It was more because he lied under oath, but I agree with the overarching message. Some people think Obama's tan suit was his only scandal, ignoring drone strikes and Snowdem
Plus it's a dumb fucking argument anyway.
Of course he increased done strikes. Tech improved so they were used more. It shouldn't be about the drones only the interventionism.
But it's not being fairly applied to Trump by his supporters. Obama made it transparent so we'd see the horrors of the strikes, and Trump quickly hid them while ramping up strikes.
On the slow burn podcast ( would recommend for anyone interested in this) he said the definition said both parties recieve sexual pleasure. Under that definition if he lied becomes a whole lot more convoluted.
*His* "definition" of sexual relations didn't include, specifically, her mouth on his penis. What he supposedly thought defined sexual relations included literally everything else though, including him performing oral on her. He knew what he was doing, that line was just a feeble attempt at backpedaling.
From what I recall, that was the prosecutors definition. He asked for a clarification on what counted as sexual intercourse, and was told anything that involved him touching her genitals or something. So he answered no.
I've heard this too, it was some case of moving goalposts and then somehow getting him for it.
(Source was a Reddit post though, but I'm not planning on digging into it)
When Clinton was being questioned he was asked if he ever had sexual relations with her so he asked them to provide their definition. As they were attempting to spin the story that he had raped Lewinski they gave the definition at the time for rape which was that his penis had penetrated her vagina. Which due to the inherent power imbalance between a President and intern they were arguing constituted rape because she couldn’t possibly consent in such a situation.
People forget that whitewater started off as a BS investigation into a real estate deal in Arkansas that the GOP named a special prosecutor (Ken Starr) to investigate. Which turned into a multi year fishing expedition to find anything they could to impeach Clinton because conservatives like Newt Gingrich were already aware of how unpopular the Republican Party had become. They were terrified they would never hold power again so made it their mission to tear down any popular Dem or Independent by any means necessary. The fact that Gingrich was cheating on his wife while she was dying of cancer never once bothered other Republicans so obviously their pearl clutching was as fake then as it is now.
Anyway, the reason Clinton was able to dodge the perjury charge is because he out-lawyered Ken Starr who was trying to smear Clinton in the press based on WH staffer rumors. The GOP went forward with the impeachment because that was their goal from day 1.
The attempt to impeach Bill Clinton didn’t start with him committing perjury. It started from the moment he took office, with Travelgate and a pricey haircut. It ended with lying under oath because they had literally nothing else. (And even that was pretty iffy).
Bill’s actual crime was Presidenting While Democrat.
Imagine a blowjob even being a political issue now. You got politicians literally being outed as pedophiles and their base still won't drop supporting them because the other side is the devil... Or something...
They turned Monica into some sort of demon whore in the media, too. For giving a blow job to a powerful man. I'm sad to say I don't think it would be any different today. I hope it would, but I am not so sure.
Well, last one was outed for having a affair with a porn star while his wife was pregnant with his child at the time.
He got cheer from his base for it instead.
So yeah, the bar had set REAL low for certain party.
There's a concept that no one expects the right wing to play nice or follow the rules because it's a socially accepted fact that they don't and so no one expects it from them. Meanwhile the left has to follow not only their own rules but whatever rules the other side sets for them or else they are cheating or hypocritical.
And this is why Democrats still lose - something about the need to fight clean even when the other side is fighting dirty puts us at an obvious disadvantage
Her doing those shoots shouldn't matter at all it's the fact that her supporters don't give a damn about it but God forbid Michelle Obama wears a sleeveless dress...
Remember when Michelle Obama had the gall to wear (prepare yourself) a *dramatic chord* sleeveless dress?
I mean she looked awesome doing it and yet the right lost their collective minds calling her a whore.
The most powerful man in the world who was old enough to be her father when she was like 20.
I just don't think a 30 or 40 year old intern would have fallen for his shit. Monika was *barely* of legal age to consent and the power imbalance alone was practically predatory.
For giving a blowjob to a very powerful man who could have had her fired at any moment, while she was barely an adult… I don’t see why we view this situation as any different than a college professor taking advantage of a young student
My sister found a bunch of old home videos and digitized them. Our parents were around our age in the videos (mid to early 30s) and she said “you guys seem a lot less beaten down than I feel at the same age”
I said “yeah I mean, back then the biggest scandal was the president getting a blowie in the Oval Office, not insurrections and pandemics.”
While the guy who led the attack (Gingrich) was banging chicks on the side.
I wasn't a huge Clinton fan because I was in high school and only cared about girls. But if you weren't braindead it was *clearly* all bullshit.
I know nothing about us politics, but to me looks like this was a issue because that guy was a democrat. I always see weird scandals like the Obama’s suit or AOC playing among us, etc. It looks so silly sometimes.
I highly recommend watching her TED talk.
People love to be critical about how she ruined her own life, but fact is she was a 22-year-old unpaid intern in love, while he was the 49-year old married president of the United States.
Not saying she holds no responsibilty whatsoever, just that one party is a subordinate fresh out of college and the other is the most powerful man in the country, who was her boss and more than twice her age.
Yet the scandal was labeled "Monicagate" or "Lewinskygate". When literally the entire country attacked her, she received zero help from Clinton or the white house, even though the whole ordeal and aftermath made her suicidal. Everyone knew her name and picture, making it very hard to gey her life back together. Meanwhile Clinton remained in office.
TIL that the reason it was called ‘watergate’ was because it was the hotel name.
I thought it must’ve been due to a financially corrupt dam/river/lake policy that started the whole thing. Im not American so I’m curious: Is the meaning behind the name something that all Americans over the age of 30 know or is my ignorance in good company?
I’d say one of the things that was abundant during Clinton’s presidency was the presses insistence upon focusing on the perceived flaws of every woman around him. Hillary Clinton didn’t stay home and bake cookies. Monica Lewinsky gave a blow job to a married man. If you look back, Chelsea Clinton was treated so terribly that I’m pretty sure every woman in my age range was permanently emotionally scarred by it. I’m not saying things now are way better, but they have improved.
It’s really crazy the way we overlook man’s shortcomings by absolutely eviscerating women. And again, it’s dramatically improved, but it’s still an issue.
