If Bill Clinton won’t say it, I will. I’m
sorry, Monica Lewinsky.
Bill shouldn’t have found it surprising to
be asked about the affair in his recent interview with NBC in this era of MeToo. He claimed the event had been
litigated 20 years ago and that two-thirds of Americans supported him. That’s
the problem – it was 20 years ago.
Yes, he is right that he was supported then,
and that much of this movement has to do with a predator in the White House
whose supporters don’t care how many crimes he has committed or will commit,
but Bill should realize that times are different now. I’m different now.
I had stood proudly in a northern Kentucky
polling station while in college to vote for Bill in 1992, but after way too many
real and imagined scandals it all just got to be too much. By 1996, I had moved
to Cincinnati and hadn’t realized the timing of getting registered, so I wasn’t
able to vote, and wasn’t terribly upset by it at the time. Bill was re-elected,
but I was done with him. I found the Republicans appalling, so assumed that it
was just as well that he won.
During this affair, I was in a job I hated
and then moved to another job I would grow to hate more than words can say, so I
was a bit distracted. I may have wasted an evening around this same period
watching O.J.’s slow car chase, but I didn’t bother watching the news reports
or reading the articles about the affair. Like all the other scandals, there
was just too much drama for me.
I do remember watching the Saturday Night Live skits, making fun of
Lewinsky, and especially Linda Tripp. I’m bothered even thinking about those now.
Granted, I didn’t write them, but I did laugh at them, and for that I’m also
sorry. Saying it was a different time and people weren’t as enlightened is
true, but it still doesn’t count for much if you’re the one who’s the butt of
the joke. If the affair were coming out now, SNL would still do skits, but I don’t think they’d put John Goodman
in drag to play Tripp. In fact, she’d probably be heralded for blowing the
whistle on someone who takes advantage of women.
The Democrats in the 1990s, after twelve
years of Reagan and then Bush part I, weren’t ready to give up their golden boy
for having sex in the White House with an intern and then lying about it.
Perhaps then we shouldn’t be surprised that Republicans refuse to acknowledge
any wrong doing by Trump in the endless parade of what should be job-destroying
scandals.
The key things you can do in life are learn from the past, face up to your mistakes made at the time, and then make better decisions for the future, even if Bill won’t.
The key things you can do in life are learn from the past, face up to your mistakes made at the time, and then make better decisions for the future, even if Bill won’t.