ABC’s Scandal has been echoing the Clinton Era lately – an affair in the White House, impeachment proceedings, a First Lady turned Senator with Oval Office ambitions – and the episode “Even the Devil Deserves a Second Chance” was no different, with one character sounding an awfully lot like Hillary Clinton.
With the impeachment scandal over, President Fitzgerald Grant (Tony Goldwyn) wants to use small achievements to improve his image. First item on the agenda is awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to a “feminist icon” who happens to be a man named Frank Holland (William Russ). One of the characters gushes to him, “If there's anyone who deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom, it's you,“ while another one says, “It’s like he’s God’s gift to women, but for real.”
One small problem: Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) discovers Frank is a serial rapist whose Cosby-like drug-induced rapes of his college students were covered up because he was so important to the feminist movement. Come on, what’s a few dozen rapes when thousands of girls are learning how to read? (Reminds me of the old saw about communist Cuba: Sure they oppress and torture political prisoners, but they have a 100% literacy rate!)
Listen to the rapist’s own wife, Jannie, justify his crimes to Olivia and see if this sounds familiar:
-Jannie: I graduated college in 1973. Do you know how many women in this country had a college degree in 1973?
-Olivia: I don't.
-Janie: 8.5%. People were surprised I'd even want to. My father said I was pretending to be a man. My mother said she hoped I wouldn't scare off a good husband. I'm sorry. Oh, don't be. It was the times. If you were single, you couldn't get a credit card or even rent an apartment without your father cosigning the lease. Only 40 years ago, but it was another world back then -- a world Frank helped change. Do you have any idea what it was like to meet a man like that in 1973, someone who took my intellect as seriously as any man's, someone who marched, who made it his life's work to help women?
-Olivia: Your husband is not helping women.
-Jannie: Do you know how many women writers have careers because of him, how many little girls around the world who have been taught to read because of his foundation?
-Olivia: So if he raped a few of them here and there, that's all right with you?
-Jannie: One thing's been true since time began -- young women are going to throw themselves at their professors. No one's ever come forward to accuse Frank of anything. There's never been any evidence. I'm sorry, Ms. Pope. I really am. But my husband's created quite a legacy, and it's my job to protect it.
We’ve seen liberals do this sort of thing time and time again, most notably when feminists excused President Bill Clinton’s history of sexual assault against women just because he was pro-choice. In fact, “Jannie” could be Hillary defending Bill from another “bimbo eruption,” all that’s missing is talk of a vast right-wing conspiracy.
In the end, Olivia helps the rape victims expose Frank. Too bad Bill’s victims didn’t have Olivia Pope in their corner.
