinky finger in the corner of his eye for a crocodile tear and tell them in his best fake trembling voice; "I FEEL YOUR PAIN!"
6
Clinton through the #MeToo lens is yet another neo-puritan foray into revisionist history. It may come as a shock, but people on the Continent forgot about Bill's hanky-panky decades ago.
But in the States, Bill is the Lazarus that can be raised whenever the right and now even the left need a dead horse to beat. In England when we have a sex scandal (Profumo), it has real fornication -- and Russian spies, riff-raff Jamaican jazz singers, keep going. It makes life too easy for John Le Carre.
5
Sexual predators are held in universal disdain except for Bill Clinton among many readers of the NY Times...
Doesn’t the free pass granted by feminists when Clinton was in office have an expiration date? Curious.
13
"The desire among his supporters for a liberal agenda was held hostage to Bill Clinton’s libertine appetites."
Except that it wasn't a liberal agenda: NAFTA, bank deregulation, telecommunications deregulation, welfare reform, plans to partially privatize Social Security.
Why must the media forever harp on Lewinsky while failing to reckon with the much greater damage inflicted on this country by Clinton's neoliberal policies?
4
His policies were awful. Set the party on the entirely wrong course.
2
We all are flawed, imperfect, no doubt with self-doubts and needy propositions when given a chance. Bill's abuse of power was, and remains, an unacceptable behavior. And a truly felt apology, simple as it sounds, is the way to go. Always. To belabor the point and to find sophisticated ways to skin a cat, to 'split hairs', won't do anymore. Sorry Bill, the times have changed for the better...even in these miserable Trumpian times.
7
The dogmatic #MeToo commissars never short on targets no matter how far in the past or how slight the offense.......
Bill had a women problem, women loved him.
The guy was humiliate 18yrs ago for the love of God let it go.
Didn’t Gingrich get Monica the job in the WH; you connect the dots. She had free agency.
The world is not clean cut. We aren’t doing paint by numbers here, learn to roll with it. The GOP does. Politics is just warfare without the blood and guts.
7
"Trailer trash"etc., what makes you think the name calling is different now with the present president and his paramours. Give it a rest, Maureen Dowd, you are harping on Bill Clinton for too long. But, he as well as you will never change. You are getting boring (and I am not a Clinton fan). Don't we have more pressing issues in this country right now?
14
Why do all of you Dowd-ers believe that her change of heart will change a nation?
...save your key strokes...
1
We don't. But we'd love the NYT to pay some attention here and look at its current stable of Op/Ed writers. The NYT could help change the nation. That seems unlikely when valuable op/ed space is wasted on Dowd, Brooks and Douthat. Surely there are writers out there with perspective, judgment who might offer policy alternatives, new ideas or ways of looking at intractable issues or the mess that our political system has become. Instead, we get Dowd bashing former presidents who shame the current WH occupant with their intelligence and we're told to go to church. BTW, I'm out protesting against other things in need of change, too. And volunteering with immigrants. Let's start somewhere?
1
Regrettably, Ms. Dowd has become dated in her perception of issues now faced by our republic. Mr. Clinton's behavior of 20 years past is simply not relevant to the current and daunting issues facing our republic. We now have a narcissitic, treasonist, criminal, mentally infirm fool in the White House doing great damage to our institutions, international relationships and indeed, our way of life. I suggest you revisit your jouralistic priorities.
41
Didn't I read this column last week? And the week before?
20
I read it 20 years ago.
2
Enough with the Clinton bashing. Bill Clinton has not been president for almost 20 years. Hillary is not president now. When Maureen can't think of anything else to write about, she trots out the Clintons. ENOUGH.
23
Ms. Dowd seems incapable of distinguishing the world of difference between sexual assault and sexual dallying. And let's not forget that it was Republicans who ruthlessly and endlessly attacked Bill Clinton when it became known that he and Monica Lewinsky had dallied. It's not surprising that Ms. Dowd fails to mention in her tiresome attacks on Pres. Clinton that he never bragged about his actions.
One has to wonder about Ms. Dowd's single-minded, prurient interest in Pres. Clinton, since she gives a pass to other presidents who engaged in extramarital activities, including the current horror squatting in the White House.
8
Sexual assault? You mean like what he did to Juanita and Kathleen Wiley?
3
I cannot imagine why, with the tragedies unfolding for all women - and children, and people, and living creatures -- in this country and on this earth at the hands of our CURRENT President, you waste your column on this.
17
Maureen Dowd’s article actually seriously undermines the “me too” movement. Monica and Bill were both adults. Monica was not dependent on Clinton for a job and by numerous accounts she initiated what eventually happened. Dragging this tired scandal back serves no purpose. Find something relevant to write about
17
Give me a break! Considering we are living through one of the darkest periods in our history, that our very soul is being rocked by the anti-democratic actions of Trump and his infected adherents - surely you have serious matters to examine and expound on....???
Clinton paid the price for his indiscretions - Trump never has. Put a bead on him for a change. There is lots to expose there; then take a good look at our right-wing demagogues, many in our cabinet and sitting pretty in Congress. Lots to look at Maureen as our democracy is being endangered and you are piddling with the past.
FDR said,"We have nothing to fear but fear itself". But at this time in our history we not only have fear but we have division along with the dark stain of historical racism and hatred of immigrants at our core.
10
Ms. Dowd, enough already.
We have much greater issues to discuss, today.
11
"The power differential between a 22-year-old intern and a 49-year-old boss makes any sexual interaction wrong."
You do realize that 22 year old women have FAR FAR FAR more sexual currency than 49 year old men, don't you New York Times? Please don't tell me this needs to be explained to you.
11
Once again, Maureen Dowd attacks, who else, the Clintons. This time, Bill. Does the New York Times understand there is nothing to this consensual relationship between two adults, which took place twenty something years ago, except that Miss Dowd is incapable of writing anything current. Why such an obsession with the Clintons? Enough.Please?
We are living in the most challenging historical chapter of our lifetime and the best the New York Times can do is employ Maureen Dowd to write about something that nobody cares about. She should move on to Donald Trump, the current man in the White House. There is plenty material there.
5
Rome burns while Maureen fiddles!
16
If Ms. Dowd could just stop writing columns about either Clinton, she might actually influence readers. That she continues to whip up outrage over the Clintons, now both out of office, astonishes me. Ms. Dowd would be a better read if she focused on current events. BTW, if she insists on revisiting political figures' transgressions from the last century, how about the behavior of the former Speaker of the House, third in line for the Presidency. At least his current wife is still a political figure as she is an ambassador.
13
I am shocked by some of the comments here. As Ms. Dowd summarizes, the Clinton-Lewsinsky affair was clearly predatory. What don’t you get about that? A sitting President, in the Oval Office with an intern. This not a consensual relationship. This is Harvey Weinstein-esque. And it is not an isolated case, Bill was a serial abuser. If your partisan pretzel logic absolves Bill Clinton, I would suggest you relook at how you arrive at your current political beliefs and evaluation of potential candidates for office.
5
No one is absolving WJC here. And lots of us have deep regret that we didn't support Saunders. We don't advocate predatory behavior towards women or anyone else -- like immigrants, people of color, LGBT folks either.
We even wonder whether supporting a centrist who reduced welfare benefits, increased prison sentences was at all intelligent or enabled more mistreatment of the poor and of those most likely to end up arrested and convicted.
Look what's in the WH now and ask yourself where our attention ought to now be focused though. That's what we're saying. Who cares about a 20-year old scandal when we now have the WH occupied by a scandalously incompetent racist?
1
Agreed. I’m shocked as well that so many readers just don’t get it. They’re up in arms that republicans give Trump a pass, yet they do the same for Bill. Hypocrisy at its finest.
1
Hardly Harvey Weinstein-esque. Clinton did not try to control here career through some casting couch actions.
Everyone needs to get a grip. Sexual behavior involves flirtation, coercion is predatory. The power differential was and is problematic. But Lewinsky's PTSD is not from the sexual dalliance, it is from the fact that it was revealed and reviled, and she invited the dalliance. Period. Yes Bill should have said no. He didn't. Get over it.
2
Dowd you didn't go far enough it is not just Lewinsky but all the women that Clinton had his way with through his political career. Why no mention of Juanita Broaddrick
4
This is a much needed article. Yes the story is old, told and overtold, and the current abomination in the WH far exceeds the Clinton antiques. And yes I am happy that his wife is not president (after having voted for her given the choice) in view of her lies, arrogance and aloofness. And hopefully in 2.5 years (of which, hopefully again, 2 years under the tutelage of a Democratic Congress), we will manage to have a normal President and leave the current nightmare to the dustbin of history.
4
The gall! The chutzpah! The sociopathy! Clinton embodies all this and more! In reflection Clinton was a pivotally destructive president. In his wake NAFTA has gutted labor, banks were deregulated crashing the economy, the prison population was exploded attacking blacks, welfare was damaged causing children and families to suffer, AND Monica Lewinsky was defiled. On balance Lewinsky was more of a casual hobby. We KNEW Slick Willy was an abuser of women but America thought is was getting the ‘greater good.’ Well 25 years later, we’re still waiting!The repudiation of Hillary was as much a repudiation of Bill. That he tries to make a case for his exoneration and/or glorification is just as perverse. I’m glad #ME TOO gives the mainstream a rationale not to buy what he’s selling. And if Lewinsky gets a little cred and makes a few bucks, good for her!
6
There are three certainties in life: Death, Taxes, and Maureen Dowd. We as a country just went through another gut-wrenching week. Mr. Trump basically divorced himself from our allies at the G-6(+1, yours truly). During this conference he asserted that Russia - Russia! - should be readmitted. He was beyond being condescending or a school-yard bully. Rather, he was not unlike a Mafia "Don" with endless threats. His grand finale was calling his host Trudeau a liar and weak. What a pathetic man this Mr. Trump is... Then there were Manafort's new indictment, Sessions ongoing bigotry, Pruitt's ongoing corrupt and despicable behavior, ad nauseum. What's my point, you ask? Ms Dowd just wasted up space as well as hard-copy paper by another relentless jab at Bill and Hillary Clinton...with a little poke headed toward President Obama's way. Please, as I try to be nice with this question, "Can you let it go, Ms. Dowd? We are on the brink of a Constitutional crisis. Focus, please, instead on this Mad Emperor living in the White House."
50
Kathy, do you realize this article is based on a recent interview with Bill Clinton? And that it has nothing to do with Donald Trump? Despite that, I see so many "Yeah, but what about..." arguments like yours on this thread. It's scary that so few on the left are capable of critical thinking, part of which is staying on point. Maureen Dowd is free to write about any subject she chooses.
2
Aged 22? Has Lewinsky apologized to Hillary Clinton?
25
Our current President makes Bill Clinton look like St Francis. We about to say goodbye to the EU, Japan, Canada and Mexico. We are going to join up with Putin, Duarte and Kim.
Trump makes jokes about suspending the rule of law. What does Ms Dowd talk about, something that happened in the 90s. Sad, time for the NYT to say adios to Ms Dowd IMO
37
Last week, the Supreme Court issues a ruling about a baker who thought baking a cake for a gay-wedding was a violation of his religious freedoms, and that case offers an instructive that actions need to be judged in the era they were acted out.
This is from that decision: "His dilemma was understandable in 2012, which was before Colorado recognized the validity of gay marriages performed in the State and before this Court issued United States v. Windsor, 570 U. S. 744, or Obergefell."
What was acceptable at one time, becomes unacceptable in another; and perhaps, we should weigh things with that difference in Mind.
Pre-Clinton, consensual affairs between people in power and their subordinates were accepted. His actions, reprehensible as we find them now, were not 'wrong.'
Thankfully, because of Bill Clinton's reprehensible behavior, we're now very clear about the notion that power differences cloud consent; his was a pivot point, and by today's standards, he was grossly in the wrong. But back in the day, this was business as normal.
The ground shifted because of him, and I am grateful for that; and appreciate Lewinsky's honest grappling with what happened.
5
Hmmm. Very well thought out and reasoned, with one glaring omission. What about your dismissal of Monica in those days? Why haven't you addressed that?
12
Pretty funny, don't ya think?
A New York Times opinion piece that slams Clintons but not Trump.
I'll mark this date on my calendar.
16
If Bill Clinton had not lied about Lewinsky, and then tried to smear her, the worse we could say about Clinton is that he is an adulterer, whose reckless behavior was an enormous blow to his base. Clinton cheated on his wife and on millions of progressives. With his lies, Clinton provided Lewinsky with her much sought path to a right wing financed career of victimhood and an avenue for Ms. Dowd's visceral hatred of Hillary.
I loathe Bill Clinton for what he did to the progressive movement.
5
Good one!