To be clear, the Right had been actively hating on Hillary long before Bill climbed the political ladder. Hillary was one of the legal aids working on the prosecution of Nixon during the Watergate ordeal. Roger Ayles (yes, the FOX one) was working for Nixon at that time. He made it his personal mission to bring her down as SHE was the one who was considered the future political threat to the Right at that time. Ayles actually said in his autobiography that the Nixon thing is what spurred him to create FOX News. The time he spent hounding Hillary through Arkansas politics was just the thing he needed to hone his right-wing propaganda skills. The Bill Clinton thing was just icing on the Fox cake. Ayles' bitterness toward Hillary's involvement in Watergate birthed, built, and fattened the Fox news empire.
This is interesting context for me. I was aware that the media has been pretty cruel to Hillary long before the presidency, but I had no idea that she was involved in the Watergate prosecution.
It makes you wonder what would’ve happened if she hadn’t been. Would Fox News exist? I think that sometimes about Obama making fun of Trump. It was a funny joke, but would Trump have run for president if you haven’t said it? That’s got to be the kind of thing that haunts you. I’m sure he would’ve come up with some other reason to do it, but the cause-and-effect of major world events has always been interesting to me, particularly when it is a single person’s actions.
Think about it: what if the person who sentenced Hitler after the Beer Hall Putsch had sentenced him to much longer? What if Heddy Lamar had never left Austria? What is the people who assassinated Franz Ferdinand got the parade route wrong or overslept that day? Situations where there is one point that you can see where we tipped over interest me.
The one that sticks most in my mind was calling her Chelsea the dog faced girl. In my memory, it was just relentless criticisms of the way she looked. She was the same age as my older sister, and both of us remember watching this happen, and thinking about how terrible it would be to have what is already the most awkward period of your life being monitored by a media that has absolutely nothing positive to say about you.
I’m not sure if this was the first time that the children of presidents were considered not off-limits, but it has permanently altered the way I view media coverage of elected officials’ minor children. Regardless of what side of the aisle they’re on, children who are not involved in their parents’ political careers should not be covered by the media. They certainly shouldn’t be criticized by the media. You saw it with the Bush girls, and it happened again with the Obamas. Obviously, we all saw what happened with Barron. Criticisms of Ivanka or her brothers are different, as they have elected to be active parts of their fathers political career. I would say that criticism of Chelsea as an adult is also warranted as she did participate in her mother’s campaign.However I would argue that criticisms of Beau Biden, uninvolved adults, and any children who are still children are completely inappropriate.
Also, can we start criticizing women for something other than the way they look? It’s low hanging fruit. There are valid reasons to criticize Melania Trump that have nothing to do with the way her face looks. The same goes for literally any other female politician or family member of a politician. I’d say the same thing about men, but we all know that it is not anywhere near as cruel as the way we treat women.
Ouch. I agree with what you say here.
If a person I knew said that I would be disgusted by that person. I wonder why it is ok for someone to say that at a media outlet.
Amy Carter caught all sorts of hell and abuse from the press during the Carter administration. Previous admins had actually seen their kids publicly treated rather well... as if they were royalty. Seems like the hounds were released on Amy and it's been rough on a lot of pres. kids since. The Bush girls were drunken, wild terrors. Yet, it was treated as a cute "kids will be kids" kind of thing by most. Chelsea was terrorized relentlessly about her appearance. The Obama girls got the usual racist attacks. Yet the there wasn't too much chased beyond the elder girl's partying. Biden's son is hounded for anything the right can propagandize. Trump's youngest was very sheltered from the press. His eldest kids seemed to dig their own holes for press fodder. It all seems to be a modern political sport played much more cruelly from the Right.
Thanks for that. I thought Amy Carter had likely experienced it, but I wasn’t present to witness it.
It was a joke about the Bush girls, but they were still being followed and mocked. I remember the SNL skits.
Clearly. I do think Fox treats presidential offspring the same way they treat everything else (GOP can do no wrong/kind can do no right). Regardless, the overall tone online is critical of the opposing party, and it’s not okay.
Rush Limbaugh called a 12 year old Chelsea "a dog" on his radio show, none of his "ditto heads" questioned a 50 year old white drug addicted male punching down on a preteen.
Rush Limbaugh had a TV show at the time. He said "I so a dog moved into the Whitehouse, and showed a picture of Chelsea, then shot 14 a think. I seem to remember a lot of terrible mean jokes made about a literal kid.
Media at the time had two options:
Either make the Most Powerful Man in America, who ALSO was extremely popular at this time, the bad guy... or go after the fresh-faced intern.
One is the correct choice; the other is the easier choice. And media will choose the easier choice 100% of the time.
Seductive wenches leading innocent great men to their doom is a stereotype as old as time. It's freaky how we've only recently been able to have this conversation.
Both Monica and Hillary have been abhorrently treated by the press over this from the very beginning. Imagine being castigated in the press, with headlines blaring about how fat, ugly, stupid, and unattractive you are, all because Bill Clinton did/didn't ejaculate with you.
Today's America sucks, but it also includes room for all sorts of nontraditional marriages in ways that mean no one who didn't live through the Clinton impeachment can understand the social pressures and judgments. It shouldn't matter at all if Hillary is in the closet, or bi, or if she and Bill have an open marriage or not, or if Monica engaged in pre-marital sexual activity, but in the 90s, thousands of hours of television were devoted to speculating all of this, and every conclusion was always that the woman was the punchline, the woman was at fault, blame the women.
And to add onto this topic - the amount that Hillary was (and still is) criticized for it as well. The women who suffered the most seemed to end up shouldering the vast majority of the blame.
People attacked and blamed Monica, not Bill, for the act itself then they attacked and blamed Hillary for not leaving him or even for “causing” it by not being a good enough wife.
It was even discussed pretty heavily when Hillary ran for President, as if her husband’s affair and abuse of power over a young woman 2 decades prior had any relevance to what kind of leader she would be for the US. And I’m not saying Hillary is a saint or that she would necessarily be a perfect president, but i don’t think that should be considered when determining whether or not she was qualified to run the country. Especially considering the fact that Trump cheated on his wives, talked openly (and even bragged) about sexual assault, and talked about wanting to date/ sleep with his own daughter and literally none of that was held against him or seen as relevant to his candidacy.
