So into the middle of the Ray Rice domestic abuse story, now comes sixteen US Senators, all women. And don’t forget CBS Sports commentator James Brown. With the mainstream media solemnly playing the game and ignoring the utter hypocrisy in it all.
Let’s start with those sixteen senators - and the media reports of their news.
No better example of the hypocrisy involved here can be found then the news that those sixteen US Senators - women all - have sent a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell that reads in part:
As we mark the 20th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act, we call on the NFL to institute a real zero-tolerance policy for domestic violence that will ensure that this type of violence and abuse has no place in the NFL.
We were shocked and disgusted by the images we saw this week of one of your players violently assaulting his now-wife and knocking her unconscious, and at new reports that the NFL may have received this video months ago.
….If you violently assault a woman, you shouldn’t get a second chance to play football in the NFL.
The NFL’s current policy sends a terrible message to players, fans and all Americans that even after committing a horrific act of violence, you can quickly be back on the field.It is long past time for the NFL to institute a real zero-tolerance policy and send a strong message that the league will not tolerate violence against women by its players, who are role models for children across America….”
So where exactly are these female senators when it comes to dealing with the man accused of raping Juanita Broaddrick? Where is their “real zero-tolerance policy for domestic violence” when it comes to their fellow politicians?
You remember Juanita Broaddrick, yes? The one-time Clinton campaign worker back when he was running for attorney general of Arkansas? Broaddrick came forward during the Monica Lewinsky/impeachment drama of the Clinton presidency to give this interview (video here and transcript here) to NBC’s Lisa Myers. In which Broaddrick said, in part, this, with Myers providing the narration:
LISA MYERS: Broaddrick says not long after that conversation she did go to Little Rock for a nursing home meeting held at the Camelot Hotel — now the Doubletree. She says she checked into the hotel and the next morning called Clinton campaign headquarters. She says she was told Clinton was at his apartment and to call him there.
JUANITA BROADDRICK: I did call and ask him if he was gonna be at the headquarters that day and he said no he didn’t plan to be there. He says, Clinton said, ‘Why don’t I just meet you for coffee in the Camelot coffee shop?’
MYERS: But Broaddrick says Clinton called later — she thinks it was around 9 in the morning — and asked if they could meet in her hotel room because there were reporters in the coffee shop. [To Broaddrick] Did you think his interest in you at the time was personal or professional?
BROADDRICK: I thought it was professional, completely.
MYERS: So you thought this was going to be a business meeting?
BROADDRICK: Yes I did, I really did.
MYERS: Did you have qualms at all about him coming to the room?
BROADDRICK: I was a little bit uneasy. But, I felt, ah, a real friendship toward this man and I didn’t really feel any, um any danger in him coming to my room. I sort of ushered us over to the coffee — I had coffee sitting on a little table over there by the window and it was a real pretty window view that looked down at the river. And he came around me and sort of put his arm over my shoulder to point to this little building and he said he was real interested if he became governor to restore that little building and then all of a sudden, he turned me around and started kissing me. And that was a real shock.
MYERS: What did you do?
BROADDRICK: I first pushed him away and just told him ‘No, please don’t do that,” and I forget, it’s been 21 years, Lisa, and I forget exactly what he was saying. It seems like he was making statements that would relate to ‘Did you not know why I was coming up here?’ and I told him at the time, I said, "I’m married, and I have other things going on in my life, and this is something that I’m not interested in.”
MYERS: Had you, that morning, or any other time, given him any reason to believe you might be receptive?
BROADDRICK: No. None. None whatsoever.
MYERS: Then what happens?
BROADDRICK: Then he tries to kiss me again. And the second time he tries to kiss me he starts biting my lip (she cries). Just a minute... He starts to, um, bite on my top lip and I tried to pull away from him. (crying) And then he forces me down on the bed. And I just was very frightened, and I tried to get away from him and I told him ‘No,’ that I didn’t want this to happen (crying) but he wouldn’t listen to me.
MYERS: Did you resist, did you tell him to stop?
BROADDRICK: Yes, I told him ‘Please don’t.’ He was such a different person at that moment, he was just a vicious awful person.
MYERS: You said there was a point at which you stopped resisting?
BROADDRICK: Yeah.
MYERS: Why?
BROADDRICK: It was a real panicky, panicky situation. I was even to the point where I was getting very noisy, you know, yelling to "Please stop." And that’s when he pressed down on my right shoulder and he would bite my lip.
MYERS: Broaddrick also says the waist of her skirt and her pantyhose were torn.
