This week in the politics of sex scandals in the US

Michael Tomasky on the suddenly fashionable notion among some Democratic liberals that Bill clinton should have resigned over the Monica Lewinsky affair (Hell No, Bill Clinton Shouldn’t Have Resigned Daily Beast 11/21/2017):

The idea that Clinton should have resigned is insane. It’s insane from the perspective of the historical record, which in no way supports the idea that he should have quit his job. And it’s insane for political purposes today, given that it remains one of the top priorities of the right to smear and discredit both Clintons in the history books, a project that liberals should in no way, shape, or form be abetting.

The fact that we are actively discussing the Bill Clinton cheating scandals of the 1990s is a major sign that the Republicans are way, way better at exploiting such scandals politically than Democrats are.

And that's in very large part because they are much savvier than Democrats about what suckers the corporate media are for not only sex stories and stories about anyone named Clinton, but also their obsession with the false equivalence of Both Sides Do It on every issue and practice all the time.

I'm tempted to say that it's a sign of progress that it a whole week, more-or-less, for the credible claims made by numerous women about sleazy and even violent behavior of Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore toward teenage girls when he was in his 30s to be replaced by a return to the media' Great Clinton Penis Hunt that they loved so much during the 1990s.

Tomasky says of the Clinton impeachment:

The most important point is that the Republican effort to remove Clinton from office was a constitutional coup d’etat. If you’re young—all this hatred you see today, this right-wing rage machine (which does have its much smaller counterpart on the left); it all started then. The right hated Bill Clinton pretty much because he was a liberal (a moderate-liberal, but as they saw him, a dangerous leftist) from the Woodstock generation who had the effrontery to beat a Republican incumbent at a time when conservatives thought the presidency was theirs for life. Literally from the day he won, some people were plotting how to undo the voters’ verdict. And finally, years later, he handed them some rope.

That is what liberals were confronting. The right’s aim was to nullify a presidential election. Two of them. If Clinton had acquiesced in that, having obviously committed no high crime or misdemeanor, the precedent would have been chilling. No Democratic president after him would have been safe from a similar assault. They would have gone straight after President Gore, on the slightly dodgy fund-raising stuff, and they’d have had the added talking point that Gore’s presidency was especially illegitimate because unlike Clinton he wasn’t even elected. I’m not saying they could have driven Gore from office. I am saying they’d have tried, and they’d have tried with Barack Obama or whatever Democrat came next in that timeline, too. There is no way on earth Clinton should have opened that door. [my emphasis]

That's a good point. No matter that they hated him dearly, the Republicans never seriously tried to impeach Barack Obama.

I agree with Tomasky's judgment, "And it’s insane for political purposes today, given that it remains one of the top priorities of the right to smear and discredit both Clintons in the history books." Although he adds at the end, "a project that liberals should in no way, shape, or form be abetting." That last part goes a little far from my perspective. There is a lot about the Clinton deregulation policies and military interventions that deserve to be responsibly criticized. The Clinton Administration's policies toward Russia are looking more and more dubious all the time, including the ham-handed intervention in the Russian election of 1996:

But Democrats definitely need to up their game on how to deal with such scandals. Starting with remembering how bogus the criminal allegations against Bill and Hillary Clinton were that were so extensively investigated during his Presidency. Once again, the link to the Final Report of the Special Counsel investigating the Whitewater pseudoscandal, Final Report of the Independent Counsel in Re Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan Association Regarding Monica Lewinsky and Others 03/06/2002.

Jill Abramson also looks at the politics of the current sex scandals in Have we reached zero tolerance for sexual misconduct Guardian 11/19/2017:

Casting out Al Franken, who has been a passionate, zealous defender of women’s rights in a Senate grown ever more hostile to them, could remove an important weapon in the embattled Democratic arsenal.

A reassessment of Bill Clinton’s behavior era could have the same counter-productive effect. His accusers already signed up to help Donald Trump get elected when they appeared with him before one of the presidential debates. They have all made a devil’s bargain with various Republican creeps, including Roger Stone.

One of Trump’s key political advisers recently told me that the appearance of the Clinton accusers with Trump “completely blunted the damage of the Access Hollywood tape. It was a very important turning point in the campaign.” The Clinton accusers helped elect a different sexual predator. And unlike Clinton, who was an ally of the women’s movement, Trump is its mortal enemy. [my emphasis]