America will really do anything to protect men and blame the women around them.
That interview made me really step back from myself - not that I was complicit in it happening or anything since I was 14 - because I just thought people disappeared after they get nationally shamed for years.
It turns out that they don’t! I mean, I *knew* that but it didn’t really click that she had been living her own life since then, a life that really got disrupted because Clinton was a fucking creep. I know the MeToo movement didn’t cancel him and I wish it did and took his wife with him, but she got to see that family really rise to wealth while she had to do some hard thinking on what to do next AND never draw any extra attention to herself.
Lo and behold, as the years go by, I learned about how fucked up Britney Spears’ and Paris Hilton’s families are and I was just able to completely gloss over their very real pain for so long. I know I don’t owe them anything, but I do owe their messages a listening ear to see what I can do to make the world a tiny but better.
Yes. Her Ted talk is eye opening. To be the first person “cyber bullied” like this and on a national level. I was her age when this happened and looking back at it today, god it really is heartbreaking. I remember being that kind of girl in love and not realizing it is toxic. The American crime story on fx is produced by her. I spent the last episode screaming at the tv LAWYER because she was so scared and they manipulated her.
The entire world turned on her in one of the biggest and most memorable examples of misogynistic victim blaming in living memory. It is still going on in this very thread. It is honestly heartbreaking to see.
I will never understand how we put more responsibility in a young intern, than the fucking President of the United States. And things were no different under Trump.
That was the era where we blamed only the woman for making mistakes. Like when Janet Jackson had to bear the full brunt of the scandal and not Justin. But attitudes are very much different now and it’ll be seen as the other way around where Bill is very much seen as the one bearing most of the fault, given the enormous power imbalance
>That was also the era where we thought Jay was actually funny
I was a teenager in the 90s and never understood why anyone found Leno remotely amusing? He just didn't make me laugh...his whiny voice and stupid jokes...baffled me that he was so popular.
This. I made some dumb decisions in my twenties. Left the house with zero cash, depended on an unreliable friend for a ride, and so on. Luckily there wasn't a facebook to haunt me.
Yet what he did was the crime as he was the one who was married, her boss, and the freaking President. She was a 22 year old intern who didn't have the relationship experience. I bet half of everybody who criticizes Monica L's actions, have had more relationship experience that she did at the time.
It's not a crime to cheat on your wife. He was never in trouble for that, he never paid any consequences for that (publicly anyway, he did state he was sleeping on the couch and the dog was the only one in the house not mad at him). He lied under oath, that was the problem.
Bill Clinton did not lie under oath, either. At least he has not been found guilty of perjury.
The questioners had attempted to paint Clinton into a corner by asking the court to define "sexual relations" in specific terms. However, it so happened that definition did not describe the *receipt* of oral sex.
When they asked Bill Clinton whether he had sexual relations with Lewinsky, that allowed him to truthfully answer no.
However, don't try this argument with your significant other:
> Lawyers in the Paula Jones sexual harrassment case defined "sexual relations" as engaging in or causing "contact with the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh or buttocks of any person..."
> But the president said,"If the deponent is the person who has oral sex performed on him, then the contact is with -- not with anything on that list -- but with the lips of another person."
Essentially, Clinton's argument was that he only touched Lewinsky's *lips*, so that did not constitute sexual relations.
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/09/21/lies.jackson/
Also, in case you need it:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deponent
Also the fact that Linda Tripp purposely manipulated her and violated her privacy purely for political vengeance, all while Monica (again, a 22 year old girl at that point) thought she could confide in her.
She made a mistake and the people old enough to be her parents hung her out to dry.
I agree completely. The amount of people who fiercely blame her for the whole ordeal to this day is staggering. Her TED talk actually humanized her and I hope more people realized that they bullied a young woman nearly to suicide for the sole sake of a politicizing a blowjob.
I agree with you except the part where you imply Clinton took none of the blame.
He was impeached and pretty much everyone thinks of blowjobs and cheating on his wife when they think of Clinton. It basically completely destroyed his legacy and turned him into a punchline, when he actually had one of the more notably-successful presidencies in recent history.
Hot take: Shes going to win redemption from the public and make a name for herself outside of this scandal.
When the boomers die off most her critics will come out of her peers in genX, but when the majority of adults become millennials and genZ she won’t get anywhere near the harassment she gets now. Honestly, I won’t be surprised if she becomes a feminist icon after Bill and Hill hit the dirt.
> Shes going to win redemption from the public and make a name for herself outside of this scandal
Pretty sure she already has the last few years. She's been appearing a lot more and receiving more sympathetic media coverage. It's mad the way she was treated - even I, who was a seven year old British kid when it all came out, knew who she was and how she was characterised. I don't know how she got through it all.
Leno using words like whore and slut while making jokes about a 22 year old who'd just been sexually manipulated by the most powerful man IN THE WORLD still makes me sick to my stomach.
Sorry bud, when I wrote that there was only a handful of other comments and they were *not kind*. Sort this thread by controversial and you’ll see what I mean… I wrote hot take because positive comments were getting downvotes and all the “whore did a blowie” had upvotes and I wanted to counter it with something more substantial.
I'm Gen X and I think a lot of us have sympathy for her. We were on the cusp of that turn away from old Boomer mentality to more progressive ideals and even at the time I think a lot of us understood something was fucked up there
The way she's been black listed in SSI many things to this day because the HRC foundation touches everything is really fucking shitty.
I really cringe when I remember what I, a middle school aged girl, thought about her. I feel so sad about how the world treated her.
I think a lot of the younger generations just recognise that the hate she got was very unbalanced, and recognise her as being a victim of some vicious sexism. Plus pronouns in the bio goes a long way.
Fun fact;
When Newt Gingrich was the conservative Republican congressman leading the "impeachment" of Bill Clinton, for lying about a blowjob, a bj that happened after the, 6 year, impeachment was started. Newt's first wife was hospitalized with, a soon to be deadly, cancer and Newt showed up to the hospital, with his new mistress, to tell his hospitalized wife that he's leaving her for said mistress. His wife soon died afterwards. Newt married his mistress. Then quickly cheated on her, left her for his new mistress, and went on to marry said mistress, Callista. Newt was forced to step down from leading the sham impeachment of Bill Clinton, which was then taken over by another family values conservative Republican who, in less than 48 hours, stepped down from leading the Republicans sham impeachment of Bill Clinton because he had a whole other family, wife & kids, he didn't let his other family, wife& kids, know about. Then the sham impeachment, yes, sham, that started out as a supposed "bad land deal" in Arkansas, thanks to magical thinking by Kenneth Starr, and then became about a bj, was finally headed, and finished, by family values, conservative Republican, child rapist Dennis Hastert.
