Yes, It Is Time For Democrats To Reckon With Bill Clinton

Currently, in the center ring of the full-scale media circus that defines the Trump Era, is the saga of the special election in Alabama to replace Jeff Sessions' former seat in the U.S. Senate.  Now that the Republican candidate, Roy Moore, is all but confirmed as a child molester of epic proportions, and there is a chance (albeit a wafer-thin one, because it is Alabama) that the seat might actually go to Doug Jones, the Democratic candidate, all hands--and rhetoric--are on the conservative deck to save the ship from Moore's past and control of the Senate's future.  Some have urged Moore to step aside; some have urged a write-in campaign for another candidate, and a few have even gone so far as to suggest that they might vote for Jones.  Even the idea of refusing to seat Moore if he wins the election has been discussed.

But a few pundits, and not a few of their followers in social media, have decided that this is an opportunity to practice the politics of deflection, one of Trump's favorite tools.  Specifically, they have chosen to throw Bill Clinton and his ugly history with women in the face of liberals, and feminists in particular, as a rebuttal to any attacks on Moore.  How, they ask, can Democrats and their supporters attack any Republican for sexual deviancy when one of their most beloved leaders was, and perhaps still is, a deviant himself?

In one sense, the circular nature of this line of argumentation is obvious, so obvious that even a child can understand it:  two wrongs do not make a right.  Using Clinton as a vehicle for defending Moore effectively concedes the point that those of us on the left are trying to make about Moore.  If the bad behavior of one matters, so does the bad behavior of the other.

But, because it is painfully obvious that two wrongs do not make a right, it is time for liberals, and feminists in particular, to reclaim the high ground in the only possible way:  by acknowledging that what Clinton did was wrong, and that, whether or not it fits the very flexible definition of what constitutes an impeachable defense, it disqualified him from public office.  Every bit as much as Moore's bad behavior disqualifies him from taking a seat in the Senate.

I have said before that I believe Hillary's defeat was due in part to concerns about giving Clinton's appetites a second shot at residing in the White House.  Truth be told, Clinton's misconduct linked the personal to the political; he gave away large chunks of the New Deal to a Republican Congress, hoping that doing so would spare him a close examination of his private life.  It didn't work.  We all lost in the process.  The lingering stain of personal and political betrayal probably cost Al Gore the Presidency in 2000, and almost certainly lost it for Hillary last year.  In between, we were fortunate to have Barack Obama, who knew how to act like a Democrat and a President at the same time.

That's why I share the thoughts expressed here, and I hope you do, too.  It may be the only way we can regain the moral authority needed to stop the immorality of Donald Trump and the GOP.