Somebody’s rose-tinted glasses slipped off his nose for a moment, and we heard actual mainstream criticism of Her Holiness, Hillary Clinton. In a rare turn of events, Daily Show host Trevor Noah went from defending failed-candidate Clinton’s appearance at the Grammy Awards, to criticizing her role in a recently revealed sexual abuse coverup from 2008.
“I don’t know, I thought in 2018 -- with everything we’re learning about now, maybe Hillary might come out and say ‘Hey guys, I realize now that I was part of the problem in the way I handled this. When I look back, I realize that I should have done better.’ And that’s the truth.” Trevor Noah stated that, despite her weaknesses as a candidate (which of course, he quickly glossed over) he was surprised when he heard that she didn’t do more to stand up for a victim of sexual assault at the time.
Noah was in his early teens in South Africa at the time, so he must have missed the Caligulan goings on of Bill Clinton’s second term. How else could he be shocked, or even mildly surprised, that Hillary abeted a sexual predator?
He reiterated the story to his audience, indignant with the fact that the victim (one of Clinton’s staffers) came forward, said she was being harassed and yet, it was her who was being reassigned. Noah stated, “All that woman did was come forward. She did what she was supposed to do and then she got punished for it.”
The episode, Noah said, pointed up Hillary’s #MeToo hypocrisy, especially in light of her tweets last week. Clinton wrote that she had called the woman to let her know “what all women should. That we deserve to be heard.” To that, Noah said
with sarcasm he usually reserves for conservatives, “Yeah, women deserved to be heard … and then quietly reassigned.”
On the other hand, the accused individual, faith adviser Burns Strider, wasn’t fired, but he went on to get another job in Democratic politics, “where he got fired for doing the same thing to other women.”
Whether Noah will admit it or not, the harassed victim in question is far from the only woman Hillary has sacrificed to her ambition. But we should be encouraged that Noah would call out this incident at all. Baby steps.