1
I never understood why the women in Bill Clinton's power circle didn't do more to persuade him to simply say, "I was wrong. I should not have entertained an other than professional relationship with an intern." Monica Lewinsky was not an ordinary intern - her assignment was the White House. Bill Clinton was no ordinary supervisor - he was the President of the United States. If anyone should have figured out that fooling around with an intern was inappropriate, in horribly bad taste, and just plain wrong, it was the President.
His relationship with Ms. Lewinsky will be mentioned every time anyone speaks of "the Clinton era" and Bill Clinton's legacy. His people - especially his own wife - should have done more to convince him that owning up to his inappropriate behavior would mitigate the damage - not just to him, but to Ms. Lewinsky as well. While I realize that no one in Clinton's circle was concerning themselves with that 22-year old woman, those self-described feminists should have. Had they done the right thing, maybe we wouldn't be talking about this sordid piece of history yet again.
6
Bill Clinton HAS apologized numerous times. Please pay attention, fact checking is easy with internet connection.
2
So unfortunate that my perceived political leaders are a lot like me.
4
Hypocrisy at its best.
5
Where is your “Belated #Me Too Movement”, Ms. Dowd?
Bill Clinton is a man who made some bad choices and is belatedly apologizing. Donald Trump, on the other hand, who never apologizes, was treated by you as a kind of rougeish clown for many years during his rise to power.
Meanwhile, you castigated Hillary Clinton as the person to blame for misdeeds of her husband. She didn’t deserve it.
46
What does Trump has to do with this? You're deflecting. This is an article about the misdeeds of one William Jefferson Clinton, who never apologized directly to Monica Lewinsky for his sexual exploitation of her when she was 22 years old and he was 49. Instead, he once again tried to set himself up as a victim in this interview. And yes, Hillary Clinton should also be castigated. She was the one who (according to George Stephanopoulos) set up a War Room in the White House to slander any woman involved in her husband's extramarital affairs. She may not have been "to blame" for his behavior, but she certainly didn't act like a feminist when she set out to destroy the reputations of all the women her husband took advantage of.
1
Hear Hear, well said Ms. Dowd. Anyone who cannot see the straight line from the left's sanctioning of Bill Clinton's immorality, dishonesty and abuse of women to the presidency of former Clinton friend and enabler Donald Trump is either self-deluded or a fool.
4
Most of "the left" as you call it, did and do not sanction marital infidelity of a president and they were angry with Clinton about weakening himself with his opponents this way. On the contrary, you can find most of "the left" supporting the #metoo movement now; Bill Clinton was a troubled but not immoral man, and the one thing he lied about to Ken Starr was his consensual relationship with Lewinsky, initiated by her, which was brought up in the unrelated Whitewater investigation.
2
Deal with the monster you helped put in the White House and quit worrying about the ancient peccadilloes of an old man who was carrying on with an enthusiastically consenting adult.
40
Very well said. Dowd is incapable of targeting worthy victims. Cut her loose!
9
Ms. Lewinsky was NOT 22 as Maureen has written; WH in those day tried very hard to tell EVERYONE that was she was 19 when it all started - though actually she was younger than 19.
I wonder if Ms. Dowd just didn't know this or still is defending her team out of habit.
2
This is not true. It's as simple as checking the Wikipedia page. She was born in 1973 and started in the WH in 1995. Lewinsky said the sexual encounters began in 1995.
10
Will we hear from sergeant Dowd on her investigation of the usurping of The Times reporter
Ali Watson by the former Senate Congressional Aide James Wolf? Fact is Ms. Watson was 23 years of age when she began a romantic affair with the much older Mr. Wolf. And the affair went on for three years before Ms. Watson and Mr Wolf decided to part ways! The urgency of solving this social injustice
must be consuming Ms. Dowd in her quest to rid the earth of sex, love and companionship.
8
Is there anything more patriarchal than deeming a 22-year-old woman incapable of making a decision of whether or not to engage in sexual activity with an older man? What difference does it make if he was 49, 59, or 69? As for the power differential, are we suggesting that for two people to have sex they must have the same education level, the same income level, the same job credentials, and be relatively close in age? How close? My wife is 19 years younger than I am, but she has a doctorate and I only have a Master's. Does that make our relationship OK?
16
Women are attracted to high-status men as much as men are to beautiful women. And women want sex as much as men, though many are socialized to suppress their desire.
Unfortunately, some feminists want to portray all women as saints and victims, and all men as worthy of hate. Take a look:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-cant-we-hate-men/2018/06/08/...
Did you know that the "older man" Bill Clinton was married during the affair with Monica? That makes a difference to me but evidently not to you.
Erin,
It is unfortunate that he chose to commit adultery. However, Ms. Lewinsky was aware of his marriage as well.
1
Dear Maureen: here we are with someone in the White House who makes Bill Clinton look like a choir boy by comparison and all you can do is whip up more of the frenzied hatred for the Clintons,
Yawn.
I used to respect you as a person and a journalist.
No more.
31
"When Monica Lewinsky came into the Oval Office and flashed her thong, Bill Clinton should have said: “Young lady, go back to your office. I am the president of the United States.""
Maureen, enough with beating a dead horse! What happened is done, much as you delight in dragging it out ad nauseum.
But if you're going down the line of would have, could have, shoulder have, then, by the same token, you should have thought better than to spend years treating Hillary Clinton like a sellout and a monster, President Obama like a weak, aloof snob, and Donald Trump like an intriguing society figure. You should have done better writing for the New York Times.
You still can. Right now, there is a current president alienating G7 members, recusing himself from discussion of climate change, and saying that his gut will instantly tell him if Kim Jong Un means business.
That's a bit more immediate and crucial than what Bill and Monica did twenty years ago.
20
Was Monica Lewinsky's PTSD due to her affair with the president or was it from being thrown into the media frenzy that resulted from its revelation?
14
For everyone complaining that the Clintons should "go away," maybe you could do your part and stop clicking and commenting every time an article about them comes up.
7
In the meantime, America's current president continues to humiliate the country with his mindless attacks on our democratic allies and his sickening fawning over foreign dictators.
It's not the past that needs your malign focus, Ms. Dowd. It's the unacceptable present.
32
Dear Ms. Dowd:
Get back to me when you spend a column calling on Trump to resign immediately. Your exercise in false equivalence is providing cover for Trump and the Republicans.
Here's the difference. Bill Clinton may have acted badly in his private and personal capacity, but in his public capacity he did and still does try to make this a better world for women. When he left office, America was in better shape than when he went in. (Remember when we had a budget surplus?)
Monica Lewinsky may have gotten in over her head because of the glamour/power of the office of the president, but she still shares some responsibility for what happened. Her job didn't depend on doing sexual favors for the president.
Donald Trump pays for sex. He pays to have it covered up. He threatens women who try to talk about it. He brags about it. He has the hots for his own daughter. He has no respect for women other than as sex objects. He's a narcissist and sexual predator who takes no responsibility for his actions.
He has installed a government driven by an anti-woman agenda. He's cutting programs that help women. He's doing all that and wrecking the country and the world.
And the most important thing you can do with a column in the NY Times is celebrate Bill Clinton being brought up short by the #Me Too movement?
How about taking some of that energy you put into going after the Clintons, and turn it to something useful, like documenting the atrocities taking place today?
22
We don’t need Kellyanne Conway to deflect our attention from the current sexual predator in the Oval office because we have Maureen Dowd doing it for her.
Ms. Dowd concludes, “And Bill Clinton has learned that his threadbare routine of maudlin self-pity and casting blame on everyone but himself doesn’t work anymore. And that is a relief.”
Substitute “Donald Trump” for “Bill Clinton” in that conclusion and what is more bothersome for a majority of Americans is that the current occupant of the Oval Office refuses to learn that same lesson.
Finally, the definition of was is “it’s over” and “was” means letting it go. It just was. We have a bigger problem with what is… happening in the here and now!
P.S. Resubmitting after waiting six hours!
17
Perfect.
1
I though Maureen's column was too kind to Clinton. It shouldn't be. He's a serial adulterer and sexual predator. Thank god he's not back in the White House. And the Clinton enablers are pathetic. Late Show host Steven Colbert rails against sexual predators in his monologues yet last week has Clinton on to promote his new book. What a hypocrite. People should ignore him and his humongous ego and hope he just fades away.
16
Yeah, good thing we don't have a serial adulterer and sexual predator in the White House
7
Any evidence, except some unfounded accusations in a Breitbart funded tract, for Clinton's alleged serial predation? The only thing that has been established, are a number of consensual dalliances, nothing more. Not smart, but he isn't the first president to engage in it, nor the last.... And really, Dowd should change her topic, it gets boring and irrelevant...
3
Thank you Maureen for the experience of seeing a lot of Leftists heads exploding over your truthful article. The truth to the left is like the cross to vampires.
15
Oh, the irony in that last sentence.
6
Yes, Maureen has gathered quite a following among the Cult of Trump....
2
Bill Clinton the "country's parent"? What a weird thing to write. Is Donald Trump now our father?
Never liked Bill Clinton, but the Lewinsky affair was not some terrible exploitation of an inexperienced girl. That's what JFK did when he raped a 19-year-old intern. Lewinsky spoke about her "presidential knee pads" -- she was not naïve or exploited. A twenty-two-year-old is quite capable of making decisions about her sexuality, even when a president is involved.
The Europeans rightly laugh at us for our shaming-guilt complex about sex. The bottom line is that the Clinton-Lewinsky affair really should have been of no interest (okay, gossip) to anyone by Clinton, Lewinsky, and perhaps Clinton's wife.
18
The sex was consensual. Lewinsky was not a victim!
26
Neither is Bill Clinton. How could a man 16 million dollars in debt purchase an estate in toney Chappaqua NY? Butter wouldn't melt in Bill Clinton's mouth, as my late mother would observe.
Maureen is beautiful, brilliant and a woman. I’ve always respected the way she speaks and carries herself with class and would that more women use her as a model.
But she disappoints when she speaks with such venom rather than the wisdom that should come with age. And while more class is needed, and less crass that does not call for bringing on a Puritan witch hunt.
I’ve read her books and she knows that there are differences between men and women.
As the French say, “Viva la difference’.
It’s what makes the world go round.
Interpersonal relations, especially when it comes to sex, are complicated and do not fit neatly into morally unambiguous compartments. The fundamental mistake, as I see it, with the moral absolutism suggested in Dowd's piece, is that it takes no account of the fact that women and men are, indeed, attracted to different things. In general, women are attracted to power and status. In general, men are attracted to youth and beauty. Clinton had power and status while Lewinsky had youth and beauty. There is abundant evidence that homo sapiens as a species is hardwired in precisely this way because long ago in our evolutionary history it enhanced our survivability. Does that mean that one is not now obligated to exercise judgement and to guide one's actions by a moral compass (to say nothing of common sense)? Of course not. But I am deeply troubled by the recurring theme that has been creeping into - and, I believe, muddying the waters of - the absolutely valid MeToo movement that, as Catherine Mackinnon argued decades ago, there is no such thing as true consent between women and men in our society because men are all-powerful and women totally powerless. The notion that women are so lacking in agency that, like children, they are incapable of giving consent is, as I see it, profoundly insulting to women and profoundly insulting to women who have been the victims of actual sexual assault and harassment.
2
Concerning Barack Obama, why didn’t you mention that during his eight years in the White House there was never a whiff of anything like untoward behavior? Why bring up Obama now? He had nothing to do with Bill Clinton’s wandering libido. You can’t find it within yourself to say anything nice about Obama, can you?
Clinton was a philanderer and guilty of perjury. Isn’t that enough to sink his legacy? Why rake him over the coals now? There’s someone else in the Oval office who’s just as bad and as morally deficient as Clinton was, maybe a lot worse. Clinton at least feels remorse for his past behavior with women. The president, with his Hollywood Access tape as proof, simply blames them for being available.
9
Yeah. We literally had a federal case over this 20 or so years ago.
4
If Bill Clinton been a Republican President in 1998, the MeToo Movement would have happened 20 years ago.
4
Stop talking about Lewinsky in regards to Bill Clinton’s treatment of women. The real issue is Juanita Broaddrick. He raped her. She was neither a gold digger or political partisan with an ulterior motive.
You can’t continue to pretend this didn’t happen. Using Lewinsky as the basis for judging how Bill Clinton treated women is deflection from the real story.
5
Ken Starr, the ultimate Clinton hater didn't seem to think she was credible. But glad all the haters know more.
7
We don’t need Kellyanne Conway to deflect our attention from the current sexual predator in the Oval office because we have Maureen Dowd doing it for her.
Ms. Dowd concludes, “And Bill Clinton has learned that his threadbare routine of maudlin self-pity and casting blame on everyone but himself doesn’t work anymore. And that is a relief.”
Substitute “Donald Trump” for “Bill Clinton” in that conclusion and what is more bothersome for a majority of Americans is that the current occupant of the Oval Office refuses to learn that same lesson.
