Still paying for Bill Clinton

Sex is private.

Everybody lies about sex.

And the classic but far from classy quip from James Carville, "Drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you'll find."

Democrats were so clever that they thought they got away with it when they protected Bill Clinton in 1998. But they still pay today.



Margaret Carlson of the Daily Beast bravely tried to fashion the sow's ear of Al Franken into a silk purse.

She wrote:

For now, Democrats think zero tolerance and swift punishment gives them the high ground. But they already have that. They should know by now there is no shaming Republicans who are so far below sea level it’s a miracle they can be heard from down there.

Nice try, but it won't work because as long as Bill Clinton is alive, so is his scandal.

He survived but at a price others pay.

Al Gore would have won in 2000 if he were president. Democrats would have taken the high road, outing a president who sexually harassed a clerk, Paula Jones.

Instead, Clinton survived and parents had to explain what oral sex is to children far too young for such conversations, a discomfort many still resent.

Bill also cost Hillary her shot at the presidency. Twice.

But many Democrats still have not learned.

Carlson wrote:

Republicans are supporting a president whom 16 women have credibly accused of serious sexual misconduct and is on tape celebrating his culpable behavior. Then there’s the pedophile they have endorsed for a Senate seat in Alabama, complete with financial support, despite most Republicans, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, saying they believe Moore’s accusers. Where did those two Republicans get off joining Democrats in calling for Franken to resign?

Accused, not proven.

Bill Clinton was not simply accused of sexual harassment. He was sued and settled out of court for every dime Paula Jones sought.

And still, Democrats refused to vote to remove him from office.

There are only accusations against Trump and Moore -- accusations made in the heat of an election by women represented by Gloria Allred.

Carlson wrote:

And there are questions about the charge [against Franken] that got the ball rolling. Why did Trump adviser Roger Stone know well ahead of time that Playboy model and radio host Leeann Tweeden would be going public with her charges that Franken kissed her against her will in rehearsals for an X-rated USO tour skit (they are all X-rated) and that she had a 2006 photo of Franken groping, or pretending to grope, her chest over a flak jacket as she slept? Stone sent a heads up to conservative website The Daily Caller about it hours before a story in The Washington Post.

Playboy model.

Shades of James Carville's $100 bill.

She made a personal attack on a woman that Al Franken groped while she slept. We have the picture.

Carlson's whole argument is undercut by what she wrote on June 6, 1998:

It's not the adultery, it's the lying; so goes the argument of various keepers of the public morality, as another person is ruined because of sexual misconduct. Well, that's a lie, akin to saying it's not the winter, it's the cold that bothers me. No, it is sex, in and of itself, that occupies us, the lying being a collateral offense. A visitor from another planet reading the papers recently about First Lieut. Kelly Flinn, Marv Albert, Frank Gifford, Michael Kennedy and Paula Jones would think that our national pastime was not baseball but the Playboy channel. The day after the Supreme Court ruled that Paula Jones' lawsuit could go forward, the story led most major newspapers, above the announcement by Boris Yeltsin at the NATO summit that he would no longer target nuclear missiles at the Western alliance. Peace is at hand, but so what? We've got a woman here saying once again that Clinton came on to her in a hotel room six years ago.

This preoccupation wouldn't be so troublesome if sex, or lying about it wasn't such a growth sector, spawning lawsuits, dishonorable discharges, job losses, book contracts and political meltdowns. It's one thing to be amused by whether Marv Albert had to remove his hairpiece when being booked on charges he bit a woman in his hotel room and quite another matter to make sexual allegations grounds for court-martialing B-52 pilots, winnowing potential political candidates and crippling a President.

Sexual behavior as the measure of a man is a faulty gauge; otherwise Richard Nixon would be one of our best Presidents and Franklin Roosevelt one of our worst. One's sexual behavior as a component of character used to count for nothing (President Kennedy's assignations were not covered while he was alive), which was wrong; now it counts for far too much. Gary Hart was no prize, but should his 12 years as a Senator and 39-year marriage be blotted out by his dalliance with Donna Rice?

Eventually she got around to mentioning Bill Clinton by name in her defense of his sexual harassment of Paula Jones.

After not calling out Bill Clinton, every argument she makes about President Trump or Judge Roy Moore is partisan and amoral. Only Republicans must withstand moral judgment because, well, look there's a squirrel.

I said all along that if Judge Moore is guilty, I condemn him.

But that was a month ago and so far the accusers have not achieved the burden of proof, and in fact have discredited themselves.

Americans have standards for moral behavior.

Bill Clinton fell short of those standards not only in sexually harassing a woman, but in committing adultery and bearing false witness about the affair.

Democrats excused him.

Now Democrats continue to live with that decision 19 years later. Actions have consequences. So does inaction.

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The first was "Trump the Press," which covered his nomination.

The second was "Trump the Establishment," which covered his election.

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