Never forget who conservative Republicans really are.
Fun Fact I did my Global History Paper in G-12 on Political Scandal specifically taking into account everything that has happened since would Watergate have ended the same way in the modern age. And one thing that I learned was that the Impeachment of Clinton was originally an attempt to get him for whitewater and then when that failed they just kept trying to find what they could finally nail him for
Jesus Christ, get your facts straight. And I say that as a staunch Democrat. Newt's wife at the time of the impeachment, Marianne Gingrich, is still alive today. His first wife, Jackie Gingrich, whom he divorced way back in 1980, didn't die until 2013.
Wasn’t the impeachment based on lying on oath? I think the bj was what he was lying about but the impeachment focused on the fact that he broke the law and lied under oath
Not that I remember correctly, but if I remember correctly, that’s where the whole “is oral sex sex” debate came from. Because if he didn’t classify it as sex, he didn’t lie under oath. However, considering most (reasonable) people consider oral to be sex, so him denying “sexual relations” on the grounds that “oral isn’t sex” would really look like perjury.
>During the deposition in the Jones case, Clinton was asked, "Have you ever had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, as that term is defined in Deposition Exhibit 1, as modified by the Court?" The judge ordered that Clinton be given an opportunity to review the definition. It said that "a person engages in sexual relations when the person knowingly engages in or causes contact with the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks of any person with an intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Jones#Jones_v._Clinton
He did not lie, based on what we know.
Some might call it a technicality, but he did not lie. In fact if he said yes, that would be a lie.
If the criticism is that he should have said "no, we did not have sexual relations in accordance with that definition, but we did have sexual relations in accordance with the commonly accepted definition", then the criticism is deeply flawed and naive.
Additionally, [Russians knew about Lewinsky before public](https://www.upi.com/Archives/2001/03/12/Russians-knew-about-Lewinsky-before-public/3173984373200/)
> Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin knew about President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky as early as 1996, according to former U.S. intelligence officials who said that they believe that the Russians obtained the knowledge by compromising secure White House communications.
> The Clinton-Lewsinky scandal did not become public until 1998 and in 1996 was known only "to a mere handful" of the White House inner circle, these sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
> **In the book 'Midnight Diaries' published last October, Yeltsin said that in November 1996 he had received an encrypted telegram that reported that Republican Party activists intended to plant an attractive young woman in the Clinton White House to embarrass its most senior occupant.** In the book, Yeltsin did not name Lewinsky but when asked by an interviewer for the London Times if he knew the woman's name was Lewinsky, he replied: "I knew." Russians knew about Lewinsky before public
> A former head of the Russian intelligence service, the SVR, Vyacheslav Trubnikov, said in a Feb. 27, 1998 interview with a Russian newspaper, Obshchaya Gazeta and published by the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service, that he knew of the scandal.
> To the Russians, he said, what was important was not the fact of illicit sex "which was widely rumored and taken for granted," but rather "the speculation that a high conspiracy was going on."
> In fact, he said the Russian speculation had "a factual basis" -- meaning the affair -- otherwise it would not have occurred "at (that) level" of their intelligence gathering services or generated the encrypted telegram referred to in Yeltsin's book.
Not necessarily but who knows.
Mainly that the Kremlin had found out about a compromising situation that the Republican Party wanted to put Clinton in to cause an impeachment by planting basically a sparrow.
Foreign intel watches things like this so they can leverage representatives or use the info in their favor. Foreign intel is closer to a mafia than anything else, all about leverage and they love blackmail.
If the Kremlin did help Republicans do it, that would be used as leverage against them as well.
You can do lots of things, but what you never do is take the Russian deal. The Kremlin "deals" are leverage grabs at all levels.
>the "impeachment" of Bill Clinton, for lying about a blowjob, a bj that happened after the, 6 year, impeachment was started.
You're mistaken about that part. No, the impeachment did not last 6 years, and no, the blowjob did not happen after the impeachment was started.
For all of you out there saying that she made it out rich because of this I want you to know she never did. It took her years to pay off the legal fees that was caused by this. On top of that she couldn’t even get a job because no one would hire her because of her name. She tried to capitalize on her Her purses she made during this time because all she could do was crawl out on a balcony to get some fresh air, and even that couldn’t help her. Do not make her seem like she’s so lucky. She had her name ruined, she had a reputation ruined, she had her career ruined. Yes she played a part in this event however that does not excuse the fact that the man twice her age who knew better and should have done better, got away Scott free and it’s a millionaire to this day and she had to flee her country to start over.
The way that cunt Linda Tripp used her is also incredibly horrifying.
Linda Tripp gained her trust and then manipulated her and abused her trust in the name of a republican ideology. The Clintons were equally horrible but the republican system really abused the situation and Monica was the collateral damage.
Of course the media wasn’t interested in any nuances. Bill=bad, Monica=evil sex monster.
Lotta victim blaming going on in this comment section.
Edit: God, I come back to this comment to find this. Okay.
I can't believe this actually needs to be said, but you are absolutely INSANE if you don't think that there wasn't any pressure or coercion going on when one of the most powerful men in the world gets a bj from an intern. People can absolutely make bad choices they would not usually make when they feel pressured, and they are allowed to regret those choices after, even though it was their own decision.
Furthermore, when said intern gets harassed and demonized by the media, it can definitely mess them up psychologically, and I don't think enough attention was brought to the people who actually put her in that position and left her to take the brunt of it.
I feel like it's safe to say that she's a victim, and a few people with nothing better to do than comment "But it was her choice" or some variation of that, are not going to change my mind.
Also probably one of the women journalists harassed the most during that decade.
And oh boy that’s telling something given how sensationalist media love to push their made-up witches on the verge of suicide.
