I'm really curious as to why, with all the pushback Marie has received in these threads that she hasn't jumped into the comments section to debate with us. I wonder if it's that the new format isn't as inviting.

Marie, it's okay, you can come argue with us here! We won't bite!

Actually, we will. But it'll be fun!

Yeah - get a little dirty with us lowly comments.

It also doesn't mean that there isn't sexism and racism aplenty on both "sides."

I think, Tom, it's hard for you to accept because of the simple reason that you aren't sexist or racist. We all tend to believe people are just like ourselves.

I myself thought they'd gone away, but after a few food fights around here and elsewhere, I realized that both sexism and racism wasn't just alive and well, but gaining acceptance.

I do not watch TV, I haven't for years, but any of the few times I have been exposed to it and see the latest, it actually shocks me. I don't think people fully appreciate just how awful and prevalent this stuff has become in our society.

Actually, it's much more likely that the relentless hatred of the right-wing has taken root and grown.

"Scandal after scandal" that you know perfectly well was BS driven by the swiftboating and deplorable politics of the rabid right wing. Day after day after day after day for the last 10 years this stuff has been repeated on blogs, in churches, near watercoolers, on RW radio, and now it's the stuff of legends.

There MUST hav been some truth to it, right? The rabid right wing that brought us Iraq and G.W. Bush wouldn't stoop to LYING, would they? Where there's smoke, there's fire. Correct?

It's horrid to hear once rational democrats and liberals spouting dittohead talking points. And you have to wonder WHY a lot of people call you cult members?

This Clinton B.S. was just that ten years ago, it still is.

Bill got a blow job in the White House. He wasn't the first President of the United States to get one, but he was the first President of the United States to be subjected to the questionable sanity of the rabid right wing CULT.

Now YOU sound just like THEM.

Was Clinton perfect? Hardly, some of the "compromise legislation he came up with was awful and bad for this Country, but the majority of his legislation was NOT. He was maybe average as far as Presidents go.

An average President in no way deserves this level of animosity from anyone, LEAST of all anyone purporting to call themselves thoughtful, progressive, liberal democrats.

It's sickening.

What will you do when Obama starts compromising with the Republicans, which he has SAID he will do? In fact, he's promised to.

You going to crucify him, too?

Well, it’s certainly true that Clinton has a big problem with the male part of the electorate. Black men, white men, old men, young men. According to polls, she seems to be unpopular with just about all groups and subgroups of men. Why? It can’t just be some generic misogynistic fear of female power. While it is still an uphill battle for women in politics, there are women in public office all over the country, and those women have been successful in getting men to vote for them.

And they've all faced deep seated misogyny. Look at the Louisiana Governor, Kathleen Blanco, and the media's report of her 'crying' during the Katrina crisis. Bush weeps constantly over whatever sentimental button comes along. Blanco is alleged to have reacted emotionally to a crisis that destroyed her state and killed thousands of people and gee whiz, she's taken to task for it.

I can't think of a single prominent American female politician who has not faced virulent misogyny, double standards and hostility from male constituencies - whether it be Bella Abzug or Nancy Pelosi. Look at the sort of hatred specifically reserved for Jane Fonda or Barbra Streisand or Rosey O'Donnel, and they're not even all that political. I'm sorry, did Abbie Hoffman, Sean Penn or Phil Donaghue get that kind of bile?

Why Hillary Clinton and not other women?

Well duh! She's the only one running for President. It's not the same as running for school board, or governor, or mayor.

The Clinton administration virtually collapsed in disgrace after years of percolating scandals, and failed to achieve its potential due to that collapse.

Collapsed in disgrace? The Clinton administration finished with record high popularity, a strong economy, a successful foreign policy, international approval. Al Gore entered his Presidential race with a commanding lead, worked hard to distance himself from Clinton, and pissed it away.

As for the 'years of percolating scandals', the truth was that they were all entirely imaginary, save for a patently corrupt perjury trap.

Yeah, yeah, yeah you're going to whine about Clinton's thirty year career as a serial rapist. But his one proven sexual affair hardly bears it out.

Indeed, the behaviour and attitudes documented in the Lewinsky scandal... a man who responds to a woman who throws herself at him, a man who continually holds back from committing physically, a man who engages emotionally in a torrid infatuation while at the same time being profoundly ambivalent about what he's doing. this was Clinton.

