Listening intently to NPR, waiting to hear a segment with ME in it, I caught what they were reporting about the death of Henry Hyde. My first thoughts on hearing he’d died were Illinois…Speaker…prolife lion…Intelligence Committee. NPR’s comments were Moved to impeach Clinton about an alleged affair…had an affair himself years before.
First, it wasn’t an alleged affair – Clinton has admitted it. Second, the impeachment was about possible perjury.
I will say this again, in the strongest possible terms. Clinton’s impeachment was never about sex for conservatives. It was liberals who thought it was about sex. They were unable to get off that issue, and they still can't. They want to believe that myth so badly that no amount of contrary evidence affects them. They were unable to conceive of the issue in any other terms, and projected that onto conservatives. They proved this again yesterday, unable to think of Hyde except in terms of impeachment…sex…affair. They did go on to discuss Hyde’s prolife record, but not a whisper of foreign affairs, NATO, Intelligence.
Worse thought: whatever their protestations, they didn't hate Clinton for the affair - they admired it. I don't doubt there were some on the left, including some honest feminists, who were appalled. But the myths that people cling to say so much about what they want to be true. As time goes on, the solidifying of the myth in that direction suggests that far too many people thought sex with an intern was cute; cute enough to overlook perjury for it.
If they keep pounding the lie, in twenty years, it will be the only truth anyone knows. I can barely recall why the Republicans were up in arms now, because I've been fed the line that the Right was just angry about the affair because they were prudish. I know it's wrong, but it's all I've ever heard, and so it becomes as true as something I read in a history book in high school.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't just an affair, it was an affair with a White House intern that he carried on inside the Oval Office. So you have abuse of authority and sexual harrassment that you can add to it.
ReplyDeleteNo no no, you got the story all wrong. Liberals totally keep in the part about perjury, if pressed. Then the story is the conservatives asked him about the affair because they're hung up on sex, and anyone asked about an affair is obviously going to lie. So the conservatives made him lie by asking him a question they shouldn't have been asking at a trial he shouldn't have been testifying in. You only have to answer honestly questions that someone has a proven right to ask you....duh.
ReplyDeleteI think you're right, AVI. That was one of the most offensive parts of the whole situation, that so many seemed to think it was cute.
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