Finally, the definition of was is “it’s over” and “was” means letting it go. It just was. We have a bigger problem with what is… happening in the here and now!
4
It's "fuxxin' about time the truth is coming out and being expressed by some who always thought, and always think, they know better !!!
I'm really not sure how repeatedly dredging up this one adds much to anything. Current proponents of #me too bring-downs or public confessions don't know Bill Clinton or care while everyone else formed their opinions literally decades ago and also don't really care anymore. I guess what's different is that ironically, today's president can do worse with zero consequences. We've come a long way, right.
4
If only, the present situation had existed 20 years ago, and Bill had apologized (maybe Monica too -- not so unusual for a young woman to try to seduce an older, powerful man -- maybe even thinking he will divorce wifey) it would have been over with … and maybe now it is.
With the revelation about Eric Schneiderman's offenses --- testosterone must be a horrible hormone to have one's brain driven by.
How are women then to direct their own lives and the world?? Where are the female candidates for everything? Enough go to law school these days for sure.
1
I hate it when someone says "the feminists" as though we all got together and colluded on demonizing Ms. Lewinsky. I'm a feminist. I thought President Clinton was a cad, and I thought his stupid selfish actions and their consequences were paralyzing Congress. I didn't think Ms. Lewinsky was real bright, but she was a kid, probably awed by power—he was the perp. The hardest thing to wrap my mind around, when Hillary Clinton ran for president, was the idea of Bill, again in the white house, with time on his hands.
5
Sorry Maureen, but nobody gets to put baby Monica, in the corner. She sought the relationship with Clinton gleefully and very directly. While it’s true that he was the fully adult person in the room and should have told her to get lost, I can’t think of many men who would turn down sex with an attractive and very willing partner. Plus, let us not forget that a previous relationship she had was also with an older married man. As for Hillary and her friends trashing Monica, of course they did. That’s what every wife does in reaction to another woman sleeping with her husband. And her friends help her, if they are any kind of a friend at all.
It’s extremely disingenuous of Monica to now claim that she is part of #metoo. She’s the one who made the initial moves, pursued rather aggressively, and she’s the one who kept the blue dress with the stains on it. Why would any lover do that to somebody she truly loved? Unless it was for blackmail later on. That action alone makes her intentions extremely suspicious.
This was all more than 20 years ago. Can we just let it go? Look at what’s in the White House now!!
8
I think Dowd is justifiably fearful that Hillary will run again for POTUS. She isn't Clinton bashing but instead "beaconing". Warning! Don't be fooled by Bill and Hillary. They are dishonest pols.
3
Right on, Maureen! Keep on taking Bill (and Hillary) and Barack DOWN! Hound them right through their being buried in their graves. The sooner they go to those graves the better. We do not want or need them haunting our national scene and landscape with their whining and crying. Bill is the most useless excuse for a human being ever to come down the pike. Barack is just some kind of foolishly grinning opportunist -- not much different from George W. (the Smirker) Bush.
We have had a rough run of Presidents in the lifetimes of most of us. Perhaps it will change in 2020. . .and perhaps it won't. Keep on fighting your good and great fight, Maureen!
3
Looking back on Bill's "indiscretions," many of us mainly resented the fact that they happened in the White House -- just as his reported interactions with unrelated women in Arkansas while governor allegedly involved the assistance of Clinton's security detail. There was no issue of consent. Now consent has become meaningless -- and we're into the "if it's not your wife, don't touch" era.
All women ARE NOT victims. If Monica Lewinskey was forced into doing something she did not want do either physically, emotionally or by abuse of power then it is was #metoo moment. However, if at 22 she CHOSE to “flash her thong” and get out her “Presidential Knee Pads” then that was her choice. She was capable enough and smart enough to be hired for a White House internship and she was capable and smart enough to keep her knickers on. I am tired of there be no differentiation between the assorted miscreants of sexual abuse (some are FAR worse than others) and I am tired of women who are/were not victims, playing “victim”. The #metoo movement is about strength, responsibility and owning your choices; speaking out when you are unfairly abused and targeted, yes; but also being smart enough not to get yourself into compromising situations. Bill was creepy but Monica could have said “No”. I speak as woman who has been there.
6
Not sure that Henry Hyde's and Newt Gingrinch's crusade to impeach Clinton for lying about sex deserves a free pass any more than Republicans' hypocrisy in giving Trump a free pass for his demonstrably worse escapades and abuses.
That said, one should also ignore neither the excesses of MeToo, in being applying wholesale to situations quite remote from Weinstein too, nor the Clintons' shameful behavior and deceits.
2
Wow! and all this time I thought it was the "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" that Hillary said it was.
Who ws to know?
3
The Dems made a devil's bargain with the Clintons and they are now paying for it.
3
Well said.
3
Long time readers of Maureen Dowd may recall that back in 1998 she wrote much more derisively about Monica Lewinsky, as evidenced in the column she penned in June of that year, after Ms. Lewinsky confronted her in a restaurant with this question:
''Why do you write such scathing articles about me?''
https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/17/opinion/liberties-monica-and-me.html
5
Omg! I read the article. Monica played "Send in the Clowns" on the jukebox when she confronted Maureen Dowd. Balrog level!
This Clintonitis has gotten so old. We have a much more destructive force in the White House right now. A man/child devoid of character and common sense
12
Yes, "Monica Lewinsky came into the Oval Office and flashed her thong".
Monica was flirtatious - but she was in her twenties, not eleven!!
Let her bear the consequences for her actions.
7
Except for two truths: Gloria Steinem was right, and you hate the Clintons, leading to unseemly schadenfreude.
Go back to flirting with Trump.
8
Excellent article! Well said!
4
I applaud Maureen Dowd for this article. Many women have succumbed to the Clinton narrative and minimized the damage Bill Clinton had on Lewinsky and the feminist movement. This could not happen today because of the courage of women to speak out and defend themselves while challenging the actions of men in powerful positions.
8
Monica was the aggressor, not Bill.
7
I think the majority of people in this country are getting a little tired of the rewriting of history by 'outraged' opportunists. Yes, abuse of power by using sex is wrong. Let's stop it now for good (or until Trump returns from Singapore - whichever the evangelicals decide is most advantageous to their hate agenda). In the meantime, quit making millions of men and women endlessly regret the poor decisions they made in the past. Justice isn't about eternal punishment, it's also about penitence and redemption. Unfortunately, Dowd refuses to let go of her Clinton bone. That's so like her...
21
David D - let’s let go of the Clinton bone, but let’s stop it only until Trump returns from Singapore. A double entendre and a complete lack of consistency in one post. I guess if you’re going to be unprincipled, you might as well be funny.
“DO THE THINKING FOR WOMEN” = FEMINISM.
Hahaha wow what hypocrites. You actually wrote that. Wow. He should have done the thinking for that young women?
It is such an interesting patriarchy the feminists want to create. Not one we’re they are in charge but one where men do the thinking for them and decided weather for both parties, they are sexual motivations.
So hillarious, men are the deciders of all things sexual, we are the arbiters of sex law, says this feminists.
Doors this cognitive dissonance bother anyone else?
7
Unfortunately, we're still waiting for the #TIMESUP moment for feminist bigotry. Sadly, some comeuppance was delivered by the monumental defeat of a "feminist" to the biggest cad and bafoon this country could have ever elected president. Hillary Clinton was defeated because many of her "feminist" compatriots voted for Trump. Feminists must face this fact and deal with it. Gloria Steinem's participation in the protection racket of another cad, (William Jefferson Clinton) was but a symptom of the generalized problem within feminism, namely elitism and bigotry. No self respecting feminist should take a role in any Hollywood production where all the roles are filled by white people. Just as all the so-called feminist who watched Roseanne and thought it was funny shouldn't admit having done so. Let's get one other thing straight while we're at it - the super preditor drug dealers of the 1980/90s were the Columbian cartels, not children growing up in LA, Detroit or Cleveland.
3
The person who caused Lewinsky’s PTSD was Ken Starr who politically and legally weaponized a consensual sexual relationship when all other Clinton “scandals” amounted to nothing. And it’s a mystery why anyone would expect Hillary Clinton to make nice with the women who had affairs with her husband.
29
To this day Monica Lewinsky doesn’t blame Bill Clinton, still admitting that she proactively initiated things. He was wrong, she was wrong and Ken Star was very wrong. Hillary made a personal decision to stay married. People need to stop making this ill conceived affair from over twenty years ago into something it never was. Do you also believe we should remove Jack Kennedy’s name from every other highway and high school across America? Re-litigating non-criminal behavior from the distant past dilutes the efficacy of MeToo in the context of today. It only serves to divide and distract, while resolving nothing.
32
I don't know if Maureen's arguments make sense since I didn't full read the column but I tire of her everlasting war on the Clinton's - which surely helped Trump win the Presidency.
20
What won the presidency for Donald was the nomination of Hillary Clinton by the Democrats, because it was “her turn”. 2016 was the Election from Hell.
2
Ms. Dowd, Don't you have anything to write about but this? This was 20 years ago and we went through it all. President Clinton didn't get away with this but paid much for his actions. Since then he has sought to do good in this world with the Clinton Foundation, etc. His marriage has survived. Don't we believe in redemption? Miss Perfect, Stop!
14
I remember when Bill Clinton erased the national debt . I remember he passed common sense gun legislation
He supported unions and tried to get a healthcare bill passed long before that was a "thing".I remember Bill Clinton starting a foundation that has helped millions around the world.
Tabloid journalism(Dowd)in the Trump Era will be forgotten by the next news cycle. Is#MeToo a weapon used to shame or an AWARENESS campaign meant to move FORWARD not look back. (20 yrs)???
16
He erased the deficit, not the debt.
That being said, he was a good president.
Hillary would not have been his equal.
6
Oh please, Maureen. Other than mentioning Bill’s Today Show appearance, is there one thing in this column that you haven’t written a dozen times? Have you considered that there might be other families in American politics who are doing much more harm to our country right now than the Clintons ever did? Are they also not deserving of your opprobrium?
12
Absolutely amazing to see this here. You carried water for the Clintons during the entire shameful episode and in the years since. Putting partisan politics ahead of any other considerations, you behaved in as biased a manner as Fox News on their most shameful day. In service of Bill's presidency and legacy, you have done everything you could to hide his culpability.
And in service to a continuing Clinton legacy, you covered up for Hillary Clinton and the DNC when they usurped the Democratic process in order to rob Bernie Sanders of the nomination. You called his supporters every name under the sun and did all you could to ignore the corrupt behavior of the DNC while it was on the Clinton payroll.
And you have continued to service a narrative of "Russian collusion" long after it became glaringly apparent to everyone but the NYT's readers that there's no "there" there.
And now you get to clutch your pearls and act horrified at what you all enabled? During Bill's two terms, Progressive women knew what kind of creature inhabited the Oval Office, but they were willing to service his appetites because he had the correct politics. But by all means, blame "Deplorables" and Russian meddling for America's decision to dump these two. Your hypocrisy and derision are part of what helped to get Trump elected after all.
10
Yep. And it was because of columnists like Maureen that I voted for Trump.
4
“There is no there, there?” Are you kidding?
1
If Ms Dowd is serious, send some serious compensation to Ms Lewinsky, otherwise, words are hollow. Damage already done.
I don't always agree with Ms.Dowd's Washington
beltway "in on the joke "cynicism, but this is one
of her best columns. for way too long,Clinton Inc.
has gotten away with slandering all of his victims. it's about time that not only these women should be believed, but that the so called
feminists ( Gloria Steinem at al...)should be
called out for their support of this abusive ex
President. Al Franken was forced out of office
for a heck of a lot less .I will never vote for
Kirstin Gillibrand for anything for her role in
forcing Franken out,while keeping silent about
Mr Clinton until it became politically safe.
8
In real life, most people are not perfect.
And it is true that for survival of the species, evolution (or maybe God) endowed man with sexual attraction to women.
This is just the way people are made.
And women are NOT always truthful. Monica Lewinsky demonstrates that. In early publications she says she had a consensual affair with Bill Clinton. More recently, she says it could not possible have been consensual, given the vast difference in power.
One of the statements is false.
And unfortunately, sex is a complicated human interaction, so lying MUST happen much of the time. Both people in the interaction are trying to appear better than they really are, when the interaction works.
The NY Times is filled with articles claiming that women CANNOT LIE. They must be believed. A claim of sexual harassment is often met with firing the following day.
This is not due process. This is not justice. It is hysteria whipped up by feminists who have the goal of taking down "white patriarchs." It is lynching as carried out by the NY Times.
French presidents have mistresses without being publicly shamed. Why the difference?
Americans are obsessed with sex, and liberals in particular are sanctimonious.
The result of this obsession is that the real issues get forgotten.