I'm sorry, but that's just not behaviour or a set of emotional reflexes consistent with the Juanita Brodrick story, where he's alleged to pretty much throw her on a couch and forcibly bone her. It's not consistent with a long history as a rape artist or date rape artist, or even as a man who had a history of affairs.

Look, its very simple. People deal with stuff, they internalize it, and then they use whatever they've internalized as they move along. That happens with everything. That's why behaviour escalates - criminals move onto bigger grimes, sexual sadists move into serial killing, pot smokers move into crack addicts.

If he'd actually done the Juanita Brodrick, or the Kathleen Wiley or the rest of that crap, he would have dealt with it emotionally, he would have internalized and adapted to it. And when he came to Monica Lewinsky, he would have boned that little filly up the ass. She wouldn't have had to flash her thong, he'd have cut her from the herd and bent her over a rail. He would have turned her into a sex toy, lied to, abused, manipulated and tied her into knots. He would not have hesitated, there would have been no physical reservation, no masturbation games, no cigar games, no oral sex and dancing around but never quite getting to coitus. He'd have boned her, and he wouldn't have given it a second thought. There'd have been no infatuation, no tortured emotional web, no diffidence or ambivalence... he'd have sorted all that shit out long ago. None of what should have been there was there.

The Lewinsky thing was patently not a sexual predator on the make.

It was very clearly the profile of a middle aged man having one of those mid-life blooms of infatuation with a younger woman, that middle aged college professors, writers, film-makers and anyone in the creative field has been writing stories about since forever. It hews so closely to the profile it verges on cliche.

But that's all it is.

For us to accept your theory of Bill Clinton as a sexual predator/rapist going back 30 years, we would have to believe that a seasoned sexual predator who had long ago resolved every trace of guilt or doubt, reconciled completely with impulses that would allow him to commit outright sexual assault... suddenly managed to erase or unwind 30 years of emotional learning and internalization, and approach an affair as a naive engenue. Worse, he not only unwound and erased 30 years of the internal dynamics of a sexual predator... but replaced them with the internal dynamics of a much more ordinary and conscientious middle aged man.

Sorry, a regular human being could not do that. A psychotic might be able to do it, but would be so disorganized he wouldn't be able to function normally, much less at Presidential levels. A sociopath couldn't, it calls for emotional access that he simply doesn't exist. Just possibly some form of dissassociative personality/multiple personality might be able to compartmentalize to such a degree for such a long time as to pull off radically differing outlooks near simultaneously. But such a dissasssociative personality would be fairly easy to identify and diagnose.

So what's the bottom line? It's bullshit. Plain and simple.

Dan K, I did you the honour of actually going looking at the allegations of affairs.

There's some English chippie from 30 years ago, claims to meet Bill at a party and he rapes her... except that instead of going to the police she goes to the embassy/program (??????), never makes a formal report, never follows up, refuses to talk about it today and hires a lawyer to get people off her back. So how do we know about it? Some fart claims to have a thirty year old memory of this incident, which would have occupied a few hours in an active busy career that spanned three or four decades. No other evidence, the whole thing amounts to unsubstantiated hearsay so profoundly nebulous, that there is no 'there' there. There's nothing. It doesn't rise to the level of a worthwhile rumour. It doesn't pass *any* threshold of credibility whatsoever. And yet, you pitched this, front and center on a previous thread. Give me a break.

Juanita Brodrick - According to Juanita, in 1978, Bill Clinton 'jump' assaulted her - that is, sexual assault with no build up or preliminary moves... usually the sign of a hardened predator. He employs force, ignores protests, displays fetishistic behaviour - biting her lip, penetrates and ejaculates inside her with indifference to the possibility of pregnancy or venereal disease. Brodrick then fails to report to police, rape crisis centers, hospitals. Fails to report the matter to her husband. Her alleged confidants when she produces them are dubious - several of them have grudges against Clinton of their own. Twenty years later in 1998, Brodrick files an affidavit, a sworn statement, with Paula Jones denying the incident took place. Later she alleges the incident actually took place. She continues to change her story, embellishing or altering details as she goes while being curiously vague at points. She's interviewed by FBI and police who find her story not credible. She displays paranoid ideation. She rides the celebrity wave for a while, and then fades from sight. The story is crap.

