Today's Morning Joe offered a sinister sneak preview of how the MSM will defend presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, whatever the cost to integrity or decency. The topic was the way that Hillary orchestrated the trashing of Bill's many women. Joe Scarborough argued forcefully that this should be remembered when as a presidential candidate she rails against the "war on women."
But there was HuffPo's Sam Stein, dismissing Hillary's calculated campaign against Monica Lewinsky as merely a "personal family matter." Then it was the turn of MSNBC's own Thomas Roberts to cover for Hillary. Roberts argued that despite her powerful position as First Lady of Arkansas and later of the United States, Hillary was simply a "spouse" who wasn't on a government "payroll."
The segment was sparked by a Wall Street Journal editorial that refuted Monica Lewinsky's assertion this week that the media was to blame for her problems. Wrote the WSJ [emphasis added]: "Ms. Lewinsky was actually the victim of the Clinton lagoon, as White House operatives tried to destroy her reputation when the scandal broke. The real bullies weren’t online but in the West Wing."
Note: Stein and Roberts' pitiful performances were perfect illustrations of Rush Limbaugh's long-held theory that liberals are willing to look the other way no matter how egregious the behavior toward women of politicians--from Ted Kennedy to Bill Clinton--so long as they support abortion and other key items in the feminist agenda.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: How does Hillary Clinton really talk with a straight face about a war on women when she engaged in vicious wars on women just to maintain power in Arkansas and at the White House? Again, Bill Clinton's personal behavior will not be at issue. How Hillary Clinton responded to hold power, to maintain power, to increase power, crushing a 22-year-old woman as an oversexed bimbo, who victimized Bill Clinton a guy who was more than twice her age? I don't know how she gets away from that.SAM STEIN: I do, and a lot of people probably do draw a distinction, between how Hillary Clinton treated a personal family matter, which clearly I would say objectively she was, you know, they treated Monica Lewinsky terribly. I think the Journal is right about that. On the flip side, you can separate that from how Hillary Clinton would approach policy matters that affect the vast majority of women in the country. Those are two very different things for a lot of people.
SCARBOROUGH: The question is about Hillary Clinton's behavior in a position of power and how she used that power and did she use that power improperly to crush young women that her husband took advantage of. I think that, Thomas, I think that's relevant --
THOMAS ROBERTS: As the spouse of Bill Clinton? As just the what she was. She wasn't an elected official. She was just the spouse of Bill Clinton.
SCARBOROUGH: Just a spouse? She ran domestic policy for the White House for the most part. I mean, Al Gore was enraged at how powerful she was because he wanted to run domestic policy but he learned very early on that it was Hillary. And of course, if Hillary had just retired to a farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, after 2001, then we wouldn't be talking about this it. She was [inaudible] most powerful person in the world.
ROBERTS: What payroll was she on? What payroll, what American payroll was she on?
STEIN: That farm sounds alluring at this point.
ROBERTS: But what appointed American payroll was she on using power to crush young women?
SCARBOROUGH: I'm sorry: people were talking in my ear.
ROBERTS: What payroll was she on, what position was she using that she was appointed to, what American payroll was she on, trying to crush young women that were in the way of their power-coupleness? l
SCARBOROUGH: I mean, first of all, I don't even know it's a question of her power. But if you want to talk about living in the Arkansas governor's mansion for as long as she did and living in the White House for as long as she did and being the most important -- the second most important person in both of those places, then I don't think there's any question that she used -- well, I've already said it. I'm not going to repeat it any more. My God, I said it enough 15 years ago. It's not my job to talk about it. It's the press' job to actually ask tough questions. Don't and not cower in the corner for ideological reasons like they did in the late 1990s and like the feminist movement did in the late 1990s.
