Bill Clinton: A real apology is needed .... not just "treacly crap"
What Bill Clinton still owes Monica Lewinsky
Excerpt:
All I can find on the record is an account of his 1998 speech to a roomful of religious leaders at a White House prayer breakfast in which he famously said, “I have sinned.”
“It is important to me that everybody who has been hurt know that the sorrow I feel is genuine: first and most important, my family; also my friends, my staff, my Cabinet, Monica Lewinsky and her family, and the American people. I have asked all for their forgiveness.”
If that’s all, then it won’t do. You cannot put Lewinsky in the same sentence as the White House staff and Cabinet, not to mention “the American people.” Clinton’s aides were deceived and inconvenienced, and some were hopping mad, but none of them were flamed on the Internet, denounced as a tramp and a stalker, viciously condemned by commentators of both sexes, including a covey of journalistic harridans who have forever been on the lookout for any suggestion of extramarital sex in Washington. They simply won’t permit it.
Jessica Bennett, the writer of the commendably sympathetic Times piece, found Lewinsky to be “acutely intelligent, something for which she does not get much credit.” Actually, she does. Both her defense lawyers and even the prosecutors described her as both charming and smart, but it was important for her critics to consider her a crazed ditz, as if Clinton was her victim and could not have been genuinely charmed by her. (Remember how much they talked on the phone.) Lewinsky represented a middle-aged woman’s worst fear: the on-the-prowl young woman they once themselves were. She had to be dealt with.
I like Bill Clinton — always have. I think he was a very good president, and I think he’s a remarkable man, moral in a macro way. But I think his “I have sinned” statement is treacly crap, so generalized as to be meaningless. As he once acknowledged to me, he is forever linked to LewinskyComment: Word of the day = "treacly". Image source. As for me ... I think he is immoral in a macro way!
Is it Bill Clinton who owes the apology, or those who pillaged her? I'm thinking both, really, and it could turn out that Hillary ironically owes her the bigger apology.
ReplyDeleteI am always amazed at how the Clintons escape accountability for the nonsense they've done.
Yeah, the author loses pretty much all credibility when he puts "moral" and "Clinton" in the same thought. The only morals both Bill and Hillary have is "what's best for me, right now at this moment?"
ReplyDeleteNot that many politicians are any different.
Yeah, I'd say the author loses a whole lot of credibility when he puts "moral" and "Clinton" in the same thought.
ReplyDelete