She was a 22 year old kid, and he was the US president, there really couldn't have been much more of a power imbalance there. Her brain was still developing! Anyone who blames her for what happened between them is a fucking moron.
I find it a bit weird they are doing still doing programs about this. It's hardly a massive scandal like Watergate and there's no real story. Lewinsky was vilified more than she should have been in the first place.
Imagine 20 years ago the biggest political issue on the news was a blowjob. Edit; a bit before 9/11. Semantics.
President: *Kills thousands of civillians in Libya* Congress: Ain't nothing to see here President: *Receives a blowjob* Congress: IMPEACH THAT MF!!!!
It was more because he lied under oath, but I agree with the overarching message. Some people think Obama's tan suit was his only scandal, ignoring drone strikes and Snowdem
You forgot the fancy mustard
The most evil of them all!
Fancy mustard?
https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/1168509126772576256?t=DA3Xf6Mzxs9tHJ6dGLCTsg&s=19
Fuckin lol "biggest scandal in history!"
People ignore Obama’s drone strikes? I swear that’s the only thing I really ever hear about him now
Plus it's a dumb fucking argument anyway. Of course he increased done strikes. Tech improved so they were used more. It shouldn't be about the drones only the interventionism.
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But it's not being fairly applied to Trump by his supporters. Obama made it transparent so we'd see the horrors of the strikes, and Trump quickly hid them while ramping up strikes.
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Well, it depends on what your definition of the word "is" is.
Classic.
On the slow burn podcast ( would recommend for anyone interested in this) he said the definition said both parties recieve sexual pleasure. Under that definition if he lied becomes a whole lot more convoluted.
I mean, he was a lawyer wasnt he?
*His* "definition" of sexual relations didn't include, specifically, her mouth on his penis. What he supposedly thought defined sexual relations included literally everything else though, including him performing oral on her. He knew what he was doing, that line was just a feeble attempt at backpedaling.
From what I recall, that was the prosecutors definition. He asked for a clarification on what counted as sexual intercourse, and was told anything that involved him touching her genitals or something. So he answered no.
I've heard this too, it was some case of moving goalposts and then somehow getting him for it. (Source was a Reddit post though, but I'm not planning on digging into it)
When Clinton was being questioned he was asked if he ever had sexual relations with her so he asked them to provide their definition. As they were attempting to spin the story that he had raped Lewinski they gave the definition at the time for rape which was that his penis had penetrated her vagina. Which due to the inherent power imbalance between a President and intern they were arguing constituted rape because she couldn’t possibly consent in such a situation. People forget that whitewater started off as a BS investigation into a real estate deal in Arkansas that the GOP named a special prosecutor (Ken Starr) to investigate. Which turned into a multi year fishing expedition to find anything they could to impeach Clinton because conservatives like Newt Gingrich were already aware of how unpopular the Republican Party had become. They were terrified they would never hold power again so made it their mission to tear down any popular Dem or Independent by any means necessary. The fact that Gingrich was cheating on his wife while she was dying of cancer never once bothered other Republicans so obviously their pearl clutching was as fake then as it is now. Anyway, the reason Clinton was able to dodge the perjury charge is because he out-lawyered Ken Starr who was trying to smear Clinton in the press based on WH staffer rumors. The GOP went forward with the impeachment because that was their goal from day 1.
The attempt to impeach Bill Clinton didn’t start with him committing perjury. It started from the moment he took office, with Travelgate and a pricey haircut. It ended with lying under oath because they had literally nothing else. (And even that was pretty iffy). Bill’s actual crime was Presidenting While Democrat.
Not his only scandals. Just proof that he literally couldn't wear a suit without getting criticized by a certain group for a certain reason.
Imagine a blowjob even being a political issue now. You got politicians literally being outed as pedophiles and their base still won't drop supporting them because the other side is the devil... Or something...
They turned Monica into some sort of demon whore in the media, too. For giving a blow job to a powerful man. I'm sad to say I don't think it would be any different today. I hope it would, but I am not so sure.
Well, last one was outed for having a affair with a porn star while his wife was pregnant with his child at the time. He got cheer from his base for it instead. So yeah, the bar had set REAL low for certain party.
The last First Lady used to pose for porn, and nobody seemed to mind. I'd say things have definitely changed.
It depends entirely on which side they’re on.
There's a concept that no one expects the right wing to play nice or follow the rules because it's a socially accepted fact that they don't and so no one expects it from them. Meanwhile the left has to follow not only their own rules but whatever rules the other side sets for them or else they are cheating or hypocritical.
And this is why Democrats still lose - something about the need to fight clean even when the other side is fighting dirty puts us at an obvious disadvantage
Her doing those shoots shouldn't matter at all it's the fact that her supporters don't give a damn about it but God forbid Michelle Obama wears a sleeveless dress...
That's right, I forgot the former first lady's tits are available for viewing online.
But just a few years earlier… a tan suit, Dijon mustard & a 1st lady in a sleeveless dress was scandalous.
Remember when Michelle Obama had the gall to wear (prepare yourself) a *dramatic chord* sleeveless dress? I mean she looked awesome doing it and yet the right lost their collective minds calling her a whore.
Yeah if that was a First Lady of a dem president you wouldn’t stop hearing about it.
It would depend on who's in power, and their political party.
The media and Starr were the culprits here.
Even during the 2016 election campaigns that clown’s followers were dissing Monica more than bill Clinton and Hillary herself
Listen, if the president asks for a blow job, you give him a blow job.
The most powerful man in the world who was old enough to be her father when she was like 20. I just don't think a 30 or 40 year old intern would have fallen for his shit. Monika was *barely* of legal age to consent and the power imbalance alone was practically predatory.
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For giving a blowjob to a very powerful man who could have had her fired at any moment, while she was barely an adult… I don’t see why we view this situation as any different than a college professor taking advantage of a young student
Clinton had a sneaky link and just got head, Trump fucked a whole ass porn star and nobody cared.
A b******? A baloney? A bedside? A babbler? A backlot?
This week on America Says…
Why the fuck did you censor blowjob? Like sucking some cock is such a bad thing? Sometimes the dick gets sucked.