On planet earth 800 million suffer from chronic malnutrition. Instead of reporting this, the NY Times gives us a bad joke by Morgan Freeman and tries to destroy his career.
The NY Times is a disgrace.
8
it was a consensual affair twenty five years ago. WHO CARES?
10
Columns on Bill Clinton's philandering in the 1990s are as anachronistic as the columnist, herself. This is even more true on the day the current president, who she initially supported, is permanently damaging relations with our closest ally and arranging a "validation" meeting with one of our oldest enemies.
Dowd should permanently retire. She does not offer much to the conversation anymore.
32
Thank You!!
3
Retire or perhaps answer her true calling - gossip columnist.
Of course, she supported Trump early on. A fellow New Yorker, perceived as a media star, some one she could get chummy with, maybe become part of the inner circle.
Her chances to bash the Clintons are fewer now and “Barry”is no longer in office. But, when the opportunity arises, she’ll write her coy and useless criticisms, adding nothing to the national conversation.
5
This is the same Monica Lewinsky who had a five-year affair with her married high-school drama teacher, an affair that was still going on when she seduced Bill Clinton? Should he have said no? Of course. But Ms. Lewinsky is not the injured innocent she and the Clinton haters claim.
4
Well said. It is strange how power breeds ambiguity of actions and morals.
Bill Clinton cloned JFK down to the lechery. He took license through imitation and apparently still cannot recognize the abasement of women as wrong.
5
As my Irish grandmother would have said, Bill is all blarney.
1
Had it not been for a stained dress, Bill would’ve been happy painting Monica as a psycho stalker. Only when painted into a corner did he “confess”. A true disgrace.
4
Um, it was awful thoughtful of Ms. Dowd to only castigate Bill for the least agregious but most publicized of his sexual violations of women. When will the Left finally acknowledge and “hear” the other women (including Democrats) Bill abused..? Yes, that was AWFUL thoughtful of Ms. Dowd...
1
Considering what is just took place today and this past week with the person Miss Dowd helped put in the White House why is she devoting a column to Clinton & Obama? When is she going to get over her obsession with them and start living in the real world that she helped to create with Donald Trump? Get over it and wake up to what is happening none of us died because of Clinton’s misdeeds but we may due to Trumps.
8
Let’s face it, Bill Clinton is a reptile, just as much as Donald Trump is a reptile, just as much as JFK was a reptile. On the other hand, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama were by all accounts good and faithful husbands who truly loved their wives. So we know it can be done...
4
Miss Dowd, and what were you doing when Clinton was pulling off all these stunts, over the last 20 years or so?
Even now why is your pen not going for his public burial, for good?
If Clinton makes it to a decent Carville-esque obituary (“he was a gifted pol”) I daresay it will be an insult to Americans’ intelligence and the system in general that aspires to be fair.
I think it started with a misdirected idolization of a known philanderer (read JFK), and it continued with a condone for Clinton.
What will it take to call spade a spade? Clinton has guts to appear in public eye and that too as a self righteous “this was twenty years ago; I paid the price, said sorry, so why are we still talking about it?” person.
Mr. Clinton, the girl (Lewinsky) seems to be regretting it, was young and you acted as a predator, most likely. If Bill Cosby is getting his reckoning 15 years later, why are you walking free?
1
Let go of the Clintons ; we know all that. Rather than rehearsing that old story, reread your own sweet ambiguity about Trump in the run up to the election, written like an adoring, dizzy White House intern and ask yourself whether those columns, alternating with the nasty Clinton portrayals contributed to the disaster that we are living now.
21
No disaster. From tax breaks to a 25,000 DOW, Trump is doing great.
2
There is no excusing President Clinton's sexual encounter with a young Whitehouse aide. President Clinton has publicly apologized to her. Although Ms. Lewinsky was an adult and consented to the encounter, a public apology was appropriate given the enormous power difference between the two. He has also publicly apologized to the American people for shaming his office.
Given this, why does Ms. Dowd find it necessary to endlessly beat this dead horse? Don't we have a bigger, contemporary issue with a president who has been credibly accused by multiple women of nonconsensual sexual assault? A president who denies the accusations by saying the accusers weren't attractive enough for him to bother with? Or perhaps Ms. Dowd could have written about Rudy Giuliani who, as the President's personal attorney, spent the week slut shaming Stormy Daniels.
Trump and Giuliani currently occupy enormous public platforms and are doing their best to reinforce the concept that rich, powerful men can use young women as sexual playthings, and that any resulting shame belongs to the women, who have value only if they meet the Trump-Giuliani concept of female beauty. I don't know, maybe Ms. Dowd can save some of her disgust for them.
19
In “Bill’s Belated #MeToo Moment”, Ms. Dowd is the lady (that) doth protest too much, methinks. In her column dated June 9, she conveniently failed to mention the one she also wrote on May 19, 1999 feverishly titled “Liberties; Leech Women in Love”. Here we can find pearls of her “wokeness” when she describes Ms. Lewinsky as a “parasite”, “the Gen-X Leech Woman” and as a “highly skilled predator”. At the least she should admit that times have changed and all of our opinions need to accommodate evolution and re-evaluation, even hers.
And please help me here, if “the power differential between a 22-year-old intern and a 49-year-old boss makes any sexual interaction wrong”, does she suggest that the age of consent and the age of agency don’t align? Is she proposing to raise the former to accommodate the later? Should it be 25? or 30? Or should we establish some sort of legal proportionality: no romantic dalliances with anyone more than 1/3 your age? Or is 1/5? Or 1/10?
Let’s all lay down our swords and admit that life and relationships are complicated, that with modernity comes ambiguity and uncertainties. I wouldn’t want it any other way. I agree with her conclusion from her 1999 column, “Experiencing the ordinary brutality of love dose not make one a victim. It makes one an adult. Or it should”. Amen to that!!
6
I really do enjoy M.Dowd's columns- If anyone can find fault with anything she gets the Pulitzer every time. The truth- no Whitewater, no sex scandal, no nothing. Just glass houses, and an inexhaustible supply of stones the Puritans can grasp in their blood-stained hands. MLK cheated on HIS wife, too, and according to some historians Jesus may not have been a virgin either. But that doesn't matter much to me because as Spencer Tracy so aptly put it in the movie "Inherit The Wind", all those holy men and women of the Bible did a whole lot of "begetting" (i.e. "original sin") to get all of us where we are today. And BTW, Paula Jones was PAID to take Bill to court and the case was just as quickly thrown out. But Linda Tripp went to Ken Starr with Lewinsky's story (and the blue dress).
And the pack of wolves we call the "moral majority" couldn't wait to stop legislating so they could whine about Clinton's lying under oath about- no sleeping together, no love child, Hillary didn't find the news cause for a divorce, and Chelsea wasn't devastated either. Plus Lewinsky did some sexy posing for magazines and made a whole lot of extra money besides. Bill Clinton took apart Paul Ryan's pathetic grasp of economics 7 years ago during his DNC speech for the 2012 election with a brain surgeon's level of dexterity- and he would have made an ideal assistant to a very capable president in 2016. If of course you really cared about America and American women.
5
I will not even bother to read this column as any follower of Ms Dowd's long-held contempt for the Clintons can predict how it will unfold.
There is a real threat to our country posed by the current President and his administration. I'd rather read the work of other opinion writers on that subject (as unending as it is) than waste time on this....
2
MOVE ON, Maureen!
We have far more serious damage being inflicted upon this country a by our current commander-in-chief. Stop chasing the click bait and write about real, important questions.
3
Ms. Dowd, you've always been very good at telling the hard truths we don't want to hear. But Clinton's time is over. Both he and Hillary are private citizens. Please turn your expertise, knowledge, and enormous capacity to lay truths bare to where it's most needed now--the open assault on our Nation. You have much bigger fish to fry.
21
Dowd is rightfully terrified- as I am- that Hillary will run again for POTUS. She is "beaconing" NYTimes readers to warn them that the Clintons are toxic for these times- as toxic as Trump.
1
Brilliant, brave, penetrating, undeniably true. Kudos to Maureen's courage - and to Kirsten Gillibrand's too.
5
How many times does Bill Clinton have to apologize and bow his head? I am sorry that Republicans have to berate this poor man.
Newt Gingrich was treated this way, even when he admitted pretty much worse behavior.
Stop making excuses for misogynist Donald Trump, who never apologizes and the media tries to bend over backwards to be fair to him. He has disgraced America and attacked our allies. He bows to dictators and human butchers in Russia, China, and North Korea.
Grow up! Bill Clinton is not the enemy/
9
Trump is Clinton's mini me when it comes to sex. He would never have run if America had not given Clinton a pass for his sexual transgressions. Democrats stood by Bill up until the day Trump was elected. Then, in one of the most stunning 180 degree turn arounds in the history of morals, Democrats discovered their inner bible belt. This stunning transformation exposed Democrats as shallow, opportunistic and hypocritical. Makes one question whether their new found chastity is authentic.
7
I disagree. Bill has charisma, humor, sexiness and charm. He honestly likes women. Too many women, but still, women. Trump cannot hold a candle to Bill by any positive measure- intellect, animal magnetism, or politically. But Trump didn't run because of Bill and his indiscretions. He ran because of his ego, because of racism, because of opportunism, because Congress was obstreperous, and because Bush II and his administration got away with lying and manipulating and pretty much destroying the country. Trump (if he thought about it at all) either figured that he could do it, too, and make a couple of billion bucks while he was at it, or somebody told him a.) not to run and 2.) that if he ran, he couldn't possibly win, so Trump was bound and determined to prove them wrong.
2
Trump ran because he saw W Bush and company make the most incredibly dumb and catastrophic foreign policy decisions and decided that even he could do better and save us from such self destruction. HRC was part of that old Bush/Clinton establishment and would keep making the same mistakes. He also felt the same way about the economy. He seems to be doing quite well on both fronts. But he would not have run if Bill Clinton had not been given a pass for sexual misconduct.
I am not one of your fans but in this column I salute you for the guts, in writing, to gut Bill.
Jim, Wilmette
6
Any time liberals want to hone their niche group credentials they trot out the Clintons to flog.
How come nothing ever about the TRUE abuser of women back then: Ken Starr, who threatened them with jail, loss of job, even removal of their children?
Bill didn't traumatize Monica; the rabid rat pack media did chasing the poor girl around every where. She only 22 year old, remember?
Bill didn't traumatize Monica; Linda Tripp did when she secretly taped their girl talk and gave it to the cops.
In fact, Monica was STILL defending Bill while she was being interrogated in the Starr Chamber, disputing, for example, Kathleen Wiley's claims she was groped by Bill.
Despite all the talk of "Hillary hatchet jobs" on the accusers, none of the Trump tarts trotted out at the debates to rattle Hillary can prove what they claim and some of them have changed their stories in accordance with their own legal liability.
Queen bee Paula Jones who, after getting her $850K from Bill, got herself cranked and posed nude in Penthouse. THAt was too much for most conservatives.
"But with the Clintons, the public and private were always intertwined in an inextricable and unappetizing way."
What does that even mean? They got paid to write books and give speeches?
I'm waiting for Dowd's column on Rudy's shaming of Stormy for not being respectable.
I'm glad Bill got mad. It's about time a Democrat showed some spine. MeToo will turn off so many men that there will be no blue wave in November.
4
Men may have the strongest muscles, but in some instances, they also have the weaker minds. You just found the weak link. Congratulations, Maureen . . .
2
You know what character is when you see it. President Obama, whatever your view of his policies, had character...and so did President Bush...Watching Clinton during that interview, and of course, watching Trump from minute to minute---no evidence of character.
10
The whole discussion of the Lewinsky episode during Bill Clinton’s book tour is ridiculous. This idea that Bill Clinton should somehow engage in a private apology- is that a serious suggestion? Should he just pick up the phone and call her? Several months ago, Monica Lewinsky wrote about an awkward personal encounter with Ken Starr. She was all too willing to share her detailed criticisms of the meeting. Does anyone honestly think she wouldn’t do the same thing if Clinton tried to apologize privately? Who says either of them wants to interact in any manner with the other ever again? Look no further than the whole Town & Country Magazine event fiasco, which Monica also wrote about in full #woeisme mode. If it did ever happen, we would probably get another Vanity Fair essay by Monica, pictures of Brodderick, Wiley, and Jones with a large font headline on Breitbart “Where’s Our Apology?”, a second pontificating podcast by Tapper & Todd on their disgust of Bill Clinton and the inadequacy of the apology, and finally, another anti-Clinton diatribe by Dowd. Where would it end?
Bill Clinton is and will remain a controversial public figure, but he is no longer an elected official and hasn’t been for over 17 years. It’s unlikely that he will be doing much campaigning in the upcoming mid-terms or thereafter, as he appears at odds with the Democratic Party in the #metoo era. It’s time for the media to leave Bill Clinton alone. Leave the good and bad of his legacy to historians.
