Bill Clinton Blames NBC Editing for #MeToo Fail
Former United States President Bill Clinton has blamed NBC editing for his defensive response to a question about his infamous affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Clinton was being interviewed along with author James Patterson about their new fiction novel “The President is Missing” by NBC Today’s Craig Melvin on Monday morning.
But the interview turned to the #MeToo movement, given that Clinton not only took advantage of his powerful position with Lewinsky, who suffered post-traumatic stress disorder in the aftermath of the affair but has been accused of the sexual harassment and rape of 27 women in total he should be in the movement’s sights. All Melvin asked Clinton was did he owe Lewinsky an apology?
Clinton bluntly responded “No, I do not — I have never talked to her. But I did say publicly on more than one occasion that I was sorry. That’s very different. The apology was public”. Melvin to his credit persisted with Clinton who then tried to portray himself as the victim in the Lewinsky scandal “I left the White House $16 million in debt [from legal fees], but you typically have ignored gaping facts in describing this, and I bet you don’t even know them”.
Then astonishingly went on to claim “Two-thirds of the American people sided with me. They were not insensitive to that. I had a sexual harassment policy when I was governor in the ’80s. I had two women chiefs of staff when I was governor. Women were overrepresented in the attorney general’s office in the ’70s, for their percentage in the bar. I have had nothing but women leaders in my office since I left. You are giving one side and omitting facts”.
Clinton also tried to deflect by claiming the sexual misconduct allegations against President Donald Trump are not taken seriously “I think partly because they’re frustrated that they got all these serious allegations against the current occupant of the Oval Office and his voters don’t seem to care,” while maintaining “I think I did the right thing. I defended the Constitution.”
So sexual assault is fine as you as you keep promoting a lot of women who you are not assaulting? Although there is always another rule for leftist politicians on moral issues, especially by feminists not even Bill Clinton could get away with this stunning twisting of the facts. Senior Democrats have expressed hesitation in inviting Clinton to campaign with them in the #MeToo era with one telling CNN they don’t “know of anyone who is planning on bringing him in”.
But because Bill Clinton is on the left he was given the opportunity to make amends for his interview performance when appearing on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He confessed the interview “wasn’t my finest hour” and he “was mad at me” but then still blamed NBC editing for making him look bad “they had to distil” the interview”. When someone blames editing for a poor performance you know they are getting desperate.
Then Clinton tried to play down his crimes again but saying they happened a long time ago and that he said sorry “But the important thing is that was a very painful thing that happened 20 years ago and I apologized to my family, to Monica Lewinsky and her family, to the American people. I meant it then; I meant it now. I have had to live with the consequences every day since”.
This explanation by Clinton was considered acceptable by some pundits as a man owning up to his actions. But there is a difference between breaking a promise and rape, most people would consider serving a jail sentence to be the appropriate way to own up and take responsibility for a crime such as that. Not get out with no criminal conviction and run a multi-million dollar alleged charity foundation post-Presidency.
It is still astounding that in the #MeToo era someone with the sexual history of Bill Clinton can still maintain their creditability and legacy. To the left’s credit they have turned on some of their own, Harvey Weinstein whose sexual misconduct started the #MeToo movement was a Hollywood liberal and Democratic Senator Al Franken was forced to resign once sexual misconduct allegations against him were made public.
Let us hope there are more journalists like Craig Melvin who put this very relevant question to people like Bill Clinton, who have got away with the most heinous crimes against women for many years.