Paula Jones is another left turn. In 1991, some 13 years after Clinton allegedly matured into a fully formed violent predator, we go from paranoia to conspiracy theory. In this case, State Troopers, or at least one State Trooper, is pimping (literally for Clinton), delivering her mysteriously to a hotel room where Bill Clinton mysteriously appears to mysteriously invite her to have mysterious casual sex mysteriously and in a childlike gesture exposed his penis to entice her. No indications of violence, pressure, aggression. The story is frankly bizarre, and shows a number of correspondences with 'Alien Abduction' stories. Jones did not manifest Broadricks paranoid ideation, but she appears to have manifested a massive narcissistic streak, appearing in Playboy, Celebrity Boxers, being feted by the right wing and forming passionate friendships with right wingers like Susan Carpenter-MacMillan. Ann Coulter found her not credible... that says it all, if you can't sell to Coulter then it won't sell to anyone.

Gennifer Flowers - Clinton acknowledges a one time sexual encounter. There's evidence of emotional connectivity that is inconsistent with the 'trooper-pimp' 'mystery encounter' of Jones, or the accomplished sexual predation of Broadrick... it's like three different men. Interestingly, Clinton's description of the Flowers encounter does seem consistent with the evolution of behaviour we later see in Lewinsky. On the other hand, Flowers own description of the relationship - a continuing 12 year affair fits none of the identified profiles and would be effectively impossible to maintain. So effectively, we have a fourth Bill Clinton profile inconsistent with any of the others, none of them going anywere. Flowers for her part is not a narcissist, she's not an overt paranoid, she's simply and obviously in it for the money.

Kathleen Willey reports an overt aggressive sexual assault, though not as aggressive as Broadrick, in 1993. But then the story gets weird - Linda (wiretap) Tripp reports that Willey was actively plotting to seduce Bill Clinton, apparently conspiring with Tripp herself. Tripp was also involved in the Lewinsky seduction, so it makes one wonder how or what was actually going on. Tripp reported that Willey claimed initially that the sexual encounter was consensual and positive, only later changing her story on it. The alleged encounter, bizarrely took place on the same day her husband committed suicide. In investigation, problems arose. Willey repeatedly lied to investigators about pregnancy, present and past affairs, her story on court deposition differed materially from her testimony on grand jury. Later, after writing a book, in an interview with Sean Hannity she contradicted information from her own book. She displayed paranoid ideation, unstable lifestyle, narcissistic traits. In short: Froot Loop. The crowning bizarre fixture - Linda Tripp's own renditions of what Kathleen Willey has said to her have changed from time to time and venue to venue.

These are the biggest bestest cases. Internally contradictory, implausible, repeated instances of stories changing, lots of evidence of fabrication, credibility issues. Big piles of bullshit. And, as I said, these are the biggest and bestest.

What of the rest? More of same. Unsubstantiated rumours, fabulations, third or fourth hand reports, conspiracy claims of mysterious semi-supernatural forces and powers as Governor of Arkansas or President, paranoid utterings.

A typical report - A retired official/friend/investigator comes forward to reveal Clinton raped/romanced/exposed himself to a woman, alone/with the aid of a trooper. Clinton's personality, behaviour and attributes shift with each story. The woman is afraid to tell her story directly because of fear of retribution from the Governor/President with the awesome powers of Arkansas/America at his disposal. No explanation for why she's not coming forward now that he's a has been. Reports of shadowing, break ins, mysterious threats, molested pets, etc. No witnesses, the story changes the further you get into it.

Behind it is an organization or series of organizations which are funded and dedicated to exposing and promoting every report, and which in each case, offers the potential complainant a wide variety of reinforcements - financial, emotional, celebrity, etc. In short, its a system which is dedicated as much to manufacturing allegations as exposing them.

The bottom line is that originally, until you challenged me, I didn't care much one way or the other about the allegations. Having been challenged, I've wasted a lot of my time hunting them all down, looking at them critically and assessing them in a realistic way.

I no longer don't care much one way or the other. I care a great deal now. The allegations are bullshit, and they're obvious and sorry bullshit. There's no excuse for them.

To swallow them is not just a matter of you having your opinion. It's a serious lapse of judgement and a cognitive breakdown. It's an inability to tell shit from shinola. I'm frankly annoyed that I took you seriously enough about anything to waste my time looking into it.