BROADDRICK: When everything was over with, he got up and straightened himself, and I was crying at the moment and he walks to the door, and calmly puts on his sunglasses. And before he goes out the door he says "You better get some ice on that." And he turned and went out the door.
Graphic enough. But apparently since there was no video tape, those 16 female US Senators feel its just…what? Old news? No big deal? Since the liberal media isn’t going back to refresh the story in light of the Rice video, do they too think the Broaddrick account old news or no big deal?
Apparently so.
Mind you, this list of women senators includes New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand, a thorough-going supporter of both Bill and Hillary Clinton long after the allegation of violence against Bill Clinton from Juanita Broaddrick. Here’s a story from the New York Daily News in 2010 about Bill Clinton’s endorsement of Gillibrand for his wife’s vacated Senate seat. Accompanied by a lovely picture of Bill Clinton holding Gillibrand’s hand aloft at a rally in 2006.
Did Gillibrand apply the “zero tolerance” standards to Bill Clinton - accused of rape by Juanita Broaddrick - as she is now demanding of the NFL? Did she refuse his endorsement and reject his campaign help because, to quote and adapt from the letter she signed, “if you violently assault a woman, you shouldn’t get a second chance to play” on the political field. Does she say that her party’s repeated celebration of Bill Clinton “sends a terrible message to….all Americans that even after committing a horrific act of violence, you can quickly be back on the field” of politics?
Of course not. In a blink she moves from “zero tolerance” to 100 per cent tolerance.
Ditto for another signatory to this NFL letter - Washington State’s Patty Murray, seen here collecting Bill Clinton’s endorsement for her re-election when he stopped in to campaign for her. So too did her Washington State colleague Maria Cantwell get campaign help from Bill Clinton. And you can run through the list of Democrat women senators who signed that letter- not a one of them applying the “zero tolerance” rule to Bill Clinton that they are demanding of the NFL.
Is the liberal media calling out these senators for their double standard? One standard for the black football player Ray Rice and another for the white liberal president Bill Clinton? Nah.
And mysteriously, this somehow escaped the mind of CBS sportscaster James Brown. Brown delivered an unctuous lecture the other night in a pre-game show airing before Rice’s Baltimore Ravens played the Pittsburgh Steelers. Brown lectured in part:
Now let's be clear, this problem is bigger than football. There has been, appropriately so, intense and widespread outrage following the release of the video showing what happened inside the elevator at the casino. But wouldn't it be productive if this collective outrage, as my colleagues have said, could be channelled to truly hear and address the long-suffering cries for help by so many women? And as they said, do something about it? Like an on-going education of men about what healthy, respectful manhood is all about….
So this is yet another call to men to stand up and take responsibility for their thoughts, their words, their deeds, and as Deion [Sanders] says, to give help or to get help, because our silence is deafening and deadly.
Uh-huh. Has Mr. Brown delivered this message to his boss with regard to Bill Clinton? That would be the head of CBS and Viacom Sumner Redstone. Viacom properties have promoted or funded some of Clinton’s various activities. As here at the Viacom-owned LOGO-TV, which had Mr. Clinton on board to congratulate the winners of the network’s 2014 Logo Trailblazers Award.
Then there’s Viacom’s involvement with this or that Clinton Foundation program. As here, in the maze-like world of foundations, where the Clinton Foundation has partnered with the Paley Center for Media (named for the late founder and chairman of CBS William Paley and Redstone sits on the board) for - no kidding - “a global media campaign that will increase awareness about the widespread epidemic of violence against women and girls and provide tools for engagement in the issue for individuals and corporations.”
Will Mr. Brown have the chops to go up to the executive suite and ask execs at Viacom and CBS to “stand up and take responsibility” about partnering with someone whose idea of dealing with violence against women is to tell the victim of his own violence “you better get some ice on that”? Don’t hold your breath.
The bottom line here? Violence against women is unacceptable - period. But unfortunately, it appears that if - as in the case of Juanita Broaddrick or other Clinton victims Paula Jones or Kathleen Willey - the perpetrator is a white liberal politician, it’s just no big deal. And here’s a last question. If Ray Rice sets up a Rice Foundation and goes to a Sumner redstone Viacom or CBS for money to partner on a domestic abuse program- will he get it? Will James Brown be inquiring?
To wax biblical? Specifically a verse from Matthew 7:5? “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.” The fact here is that there is no excuse for violence against women - period. And there’s no excuse for a liberal double standard. Whether in the US Senate or in the media, as on CBS Sports -- either.
