This won’t make some people happy, but it is true.
Who’s more unethical? It’s no contest.
I always feel like Michael Corleone at times like these: just when I think I am finally through with having to point out the miserable ethics record of Bill Clinton, he (or his shameless supporters) puuuull me back …
The New York Post is reporting that…
“Bill and Hillary Clinton are angry with efforts by mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner and his campaign to compare his Internet sexcapades — and his wife Huma Abedin’s incredible forgiveness — to the Clintons’ notorious White House saga…’The Clintons are upset with the comparisons that the Weiners seem to be encouraging — that Huma is ‘standing by her man’ the way Hillary did with Bill, which is not what she in fact did,’ said a top state Democrat…’The Clintons are pissed off that Weiner’s campaign is saying that Huma is just like Hillary,’’ said the source. “How dare they compare Huma with Hillary? Hillary was the first lady. Hillary was a senator. She was secretary of state.'”
My reaction to this?
Good!
Karma’s a bitch.
The single national figure most responsible for the political culture and public apathy that allows such corrupt politicians as Mark Sanford, Weiner, Eliot Spitzer, David Vitter and Newt Gingrich to seek and sometimes achieve positions of trust after unethical conduct that should disqualify them forever is William Jefferson Clinton. He is the patron saint of this narcissistic crew, and Hillary is their muse. They quote Clinton or the hoard of spinners he dispatched to the news and talk shows at every turn…“It’s personal behavior, not anyone’s else’s business”…”I’m just going to let the people decide”….”Let’s talk about the issues, not me”…”It’s just sex”…”It isn’t really sex”…If she forgives him, why shouldn’t voters?”…”Others got away with worse”…”It’s the politics of personal destruction”…”this is just a distraction”…”Anyone can make a mistake”…”Americans believe in redemption”…and onward, ad infinitum. The Clintons wrote this playbook, showed that it works, corrupted the nation and politics as a consequence, did permanent damage to the public’s faith and respect for the White House, and they have the gall to resent it when the pathetic Weiners try exactly the same strategy?
I never thought I’d be defending the despicable Anthony Weiner, but outrageous chutzpah calls for extreme measures. Clinton’s conduct, which he essentially got away with, was more unethical and more damaging than anything Weiner has done, and Huma’s loyal stand, annoying as it is, is child’s play compared to Hillary’s stealth enabling of her husband.
Let’s dispose of the supposed Hillary indignation first. When Hillary Clinton went on the Today Show, knowing full well that her husband was guilty, and told Matt Lauer that Monicagate was just part of a “vast right-wing conspiracy,” she wasn’t a Senator or Secretary of State. She was just like Huma Abedin, a wife who was trying to ride to power on her husband’s coat-tails, popularity and influence, who had made her deal with the devil and was following through on its terms. Unlike Huma, however, Hillary lied to the public, and became part of the White House cover-up and spin machine.
Now the comparison of Bill Clinton and Weiner. Actually, there is hardly a fair comparison: it’s no contest.
- Anthony Weiner engaged in phone sex and crude internet posts. Bill Clinton engaged in actual illicit and adulterous sex acts, on multiple occasions.
- Weiner engaged in his sexting in private. Clinton engaged in his sexual relations with Lewinsky in the workplace.
- Weiner was engaging with women with whom he had no other relationship. Clinton was having a relationship with a subordinate, which would qualify as sexual harassment under legislation he signed himself.
- Weiner’s interaction with the various targets of his Weiner-grams caused them no permanent harm. Clinton undertook an affair with Lewinsky that he knew or should have known could ruin her life…and it did.
- Weiner lied to journalists and the public about his sexual activities. Bill Clinton lied to journalists, the public, and to a court and a grand jury, under oath.
- Weiner did not besmirch any other public officials in defending himself. Clinton’s surrogates, in contrast, cited rumors or actual affairs by multiple previous presidents as a full-fledged “everybody does it” defense.