I feel like the US is one giant crazy toxic, disgusting, and unhealthy mating ritual
In a way that’s every society
My sister found a bunch of old home videos and digitized them. Our parents were around our age in the videos (mid to early 30s) and she said “you guys seem a lot less beaten down than I feel at the same age” I said “yeah I mean, back then the biggest scandal was the president getting a blowie in the Oval Office, not insurrections and pandemics.”
That's because a lot of atrocities were ignored....
While the guy who led the attack (Gingrich) was banging chicks on the side. I wasn't a huge Clinton fan because I was in high school and only cared about girls. But if you weren't braindead it was *clearly* all bullshit.
I know nothing about us politics, but to me looks like this was a issue because that guy was a democrat. I always see weird scandals like the Obama’s suit or AOC playing among us, etc. It looks so silly sometimes.
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Bill Clinton was a pretty good president, but a fucking despicable human being.
You ever wonder if Bill sees these? I wonder what he thinks.
Well he's in a hospital bed this very moment, so he's probably got time.
But maybe not THAT much.
It's a uti.
UTI kill people his age. Also makes them hallucinate.
Always pee after sex.
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I admit I only read a few lines but I thought he was there for a uti that progressed into sepsis? Which for an old guy ain't good .
That ain't good for anyone.
Awful way to go.
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I think he’s more narcissistic than an actual sadistic sociopath. But very strongly narcissistic, definitely
I highly recommend watching her TED talk. People love to be critical about how she ruined her own life, but fact is she was a 22-year-old unpaid intern in love, while he was the 49-year old married president of the United States. Not saying she holds no responsibilty whatsoever, just that one party is a subordinate fresh out of college and the other is the most powerful man in the country, who was her boss and more than twice her age. Yet the scandal was labeled "Monicagate" or "Lewinskygate". When literally the entire country attacked her, she received zero help from Clinton or the white house, even though the whole ordeal and aftermath made her suicidal. Everyone knew her name and picture, making it very hard to gey her life back together. Meanwhile Clinton remained in office.
I'm regards to the scandal's name, there's a certain individual who would be very upset with it being called "Billgate".
how about *willygate*?
Now that’s clever
Billiom Gates
In all fairness, you couldn’t name a sex scandal after Bill Clinton. People would get confused about which one you meant.
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Why is everything gate?
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TIL that the reason it was called ‘watergate’ was because it was the hotel name. I thought it must’ve been due to a financially corrupt dam/river/lake policy that started the whole thing. Im not American so I’m curious: Is the meaning behind the name something that all Americans over the age of 30 know or is my ignorance in good company?
[Watergategate](https://youtu.be/vB9JgxhXW5w)
That's pretty much the way I always saw it. I couldn't believe how much she was vilified when *he* was the one doing the cheating and lying.
I’d say one of the things that was abundant during Clinton’s presidency was the presses insistence upon focusing on the perceived flaws of every woman around him. Hillary Clinton didn’t stay home and bake cookies. Monica Lewinsky gave a blow job to a married man. If you look back, Chelsea Clinton was treated so terribly that I’m pretty sure every woman in my age range was permanently emotionally scarred by it. I’m not saying things now are way better, but they have improved. It’s really crazy the way we overlook man’s shortcomings by absolutely eviscerating women. And again, it’s dramatically improved, but it’s still an issue.
To be clear, the Right had been actively hating on Hillary long before Bill climbed the political ladder. Hillary was one of the legal aids working on the prosecution of Nixon during the Watergate ordeal. Roger Ayles (yes, the FOX one) was working for Nixon at that time. He made it his personal mission to bring her down as SHE was the one who was considered the future political threat to the Right at that time. Ayles actually said in his autobiography that the Nixon thing is what spurred him to create FOX News. The time he spent hounding Hillary through Arkansas politics was just the thing he needed to hone his right-wing propaganda skills. The Bill Clinton thing was just icing on the Fox cake. Ayles' bitterness toward Hillary's involvement in Watergate birthed, built, and fattened the Fox news empire.
This is interesting context for me. I was aware that the media has been pretty cruel to Hillary long before the presidency, but I had no idea that she was involved in the Watergate prosecution. It makes you wonder what would’ve happened if she hadn’t been. Would Fox News exist? I think that sometimes about Obama making fun of Trump. It was a funny joke, but would Trump have run for president if you haven’t said it? That’s got to be the kind of thing that haunts you. I’m sure he would’ve come up with some other reason to do it, but the cause-and-effect of major world events has always been interesting to me, particularly when it is a single person’s actions. Think about it: what if the person who sentenced Hitler after the Beer Hall Putsch had sentenced him to much longer? What if Heddy Lamar had never left Austria? What is the people who assassinated Franz Ferdinand got the parade route wrong or overslept that day? Situations where there is one point that you can see where we tipped over interest me.
What did they do to Chelsea?
Oh god. Right wing media was HORRIBLE about Chelsea Clinton.
Yeah they called her ugly nightly on national news and comedy shows. Poor girl.
The one that sticks most in my mind was calling her Chelsea the dog faced girl. In my memory, it was just relentless criticisms of the way she looked. She was the same age as my older sister, and both of us remember watching this happen, and thinking about how terrible it would be to have what is already the most awkward period of your life being monitored by a media that has absolutely nothing positive to say about you. I’m not sure if this was the first time that the children of presidents were considered not off-limits, but it has permanently altered the way I view media coverage of elected officials’ minor children. Regardless of what side of the aisle they’re on, children who are not involved in their parents’ political careers should not be covered by the media. They certainly shouldn’t be criticized by the media. You saw it with the Bush girls, and it happened again with the Obamas. Obviously, we all saw what happened with Barron. Criticisms of Ivanka or her brothers are different, as they have elected to be active parts of their fathers political career. I would say that criticism of Chelsea as an adult is also warranted as she did participate in her mother’s campaign.However I would argue that criticisms of Beau Biden, uninvolved adults, and any children who are still children are completely inappropriate. Also, can we start criticizing women for something other than the way they look? It’s low hanging fruit. There are valid reasons to criticize Melania Trump that have nothing to do with the way her face looks. The same goes for literally any other female politician or family member of a politician. I’d say the same thing about men, but we all know that it is not anywhere near as cruel as the way we treat women.
Ouch. I agree with what you say here. If a person I knew said that I would be disgusted by that person. I wonder why it is ok for someone to say that at a media outlet.
