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Monday, February 24, 2014

Bill's past and Hillary's Is Still an Issue

Political pundits say that when Hillary Clinton runs for president, it would be unwise for Republicans to make a big deal about the sexual woes of Bill Clinton.

Move along, the smart political folks say. Let it go. It’s a bad issue.

Focusing on the sins of Bill Clinton only detracts from the demonstrably weak record of Hillary. By focusing on the Bill Clinton of 14 years ago, it makes the GOP look like a petty party of yesteryear.

To all of this, I say, “Bunk.”

It’s the spin of tapped-out beltway reporters who I guaran-darn-tee you will vote for Hillary over any GOP candidate.

I do agree that the spouses of candidates should remain largely off limits in American politics. The public doesn’t really care much about what Laura Bush or Michelle Obama think about the issues of the day. And, if Hillary runs, so the same will go for Bill Clinton.

What I do care about, however, is putting a sexual predator back in the White House.

Look, ladies and gentlemen, if there is one thing we do know about Bill Clinton, it is that throughout his political career, he preyed on women with whom he lorded power. He exhibited the classic patterns of sexual harassment in the workplace.

And we don’t have to debate what the meaning of “is” is anymore.

Thanks to that stained blue dress, we were spared any more of a cover-up than we got. What the president of the United States did to intern Monica Lewinsky was gross, unbecoming and clearly illegal.

We have also come to know a little more about the state of mind of Hillary. There is simply no way to credibly say that Hillary was blindsided by her husband’s predatory behavior. She knew about it. She enabled it.

And she turned a blind eye to it, just as she turned a blind eye to the deaths of Americans in Benghazi on her watch.

“What difference does it make,” sounds eerily familiar to the way she coped with her philandering husband.

Some new information about Hillary’s role in the Lewinsky affair: Diane Blair, a political science professor at the University of Arkansas and a confidant of Hillary Clinton, died in 2000. Her papers only became public this year. According to the private papers, Hillary told Blair that she decided to forgive Lewinsky because she (Hillary) believed Bill was feeling pressure from the recent deaths of his friend, Vince Foster, his mother and Hillary’s mother.

“The ugly forces started making up hateful things about them, pounding on this,” Hillary told Blair.

According to Blair, Hillary confided in her that the Lewinsky affair “was a lapse, but to his (Bill’s) credit he tried to break it off, tried to pull away, tried to manage someone who was clearly a ‘narcissistic loony toon’; but it was beyond control.”

You must be kidding. Hillary thinks Bill’s the victim? If there are narcissistic loony toons in this story, they are the Clintons.

Look, if Monica tied herself naked to the top of Bill Clinton’s desk with a note on her tummy saying, “Take Me — Hillary Says It’s OK,” I’d expect the president of the United States to have enough honor to help her, not help himself to her.

And here’s why all this makes for a legitimate line of inquiry in the next presidential election: Unlike other spouses of presidential candidates, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if Hillary is elected president of the United States in 2016, we’ll return a known sexual predator to the White House — to the scene of his wrongdoing.

Bill Clinton will be given, at the people’s expense, a staff of young interns and a job to do on behalf of the American people.

There is absolutely no evidence that Bill Clinton has lost his sexual appetite. And I don’t think there is any reason to think that Hillary Clinton has ceased covering for him.

Both of these topics, friends, are righteous lines of questioning.

Sherman Frederick, former publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and member of the Nevada Newspaper Hall of Fame, writes a column for Stephens Media. Read his blog atwww.reviewjournal.com/columns-blogs/sherman-frederick.

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