A former White House aide that accused Bill Clinton of sexually assaulting her back in 1993 says she's infuriated by the media firestorm caused by anonymous harassment allegations leveled at Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain.
Speaking with radio's Steve Malzberg Friday, Kathleen Willey said, "Why are we even entertaining, you know, any of this from a person with no name and no face and a spokesperson who isn’t really clear on anything either" (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):
KATHLEEN WILLEY: You know, it’s infuriating is all that I can say about watching what’s going on because everything is vague and innocuous, and we don’t have any names, and we don’t have any dates, and we don’t have any, you know, we don’t have any people. We have spokesman for the people, you know, the women. And, you know, it’s clearly a double standard. And I, hopefully, you know, the American people are starting to see through this is all I can say, because, you know, they just, they have just blown this thing out of, out of proportion.
I saw something interesting last night, something Brent Bozell was talking about. What happened to me and us, you know, as compared to Cain. When my first story, my story came out, I had three segments on network news. Paula had one. Gennifer I think had one or two. I mean, you know, there have been stories about Cain, they’re up to like 50 or 60 things on network TV, you know, as compared to with information, because it’s a whole less clear in this thing with Cain.
Willey was referring to a NewsBusters report finding the broadcast network news outlets did a total of fifty segments about Politico's allegations in the first three days after the story broke. By contrast:
STEVE MALZBERG, HOST: There were three reports after you went public in ’97, there were three brief reports for Juanita Broaddrick back in ’99, and when Paula Jones went public in February of ’94, only ABC gave her sixteen seconds. The other networks did nothing until Bill Clinton got a defense attorney in May of that year.
WILLEY: Exactly. Exactly.
MALZBERG: Now do you attribute this, this double standard as you call it to Democrat-Republican, or is there any racial overtones in your view here with Cain?
MALZBERG: Kathleen, what about the hypocrisy of the, of the women’s groups as well?
WILLEY: Oh, don’t even get me started. Really, I know. Well, there again, they didn’t come to my rescue. I, I cannot tell you how many phone calls I made to Patricia Ireland at NOW. And, and, you know, just pleas, pleas for help. Just anything. They, they never called me back. They never called me, none of them. And, they’re, when they were asked, you know, about me after all this happened, the responses were so tepid. You know, it was like, “Well, if it did happen, we had something real serious to deal with here.” And then who was it, the one that said, you know, Betty Friedan or somebody, just made a horrible, crude remark, you know, about what just happened, you know, as long as he, as long as Clinton keeps, keeps, you know, he’s not against abortion…
MALZBERG: Abortion, yeah, then he’s okay by them. Yeah, I remember that. Let me ask you: what do you think of this woman in particular - we don’t know her name – trying, trying to get the story out against Cain while not wanting to speak, not wanting to be identified, wanting to hide behind her lawyer, all this after signing an agreement and getting money? What do you think of her?
WILLEY: Why is, why is anybody giving her any credibility at all? That’s my point. Why, you know, why are we even entertaining, you know, any of this from a person with no name and no face and a spokesperson who isn’t really clear on anything either? That’s the point. And these people are getting as much airtime as they want.
Indeed they are, and everyone involved should be asking themselves why unnamed, unspecific accusers create such a media firestorm today when women that actually stepped forward with far more serious charges in the '90s were almost totally ignored by comparison.