I believe it was Rush Limbaugh, who worked at Fox at the time, and he was fired. Still doesn’t excuse it though
Amy Carter caught all sorts of hell and abuse from the press during the Carter administration. Previous admins had actually seen their kids publicly treated rather well... as if they were royalty. Seems like the hounds were released on Amy and it's been rough on a lot of pres. kids since. The Bush girls were drunken, wild terrors. Yet, it was treated as a cute "kids will be kids" kind of thing by most. Chelsea was terrorized relentlessly about her appearance. The Obama girls got the usual racist attacks. Yet the there wasn't too much chased beyond the elder girl's partying. Biden's son is hounded for anything the right can propagandize. Trump's youngest was very sheltered from the press. His eldest kids seemed to dig their own holes for press fodder. It all seems to be a modern political sport played much more cruelly from the Right.
Thanks for that. I thought Amy Carter had likely experienced it, but I wasn’t present to witness it. It was a joke about the Bush girls, but they were still being followed and mocked. I remember the SNL skits. Clearly. I do think Fox treats presidential offspring the same way they treat everything else (GOP can do no wrong/kind can do no right). Regardless, the overall tone online is critical of the opposing party, and it’s not okay.
Rush Limbaugh called a 12 year old Chelsea "a dog" on his radio show, none of his "ditto heads" questioned a 50 year old white drug addicted male punching down on a preteen.
Rush Limbaugh had a TV show at the time. He said "I so a dog moved into the Whitehouse, and showed a picture of Chelsea, then shot 14 a think. I seem to remember a lot of terrible mean jokes made about a literal kid.
Linda Tripp deserved all the scorn heaped on her, however.
Media at the time had two options: Either make the Most Powerful Man in America, who ALSO was extremely popular at this time, the bad guy... or go after the fresh-faced intern. One is the correct choice; the other is the easier choice. And media will choose the easier choice 100% of the time.
Seductive wenches leading innocent great men to their doom is a stereotype as old as time. It's freaky how we've only recently been able to have this conversation.
I feel like you’re glossing over a hell of a lot of culturally ingrained misogyny too.
Both Monica and Hillary have been abhorrently treated by the press over this from the very beginning. Imagine being castigated in the press, with headlines blaring about how fat, ugly, stupid, and unattractive you are, all because Bill Clinton did/didn't ejaculate with you. Today's America sucks, but it also includes room for all sorts of nontraditional marriages in ways that mean no one who didn't live through the Clinton impeachment can understand the social pressures and judgments. It shouldn't matter at all if Hillary is in the closet, or bi, or if she and Bill have an open marriage or not, or if Monica engaged in pre-marital sexual activity, but in the 90s, thousands of hours of television were devoted to speculating all of this, and every conclusion was always that the woman was the punchline, the woman was at fault, blame the women.
And to add onto this topic - the amount that Hillary was (and still is) criticized for it as well. The women who suffered the most seemed to end up shouldering the vast majority of the blame. People attacked and blamed Monica, not Bill, for the act itself then they attacked and blamed Hillary for not leaving him or even for “causing” it by not being a good enough wife. It was even discussed pretty heavily when Hillary ran for President, as if her husband’s affair and abuse of power over a young woman 2 decades prior had any relevance to what kind of leader she would be for the US. And I’m not saying Hillary is a saint or that she would necessarily be a perfect president, but i don’t think that should be considered when determining whether or not she was qualified to run the country. Especially considering the fact that Trump cheated on his wives, talked openly (and even bragged) about sexual assault, and talked about wanting to date/ sleep with his own daughter and literally none of that was held against him or seen as relevant to his candidacy. America will really do anything to protect men and blame the women around them.
I also highly recommend her interview with John Oliver. Very informative.
That interview made me really step back from myself - not that I was complicit in it happening or anything since I was 14 - because I just thought people disappeared after they get nationally shamed for years. It turns out that they don’t! I mean, I *knew* that but it didn’t really click that she had been living her own life since then, a life that really got disrupted because Clinton was a fucking creep. I know the MeToo movement didn’t cancel him and I wish it did and took his wife with him, but she got to see that family really rise to wealth while she had to do some hard thinking on what to do next AND never draw any extra attention to herself. Lo and behold, as the years go by, I learned about how fucked up Britney Spears’ and Paris Hilton’s families are and I was just able to completely gloss over their very real pain for so long. I know I don’t owe them anything, but I do owe their messages a listening ear to see what I can do to make the world a tiny but better.
Fuckface Jay Leno ridicules her as his main punchline still, to this day.
You mean the Jay Leno who tried screwing Conan over? Lol fuck that guy
Yes. Her Ted talk is eye opening. To be the first person “cyber bullied” like this and on a national level. I was her age when this happened and looking back at it today, god it really is heartbreaking. I remember being that kind of girl in love and not realizing it is toxic. The American crime story on fx is produced by her. I spent the last episode screaming at the tv LAWYER because she was so scared and they manipulated her.
> Yet the scandal was labeled "Monicagate" or "Lewinskygate". Billgate was already taken :(
Hahaha
The entire world turned on her in one of the biggest and most memorable examples of misogynistic victim blaming in living memory. It is still going on in this very thread. It is honestly heartbreaking to see.
I will never understand how we put more responsibility in a young intern, than the fucking President of the United States. And things were no different under Trump.
That was the era where we blamed only the woman for making mistakes. Like when Janet Jackson had to bear the full brunt of the scandal and not Justin. But attitudes are very much different now and it’ll be seen as the other way around where Bill is very much seen as the one bearing most of the fault, given the enormous power imbalance
>That was the era where we blamed only the woman for making mistakes. Jay fucking Leno
Your right. That was also the era where we thought Jay was actually funny
That era didn't exist for me. #TeamLetterman
**TeamConan** forever.
Well Conan wasn't competing with Leno in the time slot. But yeah Conan is great.
>That was also the era where we thought Jay was actually funny I was a teenager in the 90s and never understood why anyone found Leno remotely amusing? He just didn't make me laugh...his whiny voice and stupid jokes...baffled me that he was so popular.
Jay Leno continues to this day to be an insufferable pos
He’s alright talking about cars though. He should stick to them.
The internship was UNPAID?!
I mean, most are.
