I'm surprised no one shared this yesterday (or, if they did, I missed it). Matt Yglesias posted a lengthy essay at Vox titled simply "Bill Clinton should have resigned."
He's taken a lot of heat from all over the spectrum for various parts of his argument. Some don't like that he explores the political realities, as he points out that the Democrats would not have had any reason to be scared of an Al Gore administration. Others accuse him of playing the blame game, when he takes the GOP to task for making it about perjury, when it should have been about sexual harassment. Others still find it suspiciously convenient that people like Yglesias are reaching these conclusions after the Clintons have apparently walked off into the sunset. But ultimately, it's a well-written and personal piece about how the reckoning we are currently experiencing regarding the poor behavior of powerful men toward women could have happened much sooner, if we had grasped the opportunity available:
Yglesias also mentions that the current climate is leading to a reexamination of Bill Clinton that includes darker episodes. But not everyone is ready to jump in with Michelle Goldberg and say they now believe Juanita Broaddrick. As crazed and I discussed a few times, even today, many people find Paula Jones' story fishy.
But Yglesias' argument is that, in hindsight, there was reason to condemn Clinton even without the various accusations against him. With Lewinsky, there was no accusation. All parties agreed on the essential facts, and to this day, she contends the relationship was consensual. So even if you aren't ready to believe the women who leveled misconduct accusations against him, you can still look at the Lewinsky affair and say that Clinton absolutely, unequivocally, did something wrong. But because we missed the real story - a powerful man using his position to gain sexual favors from a subordinate - we pushed back for decades the important conversation we are now having.
He's taken a lot of heat from all over the spectrum for various parts of his argument. Some don't like that he explores the political realities, as he points out that the Democrats would not have had any reason to be scared of an Al Gore administration. Others accuse him of playing the blame game, when he takes the GOP to task for making it about perjury, when it should have been about sexual harassment. Others still find it suspiciously convenient that people like Yglesias are reaching these conclusions after the Clintons have apparently walked off into the sunset. But ultimately, it's a well-written and personal piece about how the reckoning we are currently experiencing regarding the poor behavior of powerful men toward women could have happened much sooner, if we had grasped the opportunity available:
Most of all, as a citizen I’ve come to see that the scandal was never about infidelity or perjury — or at least, it shouldn’t have been. It was about power in the workplace and its use. The policy case that Democrats needed Clinton in office was weak, and the message that driving him from office would have sent would have been profound and welcome. That this view was not commonplace at the time shows that we did not, as a society, give the most important part of the story the weight it deserved.
Yglesias also mentions that the current climate is leading to a reexamination of Bill Clinton that includes darker episodes. But not everyone is ready to jump in with Michelle Goldberg and say they now believe Juanita Broaddrick. As crazed and I discussed a few times, even today, many people find Paula Jones' story fishy.
But Yglesias' argument is that, in hindsight, there was reason to condemn Clinton even without the various accusations against him. With Lewinsky, there was no accusation. All parties agreed on the essential facts, and to this day, she contends the relationship was consensual. So even if you aren't ready to believe the women who leveled misconduct accusations against him, you can still look at the Lewinsky affair and say that Clinton absolutely, unequivocally, did something wrong. But because we missed the real story - a powerful man using his position to gain sexual favors from a subordinate - we pushed back for decades the important conversation we are now having.
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