CNN’s The Lead host Jake Tapper made a keen observation on Monday afternoon about the media’s double standard when it came to sexual assault accusers, pointing out that “the media treated” Bill Clinton’s female accusers “poorly” and were never afforded “the same respect” Roy Moore’s accusers have rightfully received these past four days.
Tapper was discussing the credible and damning allegations against Moore with CNN political commentators Amanda Carpenter and Van Jones when he noticed some parallels between the GOP Senate nominee and Clinton.
“You know something? And maybe it's the southern accent that reminds me of this, but I think we are and we've seen — we’ve seen some of this in the press. There was a story in The Atlantic called ‘Bill Clinton: A Reckoning.’ Chris Hayes said something the other day and other people have,” Tapper began.
Concerning Hayes, Tapper was referring to a series of tweets by MSNBC’s All In host in which he admitted that “[a]s gross and cynical and hypocritical as the right's ‘what about Bill Clinton’ stuff is, it's also true that Democrats and the center-left are overdue for a real reckoning with the allegations against him.”
Hayes added two tweets encouraging followers to read an account of Clinton’s alleged rape of Juanita Broaddrick and an excerpt from the same account, wondering if Broaddrick’s story “sound[s] familiar” to others we’ve heard recently in the news.
Back to Tapper, he continued by stating that “the accusers of Bill Clinton back in the '90s were never given the credence and treated with the same respect that these women are being treated and I think that there is something to be said about how society has evolved since then.”
He concluded how, despite that reality, “it's hard not to look back at that period and think” that “[t]he media treated those women poorly.”
Carpenter agreed, fretting that “[y]ou can’t rewrite history” before moving on to knocking those on the right such as “Ann Coulter on Twitter, going back and bringing up people like Senator Kennedy, Clinton, other people that did have previous acts of sexual misconduct almost as a way of saying, well, they did it.”
“Appeals to hypocrisy do not work for a party that has no moral core and we do have a problem now because we have elected a President who has his own accusers. So we're all going to go back through history and there is a lot of reckoning that needs to be done. I don't know where that's going to take us. It is risky because you may lose a Senate seat, but it is a problem for Republican voters because you keep putting these people up who are morally conflicted,” Carpenter conceded.
Carpenter’s use of Coulter was an extreme example, so it’s worth pointing out that not everyone who’s bringing up Clinton or Kennedy are simply doing it in order to condone Moore’s alleged misconduct.
As for Tapper, his analysis was accurate and succinct, so it’s worth giving credit where credit is due. For liberals, many have applauded the CNN host the last two years for his toughness on President Trump, his administration, and Republicans (such as this profile here). But what those same people probably never noticed is that’s how Tapper has gone about his job for much of the last eight years and even before that.
Just take a look at Tapper’s NewsBusters tag and you’ll find that there were plenty of stories where various NewsBusters writers took issue with something he said and, in some cases, vehemently disagreed with him.
The flip side is that, within that same tag, there are numerous blogs chronicling how he’s broken ranks on issues such as falsehoods by the Obama administration, media double standards, or topics ignored by his colleagues.
Here’s the relevant transcript from CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper on November 13:
CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper
November 13, 2017
4:33 p.m. Eastern[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Breaking News; GOP Senate Committee Chief: Moore Should Be Expelled; NRSC Chairman: If Moore is elected, he shouldn’t be allowed to serve]
JAKE TAPPER: You know something? And maybe it's the southern accent that reminds me of this, but I think we are and we've seen — we’ve seen some of this in the press. There was a story in The Atlantic called “Bill Clinton: A Reckoning.” Chris Hayes said something the other day and other people have.
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Breaking News; GOP’s Collins Joins Call for Moore to Leave Race]
But the accusers of Bill Clinton back in the '90s were never given the credence and treated with the same respect that these women are being treated and I think that there is something to be said about how society has evolved since then, but in addition, it's hard not to look back at that period and think, you know what? The media treated those women poorly.
AMANDA CARPENTER: Yeah, without a doubt. You can't rewrite history, but what I am concerned about now is that I see a lot of Republicans, people like Ann Coulter on Twitter, going back and bringing up people like Senator Kennedy, Clinton, other people that did have previous acts of sexual misconduct almost as a way of saying, well, they did it. We can, too. Appeals to hypocrisy do not work for a party that has no moral core and we do have a problem now because we have elected a President who has his own accusers. So we're all going to go back through history and there is a lot of reckoning that needs to be done. I don't know where that's going to take us. It is risky because you may lose a Senate seat, but it is a problem for Republican voters because you keep putting these people up who are morally conflicted and now the choice is, well, you can vote for this pedophile or you can lose a seat and hand it to Democrats. The Republican Party has to do better. It has to do it with Republican leadership. I am happy to see Mitch McConnell step up and say he should be expelled. We needed more of that during the primary process.