8
Am wondering whether the #Me Too movement has peaked, or about to do so, and the public is beginning to have the "ras bol"of over the hilll, in some cases anyway, women, proselytizing to us about male "iniquity!"Clinton was the best thing that ever happened to the aging "demoiselle" Ms. Lewinsky, and don't recall any contribution she has made to the commonweal before or after her brief tryst with the former President. All she ever appears to talk about is that shameless moment in the Oval Office, and now portrays herself as the victim, simply to remain in the news. Lewinsky is now in her forties and who cares?The media is quick to spot a trend, and right now, if there are others who think like Alexander Harrison, an unrelenting focus on events that happened so long ago, besides the #Me Too movement appear to be a waste of good editorial space!This fatuous column almost makes 1 feel sorry for Clinton, and say,"Enough already"and enough already also with those who wait a decade and sometimes longer to come forth with accusations of sexual abuse! Ms. Dowd will be eligible for Medicare in not too distant future, so my advice to her is to cease and desist trying to be trendy, hip, and write about more serious subjects like the housing crisis in the 5 boroughs , and millions of old folks forced out of apartments which they have occupied, in some cases owned for generations by unfeeling landlords, subject of a very moving, thorough series by Times newspaper reporters.
7
Excellent column, Maureen. With Bill back in the public eye, these failings of his need to be addressed. He brought this on himself and he cannot give a straight answer to a relevant question. We should never forget the lying and smearing and attempt at cover-up that is so prominent in the Clinton repertoire...just as I trust you will never let us forget who was responsible for tragedy of Iraq, W and his neo-men. paul in bessemer
7
The world is not dichotomous. Clinton and Lewinsky were both infantile in their expectations, and consenting adults in their appetites. The American electorate is both virtuous in its aspirations, and salacious in its daily diet. They expected all the pleasure of mutual lust and abandon without the accountability of privileged positions. We crave celebrity scandal and still expect to occupy the moral high ground. Let’s stop trying to make it one or the other for either them or ourselves either then or now.
4
Why was Trump mentioned? He has never defamed the Oval Office! Allegations of sexual misbehavior were when he was a Private Citizen.
3
Trump doesn't need to engage in sexual misbehavior while he is president in order to defame or disgrace the Oval Office. His other behaviors do that.
2
Because that makes it okay?! He has used the imbalance of power that comes from his position in the Oval Office to defame these women.
This is another reason that Trump won.
4
It is a disservice to the MeToo movement to try putting Monica Lewinsky under that umbrella. The recent outpouring of accounts about being raped, molested, threatened, demeaned, or given ultimatums about performing sexual acts in exchange for work are in one category. Ms. Lewinsky went to DC with the ambition of getting her, um, presidential kneepads, and is in quite another.
Don't demean the #MeToo movement by linking it to consensual acts, and certainly not those initiated by the self-styled "victim."
12
The Lewinsky scandal emerged in the larger context of President Clinton’s sexual harassment trial. He has been accused of sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape. No, taking advantage of a much younger, less powerful yet consenting intern is not the same thing, but it is an example of a disturbing pattern of behavior. Both parties are guilty of treating women shamefully while exploiting the other side’s bad behavior to further their political ends.
1
Monica deserves a personal apology from Bill Clinton and he should apologize for her treatment by his aides and Hillary.
A gentleman would have never engaged with her.
6
Some commenters are complaining that Maureen hasn’t jumped on the Trump bashwagon which is full up with people and the media who will criticize him no matter what he does and manage to find fault with everything negative that happens. It’s a rainy day. That Tump! I’m thinking of a commenter on another article who blamed Trump for Anthony Bourdain’s and Kate Spade’s suicides. Absurd to the point of insane.
3
Times change. Privileged men don’t. Sick of y’all..
6
Maureen, as a staunch supporter of Bill Clinton, I did not care for your columns in the 90s. Now I think you were truly ahead of your time! And ahead of all of us.
In the 90s I was a registered democrat and among those stupidly saying “we were not electing a pope.” Today I only have compassion for the women he abused [abuse’ is the only word that I want to use] and wish Bill Clinton would get the same treatment as Bill Cosby.
Thank you for your column! You are brave to write it!
10
amazing that there are still , in 2018, people who still see this as a political article. The abuse of power is always wrong. there is no discussion. Covering it up, or better yet, casting doubt on the recipient of that abuse, makes it deplorable.
7
Bill is the reason why Gore didn't become president, not the supreme court. Bill is the reason Hillary didn't become president, not Trump. Hillary should have left him years ago.
3
Yes, but there was no way for Hillary to win. If she had left Bill twenty years ago, she would have lost the coat-tails she was occasionally riding on (being the First Lady has its perks), her political future would have been toast, and she would have lost the conservative women's "Stand by your man!" vote. Furthermore, at that time, at least as far as I know, no sitting POTUS and his FLOTUS had ever gotten divorced, and still haven't, so she made a calculated political decision to stay. Staying or leaving was going to cost her, no matter what.
3
With all of the right wing propaganda against her, the screams at the republican convention to "lock her up" Benghazi, and her emails, she still won the popular vote by 3 million. Bill walking on to the tarmac to speak with Loretta lynch was the final undoing. I also have no doubt that deep down he did not want her to become president.
Clinton was impeached by the Republican House for his behavior all those years ago, he apologized and his wife has forgiven him. Today the current occupant of the White House has called his accusers liars and the media reports about the accusations fake news. The #metoo movement is a failure as long as Trump can serve as president without facing his accusers. I hope the Dems take the house in November and bring this demagogue down. Bill Clinton is old news.
9
President Clinton may have been a womanizer, but God it would be great to have him back in the White House then the current occupant.
6
Help me out here.....what does the age of a women need to be for sex to be deemed to be consensual? 18? 21? 30? What is the age? Please inform your readers. Also - I’m tired of hearing about the ‘power dynamic’ in these relationships. Have you ever been around famous men - athletes for example - when they are in public? Women are literally throwing themselves at these men. Shut up please - you know it’s true. Was Bill was wrong to give in to this women’s come on? Yes. But as every heterosexual man knows - it is very difficult to resist the temptation of an attractive young women who is pursuing you. That’s horrible, terrible, disgusting - I know. But as a culture we need to acknowledge that it is true.
9
Thank you for this column. And this is not even the half of it - Craig Melvin did not even ask Bill Clinton about Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, and Juanita Broaddrick, who accused Bill Clinton of sexual harassment and or rape. At least one of these 3 women settled out of court.
And Hillary also had a role – she would have been smart to have remained silent or neutral – but she chose to demonize all of these victimized women, with the help of her enablers.
10
Too little too late. Conservatives have not forgotten this, and and liberals have no credibility in their eyes with this "me too" movement. It's safe now to put Bill Clinton in his place when there is no political future in sight for that family, and that hypocrisy is glaring, especially to Trump supporters.
4
What is it we wanted to hear from Bill at the time and what prevented him from saying it? TThe phony charges of unwanted advances as well as the honest charges of mutual lust all had been effectively avoided, so why not again. And they would have been except for a sperm-stained dress. But why not what we wanted to hear once the jig was up? Somehow he couldn't face the truth; somehow the grandiosity that enrages Maureen blinded him. And what could he have said if the blinders were removed (and the advisors were ignored)?
"My fellow Americans. I have been caught in a lie. It's not really the first time; I have had sex with other women outside of, but during, my marriage. My job successes were attractive to women and I had never really been that attractive to strangers. It felt so good that I wanted to know how attractive I had become to them. I wanted to know what they would do for me, including whether they would keep it a secret. I pretended to myself that it wasn't as bad an addiction as stealing a suppository out of my dying grandmother, but it was in terms of how it hurt my family and now the country. I am sorry I did that to them and to you. I will finish out my work for you, work that has gone well for me and for you. Then I will go away. If my family forgives me someday, then I am the luckiest man in the world. I hope, for your sake, that you forgive me someday too. Forgiveness is one of the most powerful healing forces."
4
So 22 year old women have no agency when it comes to initiating relationships with older men. Should Clinton have said no, of course he should have, but was Lewinsky really the victim of this affair, absolutely NOT>
7
Funny, I don't remember Maureen being too sympathetic to Monica Lewinsky at the time. And I can't forget her "Chris the Snitch" when Christopher Hitchens tried to defend the woman against Sidney Blumenthal, et al.
8
Years ago, when I was a young 22 year old nurse working with a close knit hospital team in Washington DC, there were many beautiful young women working there with mostly older married physicians. I knew the men were married, and I respected their position as a spouse, that they were "hands off." To go after them was just wrong. I certainly did not want any older male " to do the thinking for both of us" at the time, as I do not want them to now, either. Some others I worked with did not care, and they went after these men, some who could handle their advances and some who could not. The affairs almost always ended in heartache for all involved.
Clinton and Lewinsky were both to blame, and it really hurt both of them in the long run. For Ms. Dowd to assume that a 22 year old woman could not think for herself downgrades all of us as women. In turn, Clinton should have turned down her advances.
It would be helpful if Ms. Dowd used her investigative skills to look into the current President, but maybe it would upset her family.
17
MJH misses the point altogether. Dowd does not question whether a 22 year old woman is capable of self reflection. Rather, she sees that citizens may reasonably expect their President to not misbehave with a very junior intern for whom the President has responsibility. As for the suggestion that Ms Dowd devote her time to investigating President Trump, that base is ably covered by a Republican guy whose last name evokes the most prominent pasta in the grocery aisle.
1
The left wing defense of Bill Clinton brought disaster to the USA.
Had they asked Clinton to resign we would have had Al Gore as President who would have won reelection. Instead we elected George Bush and had the Iraq war Expediency often leads to disaster.
3
I remember my anger the night Mr. Clinton looked into the camera and called a 22 year old intern, 'that woman', pointing that bony finger right at me. I was getting ready to go perform my one woman show called Charm School, which is about sexual harassment/sexual abuse in the American culture landscape of the 1950's. I had strep throat and a 101 degree temperature so maybe that's why I stopped abruptly at one point, broke character and talked to the audience about Bill Clinton's 'that woman'. I'm not exactly sure what I said, it all came out in a rush, but people cheered so it must have made sense.
How Gloria Steinhem could have been so wrong is just beyond the pale. Did she really not know better or did she just want to collude with a predator? Did she rationalize away her mind because she wanted Bill in power the way the Republicans do with Trump?
I voted for Hillary reluctantly and one reason for the reluctance was I really didn't like the idea of bony-fingered Bill skulking around the White House. Another reason was the arrogance and entitlement that she showed in her campaign and he showed in the Melvin interview. They'll go to their grave feeling they were 'owed'.
As for Monica, I am so glad she is doing better. I always thought to myself, "I could have been Monica". I could have flirted when I was 22, flirted with the most powerful man in the world. And if he had responded? At 22? I would not have had the good sense to stay away.
9
When I was in my early 20s I had a relationship with a man in his early 40s. We met in a writing class. I knew exactly what I was doing and the relationship was consensual. We dated for about a year, after which I went on to date and marry a man my own age.
Clinton was married and Lewinsky knew that. She acknowledges that she pursued him; no crime I that , although knowing he was married should have given her pause. What she could not have known was that the power disparity between them and ugly nature of politics could make their relationship public and mess up her life. Bill was the one who should have known, and should have resisted.
As far as I am concerned, Bill Clinton’s mistake, and moral failing, was to have failed to use his superior understanding of the political risks of an affair with a 22-year-old intern to say “no” to the relationship; when it became public, his crime was thst he failed to protect Monica and, worse, let his surrogates attack her. For those errors in judgment and courage, he owes her an apology. For cheating on his wife, he owes his wife an apology.
As far as the rest is concerned, this is just Maureen Dowd using #metoo to once again beat up on the Clintons, and I am totally sick of that. Dowd has as much concern for Monica Lewinsky as did the Republicans who used her to impeach Clinton. They owe Lewinsky a huge apology, and I have not heard one peep from them.
18
I agree that "What Aboutism" is ridiculous but JFK did have affairs with those who worked in the WH. His wife even had a nickname for two of them: Fiddle and Faddle.
And I don't think it is "bashing" Maureen to say that she has been far more critical of the Clintons than she has ever been of Trump. I bet my husband when I saw Bruni's column earlier in the week about the same subject that Dowd would write something similar on the weekend. I won the bet. Bruni and Down often seem to be competing to be Regina George in "Mean Girls."
5
Presidents used to retire to relative anonymity and let the course of time hone their legacy. The Clintons just can't seem to understand the game ended and continue to replay it. It's not doing them any favors.
6
Does the difference between a "down and out 20 something" model and a 50 something self-proclaimed billionaire count as a power imbalance?
3
Once more to this well, Maureen. Not unlike Trump, returning relentlessly to the Clinton target while ignoring your own big misses while playing the DC gal about town yourself for a generation.