- Weiner’s efforts to overcome his misconduct and continue his political career did no damage to governmental institutions. Clinton’s protracted legal maneuvers permanently damaged the relationship between the President and the Secret Service, the office’s legal counsel, and the crucial tool of impeachment.
- Weiner resigned from Congress after his conduct was uncovered. Clinton refused to resign.
- Weiner’s cover-up attempt in 2011 involved, as far as we know, payment of $45,000 in campaign funds. Clinton’s cover-up involved Cabinet officials, his secretary, lawyers and his wife.
- Weiner was a Congressman, and is now one of several candidate for NY mayor. Bill Clinton was the President of the United States, the nation’s most prominent and powerful role model, and holding the position from which all government employees take their ethical cues.
If you’ve been keeping score, Clinton “wins,” 10-0.
I have more, but I’m implementing a slaughter rule.
Let’s hear no more about how Weiner and Wife are making Bill and Hillary look bad. Bill and Hillary were (and are) bad, and deserve to look it. Their unethical conduct cleared the path for the Weiners and the rest. They are accountable, and they deserve to be held to account.
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Facts: NY Post
Ethics Alarms 
Wow. The Clintons are throwing the Abedin/Weiners under the bus? That’s nasty. Or are they just having people put out that rumor to see how it plays? Just as nasty. Poor Huma, acting just like her Mentor and her Mentor punches her in the face.
And Obama and Hill are having lunch? Oh boy. Yum. I can’t wait for eight more years of the Clintons in the White House.
Ha! You and Bill Maher agree on something — he made the same point on his show last week. And he further stated that Kennedy was the worst offender.
Yes, but Maher thinks they all should get away with it.
Kennedy WAS the worst.
I don’t think that’s right. I’d have to go back and watch the show, but I think he concluded that Weiner abused trust. He does make a more nuanced argument about “true” private affairs though, which I know is a big difference between the you two.
Consistency is not Bill’s long suit. I do know that his official take on Clinton was that he should have said, “Yes, I had sex with her, and I’m not sorry; I deserve it.”
Which indeed would have been better than what he did.
Maher really said Clinton deserved blow jobs from interns? Wow! What an admission. If that doesn’t sum up the contemporary American left’s theory of government of the masses by the enlightened, I don’t know what does.
I don’t know, didn’t Johnson make a good run at it? Maybe not sexing up as many women, but from what I’ve heard he was a fan of exposing himself in a playful, fratty, not at all creepy for the President to be doing fashion…
Not even close. Kennedy passed his girlfriends around, essentially using them as party favors. LBJ’s indiscretions, I have on reliable authority, were confined to his ranch, not the White House. Kennedy jeopardized US security by having an affair with a double agent, to cite one example.
I’ll take your word for it- I think I was half-remembering Johnson’s claim from the beginning of his section of this article, which was probably more self-aggrandizing than true 🙂
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-4-most-impressively-weird-sex-lives-u.s.-presidents/
Yes, yes and yes. And not just Monica Lewinsky, but every other female who had the misfortune to be in a room alone with BC. What the media did to Paula Jones was one of the saddest things I ever witnessed. As far as Kennedy, you didn’t specify which one. Jack was a womanizer, but so were the brothers. Was Bobby responsible for Marilyn’s demise? And Mary Jo’s final minutes (hours?) should be the baby brother’s eternal curse.
“Deny, deny, deny. Attack, attack, attack.”
Phony scandals, all of them. Or so we are scolded for not believing.
I have to wonder, if Bill had snapped a picture and then it was leaked, would the resulting scandal have played out differently? Seems to me, when the public has a visual — like in Weiner’s case — it makes matters much worse for the offender.
You mean a picture of the President of the US inserting a cigar in an intern’s hoo-ha? Yes, I think that might have turned the tide against Horny Bill a bit. Good point, seldom made.
Who says he didn’t take pictures???
Very good article exposing the aggravating factors in Clinton’s conduct.