Matt Drudge broke the Monica Lewinsky story 10 years ago today. I remember when the news broke that everyone, and I mean everyone, said, “Boy, if he did that to an intern then he’s gone.”
But then the goalpost kept getting moved by Clinton’s operatives. “It was just about sex,” they said, and that’s a private thing. The fact that it was done in the Oval Office with a subordinate coerced by a power differential suddenly didn’t matter, even to feminists.
I point to several events that are evidence of the downfall of Western civilization. That was one of them. The abduction of Elian Gonzalez on a beautiful Easter morning is another.
Steve Boriss says the media, which was right to condemn the Watergate crimes, sold its soul when if failed to condemn Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal:
They never clearly condemned the president’s sexual relations as “wrong.†Nor that Clinton lied to them about it. Nor the credible allegations made by Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, and Juanita Broaddrick that Clinton may have engaged in violations ranging from sexual harassment to rape. These were reported as if they were just political squabbles, typically with one side saying it was just about sex and the other side dismissed as “Clinton-haters†by James Carville and a “war room†that the media seemed to respect, if not celebrate.
Political discourse — and political journalism — has not been the same since.