6
Clinton was both legally and morally obligated to decline her advances; she was morally obligated not to make them at all to a married man. Still, in retrospect, it seems ridiculous that Lewinsky was treated like a pariah for years, defined only by a stupid mistake she made in her early 20s, while Clinton kept his status as elder statesman long after he left the presidency. Powerful men have long benefited from the fact that they could blame and shame women for their indiscretions. Perhaps the tide is finally turning.
1
If you want to blame Bill Clinton for hurting America, it wasn't his behavior with Monica Lewinsky. That hurt a lot of people like his wife and Monica, but for most Americans it was just a tabloid fantasy. Where he did hurt the country the most, and most people don't really blame Bill, but they should, happened 10 years after he left office. ( Trump supporters beware!) The financial crises beginning in 2008, had its beginnings in 1998 when Clinton signed the bill to repeal the Glass Seagal Act. This Act, created during the Depression, prevented Banks from acting simultaneously like stock brokers. It's repeal allowed banks to return to their reckless behavior of the 20s and 30s. His signature on that repeal legislation hurt Americans more than his indiscretions with Monica Lewinsky.
6
Bill Clinton sounded like a hybrid Harvey Weinstein/Donald Trump with his 'MeToo' responses. All three of them should be relegated to the waste bin of sleaze and perversion and their male and female enablers and amen chorus should join them. As for Clinton's contributions to "peace and prosperity", it should be noted that his inactions contributed to the rise of Al Qaeda and the subsequent disastrous foreign policies pursued by George W Bush. As for prosperity, the deregulation of wall street banks that Clinton and his Treasury Secretary championed coupled with lax housing loan regulation, did significantly contribute to the economic meltdown that occured in 2008/09.
2
Bill Maher is right. "Conservatives govern without shame and liberals shame without governing."
Thanks again Maureen for bringing up once again a historical event so much in need of further repetition and analysis.
Can some psychiatrist out there please analyze the deep seated issues of liberals who cannot let go of Clinton bashing.
4
And to think he was elected and re-elected.
And to think she was almost elected.
Go figure!!
If anyone should be defending Bill Clinton, it is Trump and his supporters, since they decided that denials mean a person is innocent and admitting to it is means to cost a person their job, right? (Even though Trump was heard admitting to serial sexual assault, so one minor difference there).
I'm amazed at the naivete, self-righteousness, and likely hypocrisy of so many readers here. You really think no president before him has had a little fun in the Oval Office? As Joan Rivers would say, "Grow up" (and get over yourselves). The difference here is not what Clinton did but what the GOP did, which was to set out to destroy a human being just because he won a legal and democratic election and they didn't like it. and we have seen since what that party is willing to do to upend Democracy in slavish devotion to a Republican president, who has done far, far worse than Bill Clinton in his sex life, while doing so to disrupt, upend, weaken a Democratic president. That is the real scandal here, the real immorality. But as usual, Americans, who cannot seem to get out of adolescence, titter over sex. A powerful man had a girlfriend! Why, how odd and shocking! Now, if we could only catch the one person that jaywalks!
9
Just give up your Clinton and Obama hatred already. That was decades ago. No one is voting for Bill Clinton now.
In the meantime, Trump just alienated our closest allies; is trying to get even closer to ruthless dictators; is caging children; is ending healthcare for the 52 million Americans with pre-existing conditions; is destroying the environment; is attacking the FBI and Justice Department; and is raking in money from all of his corruption, including the 1/3 of the time he has spent at his own resorts on the taxpayer dime.
There are far more critical issues than the ancient piques and vendettas of Maureen Dowd. For instance, the survival of Americans and of American democracy. Get over it.
13
Btw, have the GOP, Richard Mellon-Scaife, John Whitehead, Linda Tripp, Lucianne "We got him!" Goldberg, et al, been appropriately thanked and awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for saving the nation from a fib about a consensual affair - all the while chipping away at that legal election and our democracy and giving us Bush and Cheney, the Iraq war, and now Donald Trump?
6
I've long thought that Hillary's fatal flaw was and is her deer-eyed love for Bill. You can see it from the earliest photos. And she's for a lifetime imitated him, covered for him, championed him and probably tried to prove her worthiness by attempting to duplicate him, much as she surely must despite herself hate him, too. History won't be kind to this couple.
How AWFUL! A fatal flaw is loving another person. Well, I hope she is not able to find a baker ever again who will be her a cake! I can't believe how ridiculous the American Electorate has become.
2
Character is destiny.
5
Feminism in the 90s held that any sexual contact in the workplace between two individuals of dramatically disparate power rendered any consent void, ab initio. Can anyone see how that might apply to the POTUS and an intern in his office 20 years his junior?
But let's leave Monica alone. How about credible allegations of forcible rape, from Juanita Broaddrick (which she maintains to this very day)? Or the alleged solicitation of oral sex from Paula Jones, then a state employee, by her boss--the governor of her state and an active candidate for the presidency?
The truth is that Bill's support of so-called reproductive rights bought him an awfully big amount of slack.
Both Clinton and Trump were terrible husbands and terrible human beings. But only one was a good president.
10
Ack! Years ago I hoped I would never have to read about these two unpleasant people (Bill and Monica) again. But having subjected myself to this column, here are a few thoughts.
First, Monica went off to DC with every intention of doing exactly what she did, even bragging to one of her friends that she was going to win her "presidential kneepads" (Yuck!) Enough said about Ms. Lewinsky.
Second, Bill was a Democrat in Name Only, and during his administration he turned his back on working people in general and organized labor in particular. His Welfare Reform and crime bill were Republican dreams and would have been nightmares to any real Democrat. His repeal of Glass-Steagal set the stage for the economic nightmare of 2008.
But hey, when Bill left the White House, while he may have been in debt, he had greased the skids so that he could make boatloads of money and join the oligarchy, both of which he has done. Now I hope he will enjoy his bucks and shut up.
7
I can’t understand why those who are worried about Monica Lewinsky’s PTSD don’t mention those who brought it into an international news story. The investigation leading to impeachment is what caused her privacy to be obliterated. They didn’t care one bit about her welfare. They used her for political gain
7
This has been the column I've been waiting for all week and it didn't disappoint. Bill and Hill are beyond shameless and are an embarrassment to the country if you take the blinders off. What's a little sad is, Bill is loving the attention.
Bill's #MeToo moment? Hardly. Please list any actual consequences he has faced for his actions. Years of abusing women, betraying his wife, and massive hypocrisy are not swept away by finally having to answer one or two mildly tough questions about Monica Lewinsky, which wasn't close to the worst thing he did. Bill Clinton remains the final excuse made by those that defend the craven acts of Donald Trump, despite his charm and charisma, because Bill did worse things while he was in the office. The Times knows it, and defended it all. So did you, Maureen, even though you knew it was wrong.
1
For everyone who voted for HRC in the 2016 election.
Watch the interview of Bill and you will feel good about her losing the election.
Now, if for some reason you do not come away feeling this way then you might reflect for awhile on the quality of your thinking.
1
Ms. Dodd's fixation with the Clintons is puzzling.
Donald Trump is doing a wonderful job of destroying America's global leadership while Maureen continues to castigate Bill for his behavior towards women. America of the 90s is a bygone era.
Here is a question: who is a better political leader? Bill Clinton or Donald Trump?
12
Given Maureen's scorched earth policy towards the Clinton's I wonder how she feels at the result? Apparently nothing as the fixation continues.
4
If the criteria are both "public character" & "private character" Donald Trump is the biggest failure & most corrupt person to become president.
Trump's attorney paid hush money to women he slept with - or harassed. Trump's accused of dozens of sexual assaults. Trump declared bankruptcy 5 times & refused to pay contractors & associates. U.S. banks eventually refused to loan Trump money. Trump set up a phony university to cheat enrollees - & paid millions to settle their lawsuit before the election. Trump set up a sleazy real estate deal so a Russian oligarch could hide his assets. Trump's personal attorney has threatened people on his behalf. Trump paid a Justice Dept. fine for refusing to rent to African-Americans. Trump dodged the draft repeatedly & avoids paying any taxes.
No president has ever lied as frequently or shamelessly as Trump. No other president has ever mounted a destructive assault on the foundations of our government & society for his own selfish ends. Trump doesn't have an honest or honorable bone in his body.
Trump refuses to recognize the rule of law.
A mountain of evidence indicates Trump's family & associates colluded with Russians to influence the election on Trump's behalf. Trump's persistent denials mean nothing.
We're going to find out if Trump's a traitor - he's already a liar, cheat & thief.
Trump doesn't have a patriotic bone in his body.
Trump is destroying our democracy.
Nothing Bill Clinton did comes close to Trump's crimes.
6
When will Clinton learn that when it comes to his public comment on the Monica Lewinsky affair he has one viable option and that's to express undiluted contrition. No word salad. Free advice Bill, here's what you'd have been better off saying to Craig Melvin in the interview: "I don't want to hypothesize about what might have been different if today's climate had existed then. The fact of the matter is my behavior was irresponsible and I deeply regret the hurt and pain caused Ms. Lewinsky." Period. He'll never be able to rationalize anything about the incident, and shouldn't try.
7
No one ever mentions that when Bill Clinton was growing up in the double-standard 1950s, while it was dishonorable to have an affair, it would also be dishonorable to admit it, and subject the poor woman to shame and scandal.
4
What Bill Clinton refuses to recognize is that because of his behavior with Monica Lewinsky he allowed George Bush 2 to become POTUS.
For that he can never be forgiven.
3
No. Wrong. That is because of the GOP's behavior of spending seven years and $70 million to try to get something, anything on him...and the stupidity of the American Electorate for rewarding that endeavor and blackmail. There is more shame to be had amongst Americans than Bill Clinton over this.
3
Clinton either assumed he would not get caught or it would not matter
As someone with a brilliant understanding of Americans politics he was either arrogant or stupid
Take your pick
I choose arrogant
Let’s hope you don’t end up handing the #MeToo movement to Mike Pence & his band of social reactionaries, Ms Dowd.
Face it, men are weak. At the risk of being political incorrect, forget about an alpha male in the midst of a political struggle, even old boomers like us could succumb to a 22 year old nubile creature when she chose to show her throng. This is very different from Winestein forcing himself on all those actresses.
Heck, people like us don’t even care if Stormy offered herself to Trump for a spot of Reality TV. It is what transpired subsequently that are the problems.
Two or multiple wrongs don’t make one right. #MeToo is a great movement but there are also imposters amongst its rank. People need to be more critical and not hypocritical about this and other movements
7
Bill Clinton is not the only one late to the #MeToo movement
Maureen Dowd (2/8/98) on Ms. Lewinsky:
" “a ditsy, predatory White House intern who might have lied under oath for a job at Revlon”
Maureen Dowd (6/10/98):
“It appears that there’s one thing Monica has immunity from: brains,”
Maureen Dowd (9/6/98) imagining a chapter in Lewinsky's book "How to your very own President":
"Even a Plain Jane or a Plump Patty can beat out Sharon Stone by remembering one little thing: you’re there and she isn’t,”
I'm guessing media coverage like yours played more than a small role in Ms. Lewinsky's PTSD.
Was a lesson learned? 17 years later (8/8/15) , the day after the Megan Kelly moderated debate, Ms. Dowd on Donald Trump:
"I enjoy Trump’s hyperbolic, un-P.C. flights because there are too few operatic characters in the world. I think of him as a Toon. He’s just drawn that way. And his Frank Sinatra lingo about women aside, he always treated me courteously and professionally. .... Sometimes you need a showman in the show."
Lewinsky: Ditsy and predatory. Trump: Operatic showman.
Welcome to #MeToo, Ms. Dowd. Nice of you to show up.
27
Maureen, please enough. You are as outdated as the Clintons. You would do us all a huge favor by retiring to make room for a fresh voice. Whereas I used to look forward to your Sunday pieces, I now recoil and say, "Your time has passed." Be self-aware.
12
Maureen is pilloried as a Clinton hater but is it so hard to admit that he was never quite what any of us wanted him to be? He was feted as the "first black president," but he increased mass incarceration of blacks. He signed The Glsss-Steagall Act out of existence, paving the way for banks to play fast and loose with our money. Monica Lewinsky has lived in the shadows for two decades now while he's swanned around making money. Sure, he won elections but he did it by driving the Democratic Party and the country to the right. I don't think he should be lionized as a liberal hero just because he's not a Republican.
4
Do you know Maureen, that everyone already knows your hatred of the Clintons, but as an opinion columnist in the NYT, one would expect that you would have done your research and gotten the facts right. If you had taken the time to watch Bill Clinton and James Patterson on Late Night with Stephen Colbert, and in a two part interview with Judy Woodruff on PBS, you would have seen an emotional and fulsome apology both to his wife and daughter and to Monica Lewinsky. But you have to take the hit, even though you’re a week late. How about an apology from you in not being fully informed?
