Former President William Clinton is a moral pig. That is painful language, but this is a man who, as president of the United States, repeatedly engaged in sexual acts, some truly bizarre, with a young White House intern. Prior to his terms as president, Mr. Clinton repeatedly had sexual bouts with women other than his wife. On at least these bases, William Clinton is a moral pig.
William Clinton drove two nails into the heart of the United States. First of all, he gave us George Bush, which led to the senseless war in Iraq at the very least. (There are those who says he actually gave us 9/11, because if Gore had been president, he would not have ignored the many warnings about that kind of attack on America.) Had he not shamed the office of the president so blatantly, Al Gore would have been voted in as president, and we would have had a president who would have pursued intelligent policies on such things as the economy, the environment and medical care.
The second, and likely far more deadly, nail that William Clinton drove into the heart of American democracy was that he gave us Donald Trump. While it is true that it was his wife, Hillary, who ran against Trump, William Clinton was an albatross around her neck. Even with a moral pig for a husband, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote and only lost the electoral count on the basis of thirty thousand votes. Many, many of those votes went to Trump on the grounds that the voters did not want this pig back in the White House, even as the president’s mate.
Now, in this time when women are finally getting the respect that they have always deserved and the sexual abuse they have so long suffered is getting roundly and deservedly condemned, this man, asked whether he ever apologized to this young intern, whose life he basically ruined, instead announces that he is the real victim. “I was sixteen million dollars in debt when I left the White House,” he whined. Poor baby. He is now a multi-millionaire, living in outlandish comfort, selling yet another book. He has once again demonstrated that he is, in at least some ways, every bit as self-absorbed as the totally self-absorbed Trump.
We don’t ask much of our presidents. We don’t ask them to be brilliant. We don’t even ask them to be very clever. Basically, we ask them not to hurt us, at least not too much. Trump is indeed violating that low, low bar, but Trump would not have had any chance to do so without the help he got from the disgusting conduct, and the subsequent deplorable conduct, of William Clinton.
Perhaps the best lesson we can take away from this observation is that we should not, stronger, we cannot, make judgments about our political figures based only on their labels as “Republicans” or “Democrats.” There are very good, very dedicated, very committed Republicans, and there are many such Democrats. There are also some real jerks in both parties. jerks like Trump and jerks like Clinton. We cannot excuse the conduct of pigs like these two merely because they are “one of ours.” We, all of us, Republicans and Democrats alike, need and deserve women and men of good character and a dedication to the interests of the country rather than their own. It is time to hold these our representatives to a far higher standard, And it is time to stop hiding behind mere labels.
We The Center 