“To every survivor of sexual assault…You have the right to be heard. You have the right to be believed,” said Hillary Clinton.
Unless, apparently, the matter is “bimbo eruptions.”
That’s exactly what a female Bill Clinton fixer called the phenomenon of women who are coming forward and saying they had affairs with Bill, whose political career was not only marked by serial adultery but also accusations of sexual assault and rape. And Hillary helped ensure the “bimbos” wouldn’t be believed.
One person who hasn’t forgotten this is Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Responding to a recent Hillary accusation that he was “sexist,” the GOP frontrunner recently dared the Clintons to play the war-on-women card, tweeting January 2, “I hope Bill Clinton starts talking about women’s issues so that voters can see what a hypocrite he is and how Hillary abused those women!”
For sure, on women’s issues the Clintons live in a glass house. As National Review wrote in September, “Modern conventions of political correctness now require liberal women to stand unequivocally behind alleged victims of sexual assault,” hence Hillary’s women “have the right to be believed” comment. Yet this had to be “awkward” for her, noted National Review, given that there were “a number of women who Hillary … refused to believe” and that “she actively participated in campaigns to discredit them and destroy their reputations.” These include Juanita Broaddrick, a nursing home administrator who accused Clinton of having raped her; Kathleen Willey, a former White House aide who said Clinton groped her in his office in 1993; and former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones, who alleged that Clinton propositioned her and exposed himself to her in 1991. She later filed a sexual harassment suit, which Clinton settled for $850,000 in 1998.
Then there was Hillary’s 1975 legal defense of a man who raped a 12-year-old girl. She believed the defendant was guilty, but nonetheless argued that the “victim may have exaggerated or encouraged the attack” and helped the rapist “avoid a lengthy prison term by relying on a technicality,” wrote the Free Beacon last year. Clinton has defended her actions, saying she was a public defender doing her “professional duty”; however, she has presented conflicting stories on why she took the case in the first place.
But the real story today is how Trump has, at least for now and for himself, rewritten the rules of the game. In the past, a liberal would attack a Republican with an “ism” accusation, and the latter would mount a groveling defense in an effort to polish up his politically correct credentials. But not Trump. As the Wall Street Journal’s William McGurn put it Monday, “After Mrs. Clinton accused The Donald of sexism, he responded as he always does: He escalated. If Mrs. Clinton was going down that route, he said, he was going to bring up all the female skeletons in her husband’s closet.”
And it may be having its effect. McGurn amusingly titled his column “The Big Dog — Bill Clinton — Gets Fixed” and wrote, “Only a few weeks back, Mr. Clinton was thought to be Hillary Clinton’s ‘secret weapon.’ Well, he has just made his first two appearances of the 2016 campaign — and the Associated Press describes him as ‘subdued,’ while the New York Times says he ‘seemed to be on a tight leash.’ Not to mention how adrift he looked when a reporter asked him about Donald Trump’s slams about his treatment of women.”
The reality is that Trump has done to the Clintons and the wider establishment what they had always succeeded in doing to conservatives: He has got them on their heels. And, in fact, he is trumping political correctness (PC). To understand this phenomenon, consider what usually happens when someone transgresses against PC. As I wrote Tuesday: “The media may demonize him, the elite political establishment may try to destroy him, and any high-profile position he has will be lost (e.g., ex-Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich, former Atlanta fire chief Kelvin Cochran). Obscure individuals also suffer, at the hands of PC companies fearing bad press and lawsuits. And once cast to the winds, the victim can mount a soapbox and eloquently plead his case, but without media coverage he’ll be the tree falling in a forest with no one to hear it.” The media, being our conduit of information, control the “narrative.”
Unlike any Republican before him, however, Trump is exerting a tremendous amount of control over that narrative. And what is one reason why?
Because he’s everywhere.
Back in July already, the Washington Post wrote that we should “blame the media” for Trump’s surge. CNN Money pointed out last month that Trump’s campaign “has received more nightly news attention than all the Democratic campaigns combined” and, quoting media analyst Andrew Tyndall, reported that it accounted “‘for more than a quarter of all coverage’ on NBC, CBS and ABC’s evening newscasts.” And The Nation, wringing its two left hands, noted that the businessman receives 23 times the coverage of Democrat presidential aspirant Bernie Sanders and then wrote, “All Trump all the time media coverage lets Trump define the discussion.”
And why does he receive all this media attention? As I also explained Tuesday, “Trump has transcended his profession and even his wealth; he has long been a member of the glitterati, a celebrity in a celebrity culture, a natural-born character, the man who can colorize a drab news day. He’s one of the people People can’t do without, and note: that magazine has greater circulation than any news publication.” In other words, the “hungry beast” that is the media, as The Nation put it, just can’t stop covering him.
Interestingly, though, the media doesn’t lament its power to shape opinion when it redounds to the benefit of its leftist fellow travelers. For example, there were no stories from the Post, CNN, and The Nation about “blaming” the media for Obama’s 2012 victory, even though he received the majority of the news coverage during that campaign’s last week and, overall, GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s “negative stories outpaced Obama’s by more than 2 to 1,” reported The Hill at the time.
Of course, Trump is getting negative coverage as well. But with anger at the establishment running high and the businessman positioned as the quintessential antiestablishment candidate, Trump is like the Blob: The more trash the media throw at him, the bigger he gets.
Whether or not this will continue if he receives the GOP nomination and the Democrats roll out their big guns remains to be seen. As for now, though, the media won’t stop covering Trump any more than they can beat him with negativity.
Photo: AP Images