13
Oh apologies! Maybe he started out differently, but Bill Clinton is just a rich, white, male bubble dweller complaining about self-inflicted past debt from a perch now cushioned by hundreds of millions. Can you imagine, Ichabod, how that must feel to some of his women?
Rome is burning but, oh yes : let’s definitely talk about The Clinton’s and how awful they are.
Maureen could teach a graduate course in burying one’s head in the sand.
7
Good job Maureen. Bill's selfish manipulation of Monica to fulfill his need for sexual gratification are part of his legacy as POTUS. He'll never escape from it nor should he be allowed to verbally slither out of it. He'll be remembered for the good and the bad..as he should be.
2
This article does not excuse you and the NYT from being AWOL when Bill was president and your opinions would have counted for something. Talk about late to the party!
6
The people who exploited Monica Lewinsky the most was Ken Starr, Linda Tripp, and the band of lazy NY Times journalists who couldn't be bothered to investigate why Starr's office with conspiring with a right wing book agent and her "friend" who were egging on Monica to recount details of her encounters.
The people who exploited Monica Lewinsky the most were the lawyer friends of Ken Starr who told Linda Tripp that Starr's office couldn't get involved unless Monica was asking the President for a favor, which led to Linda Tripp suddenly egging on Monica to ask Clinton for a job even after Lewinsky told her over and over again that she didn't want to.
The people who exploited Monica Lewinsky the most was Linda Tripp, who gave her name to Paula Jones' lawyers and listened to Monica's concerns at receiving a subpoena without telling Lewinsky that Jones' lawyers already knew all about Monica's relationship with the President because Tripp herself had told them about it.
I have never heard anyone from Ken Starr's office, Paula Jones' legal team, or Linda Tripp herself apologize to Monica for what was REAL exploitation that was much worse and more devastating to her life than Clinton not telling her to go away.
Why does Dowd give all those other people a pass while attacking Hillary? It seems that Maureen Dowd has a very selective sense of who gets away with exploiting young women and who gets a pass.
7
"Barack Obama, another talented pol..."
Maureen Down: I ask, since when have you thought that?
4
How long has Ms. Dowd had this piece in her saved files? Another opportunity for her to bash the last two Demcratic presidents. Why didn't she include George I and his behavior? Why does she paint Clinton with a different brush than Herr Trump? Her biases negate what she writes. She is as fair and balanced as a piece from Faux news.
8
Nice try Ms. Dowd. What we know today is the same thing we knew 20 years ago. Bill Clinton abused women, most likely raped at least one woman and abused his powerful position with an underling. The feminists and almost the entire left sold their soul to protect him, Hillary actually blamed his victims. That alone disqualified her from being president. He should have been jailed as a habitual sexual abuser. He's an abusive, liar that has hurt women for decades.
4
MOVE ON, Maureen!
Your obsession with the Clintons is clouding your judgment. You have far more important issues to cover, like the real damage being inflicted on our nation today by our current commander-in-chief.
Stop chasing the click-bait, Get your head out of the rearview mirror and focus on the train wreck that is right in front of us all. Our democracy is in danger, and it’s got nothing to do with the Clintons anymore.
6
Even you and Melvin are still covering for Clinton. You do an excellent job of calling out the creepy treatment Ms. Lewinsky by him and his minions, including Hillary. However, you ignore all the other credible accusations of his sexual predations and his using his power to smear and suppress his victims. You ignore his using state troopers to round up Paula Jones and then dropping his pants in front her. You ignore him using the power to the presidency to try to obstruct justice as Jones sought compensation. You ignore the fact that having been caught in his lies and obstruction, Clinton had to settle with Jones for almost a million dollars. You ignore Juanita Broaddrick's credible claim that he raped her. Clinton is just a smoother version of Harvey Weinstein, but Democrats and liberal defended him to the end, so they will never admit the full implications of their defense of him.
4
It makes sense why Ms. Dowd continues to fixate on the Clintons -- It must be so much easier to rewrite old columns than it is to write with depth and candor and finesse about the ongoing calamity know as Donald J. Trump.
The only good thing about this column is that her brother didn't write it.
On second thought, he probably could have.
6
All I can say is: Why do you hate the Clinton's so much? It's irrational. I don't like what Bill did, but your level of hatred goes beyond his level of bad behavior, so much so that anything you write on the subject loses all credibility. I started reading the column but couldn't get past a few paragraphs. It's silly and says much more about you than him. And leave Hilary out of it.
Actually, for the most part I stopped reading your work a while ago, as this theme of Clinton-bashing is REALLY old. But I gave it another try with this one hoping there might be something useful on the subject in light of #MeToo. But I was wrong. Maybe it's time for you to move on.
7
Dowd has a social perversion over love affairs and sex between consenting adults. In her decades long quest for presidential repentance she has always left out the clear fact that Clinton and Lewinsky had an affair. Monica went on Ted Talk and openly stated she had a “Love affair” with a man who happened to be the President. This coming out was 17 years after the fact. Monica said she felt shame for being outed and exposed by another social pervert Linda Tripp, via the release of a secret recording, who Lewinsky called those tapes “the worst version of myself”. Ms Lewinsky felt shame for being ignored of the facts ( of love. Her words) and brutally outed and then being called every horrid name in the book, or early internet. She was bullied. Publicly shamed. As such, where was Dowd but steering down a younger female lover and passing judgement over the situation. Where is Dowd now? She is back being the self-appointed sex cop, deciding for all young women what constitutes a real romance or seedy usurping manhandled deviant sex. Her attacks are damaging,
misguiding and dangerous.
Dowd must be reminded again and again that when sex is outlawed only outlaws will have sex. And I, like billions of others, will be guilty as charged.
2
Congratulations on your chance to write another snarky piece on Bill Clinton. You must have been so looking forward to the many, many similar articles you could have written if Hillary had won. In fact, you probably had many of them already written.
Here's a different idea. Why don't you focus on the many, many misdeeds of the current predator in chief President instead of rehashing old sins? I think you would discover that you have plenty of new material to work with. Try it, because this old stuff is just old and way too predictable.
9
Caroline Kennedy's 2008 NYT published Barack Obama endorsement evidently deflating Bill Clinton's JFK bromance.
2
The people who disparage Bill Clinton (and who goes to the president's office wearing a thong and lets him know it?) let Trump get away with anything he wants: even his porno wife. It's far past time to stop throwing stones at Clinton. He did a lot of good for this country. Trump is trying to defeat this country. I'm glad Bill found his #Metoo movement. When will Trump and these other Republicans? Al Franken had to resign and he was a good man except for a stupid picture. But Trump can disparage women, minorities and the disabled. And no one says a word.
9
Yes indeed, the most important subject in the world right now is Bill Clinton. Let’s be sure we understand what a bad guy he was having sex in the Oval Office with a young intern. Because that’s the absolute moral equivalent to committing treason in the Oval Office. The equivalent to selling out our country to the Chinese and the Russians. The equivalent to gutting an economy that your predecessor saved. Could everybody please grow up? Bill Clinton’s greatest sin was dragging the Democratic Party so far to the right that the center no longer existed. Next to that his sexual indiscretions are nothing. Meanwhile, Ms. Dowd has again forgotten her truly important subject. It’s certainly not the garden-variety sociopaths in the Republican Party collaborating with their president to destroy democratic institutions. It’s not a Congress hellbent on making the lives of most Americans more miserable. No, the really important subject, Ms. Dowd’s favorite, is what a horrible human being Hillary Clinton is. C’mon now, Dowd, get back on the program. Bash Hillary. Or if you really want to do some good, think about where we are and ask the #metoo movement why they’ve forgotten Anita Hill. Oh wait, I know why, because they’d have to acknowledge Joe Biden sold her down the river. No, better stick with the Clintons instead of dealing with a fascist dictator-in-the-making or the sacrifice of Anita Hill. Those subjects are way too difficult. Now where were we? About Hillary…
7
Best Maureen Dowd column ever. She was born to write this.
1
In these frightening times while the United State's President, Donald Trump is blowing up the world starting with our closest allies and we are all waiting for the next real time global news announcements, Maureen Dowd is wasting space attacking the Clintons again. As if Trump needed help distracting Times' readers from the facts. Why must you exhume the Clinton crypt Maureen? Your personal and familial relationship to Trump is well known...this silly Clinton smoke screen isn't fooling anyone. Why, out of all the horrendous global news related to Trump, did you have to change the subject and trash the Clinton's one more time? Why?
12
It's twenty years past the Clinton presidency, Trump is destroying our relationships with our allies and our reputation in the world, but yes, let's step up to the plate for yet another shot at Bill. Can the Times PLEASE replace Dowd with a columnist who at least knows what decade it is?
11
Truth "is".
1
And Mike Pence is ridiculed as an uptight prig.
4
Great column but Bill Clinton, like Harvey Weinstein, needs to face criminal charges for rape and his other non consensual harassment. Co-conspirator Hillary needs to face charges, too
3
Maureen, we all know what Clinton did with Monica Lewinsky. And he was impeached for it. (And many bashed Hillary for putting up with it and not divorcing him.) And so for the rest of his life it is fair game to keep bringing it up, at every occasion? Why?
And be honest, Maureen--given your Clinton obsession, no apology, no statement, no act or deed would ever be enough for you. You'd find them all to fall short and write a column about it. So please stop pretending that if he said some magic words it would all be better for you. You hate the Clintons. We all get it. We got it a long time ago.
Donald Trump has done that and worse with women and . . . Nothing. No admission. No apology. No remorse. No sense of shame. In fact, worse--he bragged about all the women he touched and slept with. I get the impression he would do everything all over again if he could. Should Melania divorce him, too, like his last two wives? That was a fair game question for Hillary at the time, you'll recall.
Oh, and Trump is president NOW. Clinton was last president 18 years ago.
And also, until not long before he became president, you socialized with Trump and ran in the same circles in NYC. The ace reporter that you were--did you know of his abuse of women? His affairs? His porn stars and Playboy models? He admitted sexual assaults? His purchase of a beauty pageant so he could have access to the contestants?
I think it is time you retired you Clinton fixation and moved on to the present.
5
Why is Bill Clinton not known as the "disgraced former president?" He's as bad as Weinstein and Cosby, yet somehow he's avoided that prefix.
3
Yeah! And you know that glass of fermented apple cider I had? That's as bad a crack and heroin, yet somehow I avoid the prefix "junkie".
2
Yet another piece of journalism that fails to even mention Juanita Broaddrick.
2
Well, Dowd has found her whistle after 20 years when Bubba has little political usefulness. How brave!
Gee Maureen is writing a negative piece on the Clintons.
What a surprise.
Why does she still have a column in the Times. Her stuff is ancient and without relevance.
Someone needs to tell Maureen it’s not 1999 anymore, and urge her to follow and comment on current events, not her old grudges.
17
I give credit to Dowd for being a consistent voice denouncing Clinton’s behavior. Yet, she wants to put Bill around Trump’s neck. In just the single example of Lewinsky the contrast couldn’t be more stark.
Stormy Daniels wasn’t a 22-year-old intern working in the White House. She is a porn star looking to cash in on sex her and Trump may have had over 10 years ago.
Trump, despite the “Trumpian level” comparison Dowd tries to make, never sent all the females in his administration out to defend him. Where does Dowd find any link here?
And, of course, there’s the harrasment and even rape allegations that the media like to pretend don’t exist. Bill Clinton didn’t just fool around, like Trump has for years during all of his marriages. Clinton has been accused of assault, just like his buddy Harvey Weinstein. He’s been to Epstein Island where underaged girls were routinely recruited.
Dowd not so subtly tried to make this about Trump as she soft pedaled her Clinton wrist slap.
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Honestly, op eds like this one make me considering subscribing to the Washington Post instead.
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Does anyone know if Maureen actually voted for Hillary after all she's written about the Clintons over the years? Thanks.
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At 22 I knew you don't go after a married man. More tellingly I have asked over 50 women what they would have done with their soiled blue dress, and no one would have put it back in the closet. Monica does not get a walk on this. She got her tv show, her hand bag line and who knows what. She was the toast of the fancy NYC parties for a while. She has to keep coming back for more. Bill was a weak dog. Everyone knew that, but I am sick of Monica whining about what she truly brought on herself. She loves the limelight.
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And yet again, not a word about the rape of Juanita Broderick
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Really, the thing that disturbs me to this day.
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Oh? Please provide the date of charge, trial and conviction of that. You seriously believe that Republicans would not have used that against Clinton back then if they could have? They didn't because they had problems with her story, and let's face it, the GOP is not usually stopped by problems of facts, or lack thereof. Now, I bet you didn't believe Trump's actual admission of serial sexual assault of women and voted for him anyway. So, there goes your red when it comes to fury over treatment of women.
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Perhaps it's not mentioned, Bob, because it never happened. Kenneth Starr and his investigators found no credible evidence to back up her claim. Neither has prosecutors in your oh-so-enlightened state (BTW, thanks sooooo much for Tom Cotton). Broderick swore TWICE under oath to the FBI that no rape happened. Good enough for us rational folks. As for you purists and Clinton haters, welllll….
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Bill Clinton was a sexy man. And a sexy man with power is a magnet for red-blooded women.
But I’m with Maureen on this one. He knew better and still he persisted. He let us down terribly and I for one am still angry about it.
For such a smart person, Bill Clinton was pretty stupid to play into the hands of his enemies. He doesn’t get a pass for his idiotic behavior. He needs to stipulate.
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Why is this article even published when our current so-called President is ruining the country and alienating our allies? Get a grip, Maureen. We’re circling the drain, and you’re living in the past.
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I'm worried someone is going to tell Dowd about FDR and Lucy Mercer.....
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And where exactly were you back in that day Ms. Dowd ? I'd like to see your pieces calling Bill out the rather than blocking for him .. easy to do now when he's such an open target ..
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Can we all grow up and forgive me Dowd? She writes very well and we just need to grow up.
Conservatives didn't have any difficulty seeing through Bill the politician to Bill the liar and lout. They impeached him. It's late but still good to see liberals coming around. You're welcome.
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I suppose I shouldn't have expected anything better for Maureen Dowd forever hating on Clinton and deliberately neglecting the whole impeachment yes he was impeached so it wasn't like he got away with everything like Trump has but now go after Clinton even though he's not president and she's not president.
but you wouldn't know that from the current president because he seems to pretend that Hillary Clinton is president yes definitely better to focus on things from 20 years ago then to actually hold the current occupant of the White House responsible good job.
time for Maureen Dowd to finally go away.
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No mention of Juanita Broderick Ms. Dowd..?
Still covering for him some 30 years later.
Still unwilling to admit the Truth about the man, that the evidence and the woman, says that he's a rapist?
Nothing's changed. The Clintons are Democrats and the Agenda must be protected at All costs.
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Ms. Broaddrick comes in the category of "not proven". You may want it to be true, but it doesn't meet the evidence test that Trump's multiple abuses do. The one the bothers me most is Kathleen Willey, which went no further than groping and an insistent pass.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/12/30/a-guide-t...
That said, he did the country immense good in the face of the same Republican nastiness and opposition that was fine tuned to prevent Obama from being effective (another one who rescued the economy from Republican depredations).
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I voted for President Clinton twice. He was an extremely good to great President. The greatest peace time economy in our formerly great nations history.
As a man his actions were despicable. As a woman so were Lewinsky's. This was a simple case of two pigs having sex. They both disgust me.
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Is it my imagination or does Maureen Dowd always seem like a victim of the Clintons.Maybe if she whines about them long enough they may even notice her.
Bill Clinton has done plenty of good.His private life is between Bill & Hill.
"Judge not lest .....
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Still the aging, bitter, scold, zealously obsessed with taking down the Clintons. How many decades has it been Maureen? I've forgotten and I bet that you have too.
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Well, I guess it's a bit of relief from having to read about Trump all the time. But Jeez Maureen, how much you must hate the Clintons. I suspect a deep, narcissistic childhood wound. Get help already.
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I know you won't print this, and I could care less. Dowd is a one-note samba, obsessed with deriding the Clintons and Obamas. Do you have ANYTHING worthwhile to say on other topics? I mean, other than helping folks hold their nose and vote for our current moron of a president, what is it that you actually DO? This space is too valuable for Dowd's drivel. Let's, finally, move on from this writer's sick twisted obsession with certain political families.
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Seriously? The Clintons again? With all that’s going on? Still the Clintons?
Is there no pill for obsessive-compulsive disorder? Can you not get an appointment with your primary care physician? Will she not give you a referral for a therapist? Don’t you have mental health coverage?
Jeez, take a vacation. Give it a rest. If you need a new topic, might I suggest reading the New York Times or the Washington Post? Or how about Harry Potter? You know we’ve got Draco Malfoy in the White House, correct?
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Dowd mentions “Ironic, given the righteous anger of the Clintons about Anita Hill during the H. W. Bush era, when the Republicans slimed Hill as “a little nutty and a little slutty.””
Uh, that was David Brock. Later rechristened as Hillary’s BFF, rat effer, and botfarm.
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I'm always amazed. Whenever I see Bill Clinton he's always belly laughing it up. Not a care in the world.
Break the law, not a problem.
Ruin James Patterson, so what.
Wife's email server a felony; who cares.
Millions to the Foundation from Russia, Ha Ha Ha ha Ha!
Pal's going to trial because of the #MeToo movement, no sweat.
Anita Broderick on T.V. talking about out right rape charges. Who cares.
I'm amazed at how he does it.
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Ms. Dowd, I must admit I have become a little weary of your endless (and predictable) jabbing at the Clintons at every opportunity you get. At this point, you would be using your platform to much greater effect to go after our ignorant, lying President, our sickeningly sycophantic Vice-President, our craven Speaker, our hypocritical Senate Majority Leader, and now, the latest and most rabid acquisition of this scary posse of (mostly) white men in charge of governing our country, that ridiculous attack dog, Rudy Giuliani. His bloated self-importance and sanctimonious pronouncements on the morality of Stormy Daniels yesterday, turned my stomach enough to make me want to take to my bed for the next seven days at least.
Leave the Clintons alone and save your arsenal for the above.
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what's the old saw? Ms. Dowd is a noun, a verb and the Clintons.
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Maureen,
Please get over your Clinton hatred, in the same way you never got over Mitt Romney's dog. Lady, you got stuck in the 1990's. So Clinton was bad why do not you write about Newt Gingrich, Jerry Sandusky and others. After 30 plus years reading theNYT, Maureen , it is so apparent you have a grudge about the Clintons. Just come out and say so.
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Maureen Dowd is blinded by her long time animosity towards both Bill and Hillary Clinton. Her "opinions" about the Clinton's are always the same tired old tropes. Boring.
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At the moment we need leadership, inspiration, and compassion -- this narcsssitc idiot is defending himself for lying to the American people. Time to walk or limp off into the sunset, Bill.
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WJC is a piker when it comes to mistreating and objectifying women compared to Trumpo, the man Dowd supported and helped to elect.
Her broken record criticisms of the Clintons and Obama can’t hide that fact or Dowd’s standard hypocrisy.
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OMG, the Dowd Clinton obsession again ... will it NEVER end? Will the New York Times NEVER say "Enough already, target someone else!"
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Really? Bill and Hillary are the most evil you can find these days? Have you looked around? Do you see the bottom feeders in the White House today? Apparently not. Just stop it already with you Clinton hating! You are to blame for the false equivalence which helped to lead to the potential destruction of American democracy. And no, that’s not an exaggeration! Aim your guns where they might do some good, instead of shooting into the past! Good grief!
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Dowd has been obsessed with Clinton for 20 years. We have a new set of issues facing this country. Can we get a writer interested in addressing today's problems?
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Dowd is writing on current events. Bubba still playing the victim while peddling a book.
This must be like Christmas in June for Maureen Dowd.
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Boring and out of touch article, Nice try, MoDo, but you're losing it. Pick on yesterday all you want. It's Trump who's going to get us all killed.
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A potential dictator named Trump lies to the American people every day. Clinton lied about sex. Maureen is obsessed with the Clintons like a 21st century Ms. Havisham. Time to dust off the cobwebs.
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David. You missed the point or in the case of most Clintonistas refuse to acknowledge it. Ms Dowd did not excuse Trump, she just pointed out the serial sexual harassment issues of Bill and the pseudo feminists surrounding him making excuses for it. As far as Ms Dowd having other things to write about, if Bill wasn't on national TV once again refusing to accept responsibility and if the HRC campaign did not proclaim there was a special place in hell for women who didn't vote for Hillary, the coronated candidate then Maureen would have something else to write about.
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Amazing how all those duped by the Clinton lies and shenanigans strike out at Dowd for simply stating the obvious. Time to fess up boys and girls.
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Just stop talking about the Clintons Maureen. Just stop.
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Thank you Mrs. Dowd. But please remember there was a chorus of Democrat (and, well for sort of different reasons) Republican voices who did call it out for what it was -- A man, the President, who even at that time so thought strongly of the sanctity of marriage that he signed DOMA -- lied about a sexual affair involving a woman close to his daugther's age. It was literally his semen that caught him in the lie also. The #metoo movement can even be enshrined in the "that woman" comment. We've become more "woke" about it -- but I can't understand how this guy keeps getting credit and respect. Remember, national elections in which he had direct hand in helping -- 2000,2004, 2008 (HRC-primary), 2016 (HRC-pres) he was not able to turn tides or votes in his favor.
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Clinton bashing. It’s all Maureen wants to do.
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Aren't there more important things to write about these days?
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HERE WE GO AGAIN!
Maureen Dowd is just constitutionally incapable of stop whacking her favorite pinatas, Bill and Hillary Clinton. She has never stopped since that infamous day in 1992 when she told the late Christopher Hitchens (talk about birds of a feather!) how much she disliked then candidate Bill Clinton. Dowd conveniently omits the derogatory and derisive things that she wrote about Monica Lewinsky on her way to the Pulitzer. Now, twenty years later, Dowd wants to cast herself as an advocate for Lewinsky. Please! How unfortunate for La Dowd that most of us (except the Benito Cheeto in the White House) have a memory/attention span of more than five minutes.
Monica Lewinsky was not, is not, and never will be a "victim". She made a conscious, deliberate decision to go after another woman's husband. Should Clinton have given in after the flash of red? Obviously, he should have resisted temptation. (And Richard Luettgen, please spare us your psychobabble. You don't know Bill Clinton any more than I do. So take your cup and go home.) Lewinsky owns her decisions and lack of judgment in the events that forever changed her life. She was an adult who made her choices and has to live with the consequences. Trying to wrap her in the MeToo# movement is both dishonest and dishonorable, Ms. Dowd.
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Blah blah blah... media gave Bill Clinton a free pass by telling voters character did not matter.....
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Ms. Dowd’s obsession with the Clintons and Obama is tiresome. Some fresh voices, please?
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Ms. Dowd is not big on halos.
That includes Mr. Obama when she thought necessary ("Barry" though is pushing it), although certainly not on sexual matters, behavior or policy. And the Clintons: Mr. hypocrite and Mrs. pseudo-feminist political hack.
That does not excuse Mr. Trump for anything. It just means that there is a NYT columnist who feels that "liberals" do not get a free pass and who should also be held responsible for their behavior.
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Amen.
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Please shut up. An entire party shut down the Obama presidency by tacitly accusing him of being a Muslim and not an American citizen. Now the cheerleader of that lie is our lying imbecile president.
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Usually the NYT Picks include a range, but this time it's only those who support Maureen's neverending spite and unbalanced reminders of Bill's admittedly lousy self-control.
Exploitative?
Please look in the mirror, Maureen Dowd. You've been part of the problem for far too long. When your writing doesn't include stenography for Trump or hatred and/or negativity about the Clintons and Obama, it's wonderful.
And how you can hate Obama eludes me. You don't share the deeply unobservant progressive extremist tendency to blame Democrats for the long defeat under Republican opposition. You're smart enough to see that both Bill Clinton and Obama fried to take care of everyone and were good for the economy.
Enough! (what a hope ...)
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Susan,
Maureen rightly calls out Obama for the mediocre narcissist that he is.
CE: Obama is neither mediocre nor a narcissist. Trump is a sociopathic narcissist, and doesn't rise to the standard of mediocrity, and as a cowardly bully is a danger to all of us. As to sex, Trump, doesn't seem to think his excrement stinks, but it does.
You I don't know, but saying things because you can doesn't make them true.
Let's just keep it simple. A personal, heartfelt apology from Bill to Monica is long overdue. Here's the script: (Bill to Monica) "I am deeply, profoundly sorry for the pain and anguish I have caused you. I hope that you can forgive me." That's it! Done.
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True, but why would he have any direct, personal contact with her. That apology should be made in public ONLY, and I believe it has happened.
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So Maureen Dowd thinks that a 22 year old adult woman is incapable of making her own sexual decisions, and the older man she was involved with should have been doing the thinking for both of them.
If this is today’s feminism, please remind me what the patriarchy looks like.
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A feminist 22 yr. old intern will never have the same power as a 46 yr old Leader of the Free World. Not taking advantage of one's power is not patriarchal, it's responsible and moral.
Title IX offices on every college campus seem to see it the same way.
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Rush Limbaugh said 6 months ago the Dems would turn on Bill to move past the stranglehold of the Clintons, so here it is.
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