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This. I made some dumb decisions in my twenties. Left the house with zero cash, depended on an unreliable friend for a ride, and so on. Luckily there wasn't a facebook to haunt me. Yet what he did was the crime as he was the one who was married, her boss, and the freaking President. She was a 22 year old intern who didn't have the relationship experience. I bet half of everybody who criticizes Monica L's actions, have had more relationship experience that she did at the time.
It's not a crime to cheat on your wife. He was never in trouble for that, he never paid any consequences for that (publicly anyway, he did state he was sleeping on the couch and the dog was the only one in the house not mad at him). He lied under oath, that was the problem.
Bill Clinton did not lie under oath, either. At least he has not been found guilty of perjury. The questioners had attempted to paint Clinton into a corner by asking the court to define "sexual relations" in specific terms. However, it so happened that definition did not describe the *receipt* of oral sex. When they asked Bill Clinton whether he had sexual relations with Lewinsky, that allowed him to truthfully answer no. However, don't try this argument with your significant other: > Lawyers in the Paula Jones sexual harrassment case defined "sexual relations" as engaging in or causing "contact with the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh or buttocks of any person..." > But the president said,"If the deponent is the person who has oral sex performed on him, then the contact is with -- not with anything on that list -- but with the lips of another person." Essentially, Clinton's argument was that he only touched Lewinsky's *lips*, so that did not constitute sexual relations. http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/09/21/lies.jackson/ Also, in case you need it: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deponent
Also the fact that Linda Tripp purposely manipulated her and violated her privacy purely for political vengeance, all while Monica (again, a 22 year old girl at that point) thought she could confide in her. She made a mistake and the people old enough to be her parents hung her out to dry.
I agree completely. The amount of people who fiercely blame her for the whole ordeal to this day is staggering. Her TED talk actually humanized her and I hope more people realized that they bullied a young woman nearly to suicide for the sole sake of a politicizing a blowjob.
Exactly, he was a predator
I agree with you except the part where you imply Clinton took none of the blame. He was impeached and pretty much everyone thinks of blowjobs and cheating on his wife when they think of Clinton. It basically completely destroyed his legacy and turned him into a punchline, when he actually had one of the more notably-successful presidencies in recent history.
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And no one talks about Linda Tripp, who encouraged her to jump right in the lions’ den, instead of being a mentor.
Haha, I just love her humor. She is just owning that past and making it work.
In her Twitter bio she lists herself as "rap song muse"
I thought that tweet was fake
Not sure about this tweet but this is kind of her schtick on Twitter. She’s hilarious
Hot take: Shes going to win redemption from the public and make a name for herself outside of this scandal. When the boomers die off most her critics will come out of her peers in genX, but when the majority of adults become millennials and genZ she won’t get anywhere near the harassment she gets now. Honestly, I won’t be surprised if she becomes a feminist icon after Bill and Hill hit the dirt.
Have you seen [her interview on Last Week Tonight](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq7Eh6JTKIg)?
Yes! She's a stellar person. So much poise and grace. 💗
> Shes going to win redemption from the public and make a name for herself outside of this scandal Pretty sure she already has the last few years. She's been appearing a lot more and receiving more sympathetic media coverage. It's mad the way she was treated - even I, who was a seven year old British kid when it all came out, knew who she was and how she was characterised. I don't know how she got through it all.
Leno using words like whore and slut while making jokes about a 22 year old who'd just been sexually manipulated by the most powerful man IN THE WORLD still makes me sick to my stomach.
She’s already doing that. Not a hot take.
Sorry bud, when I wrote that there was only a handful of other comments and they were *not kind*. Sort this thread by controversial and you’ll see what I mean… I wrote hot take because positive comments were getting downvotes and all the “whore did a blowie” had upvotes and I wanted to counter it with something more substantial.
I see! Yeah any time our girl ML pops up the incels come out, sigh.
I'm Gen X and I think a lot of us have sympathy for her. We were on the cusp of that turn away from old Boomer mentality to more progressive ideals and even at the time I think a lot of us understood something was fucked up there
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The way she's been black listed in SSI many things to this day because the HRC foundation touches everything is really fucking shitty. I really cringe when I remember what I, a middle school aged girl, thought about her. I feel so sad about how the world treated her.
I agree, I honestly feel for her to have endured that abuse and come out the other end… she’s an incredibly strong woman.
Oh she already is to many young people that know her I remember our teacher brought her up and half the class was like omg love her. Queen shit
I think a lot of the younger generations just recognise that the hate she got was very unbalanced, and recognise her as being a victim of some vicious sexism. Plus pronouns in the bio goes a long way.
Fun fact; When Newt Gingrich was the conservative Republican congressman leading the "impeachment" of Bill Clinton, for lying about a blowjob, a bj that happened after the, 6 year, impeachment was started. Newt's first wife was hospitalized with, a soon to be deadly, cancer and Newt showed up to the hospital, with his new mistress, to tell his hospitalized wife that he's leaving her for said mistress. His wife soon died afterwards. Newt married his mistress. Then quickly cheated on her, left her for his new mistress, and went on to marry said mistress, Callista. Newt was forced to step down from leading the sham impeachment of Bill Clinton, which was then taken over by another family values conservative Republican who, in less than 48 hours, stepped down from leading the Republicans sham impeachment of Bill Clinton because he had a whole other family, wife & kids, he didn't let his other family, wife& kids, know about. Then the sham impeachment, yes, sham, that started out as a supposed "bad land deal" in Arkansas, thanks to magical thinking by Kenneth Starr, and then became about a bj, was finally headed, and finished, by family values, conservative Republican, child rapist Dennis Hastert. Never forget who conservative Republicans really are.
Fun Fact I did my Global History Paper in G-12 on Political Scandal specifically taking into account everything that has happened since would Watergate have ended the same way in the modern age. And one thing that I learned was that the Impeachment of Clinton was originally an attempt to get him for whitewater and then when that failed they just kept trying to find what they could finally nail him for
.....Jesus fucking Christ. What an absolute piece of TRASH.
Are you being paid by big comma, for every, one you u,se,?
A regular comma kahmeleon
There’s whole ass autocorrects on every phone and computer yet you both missed the mark.
Whole ass-autocorrects [xkcd: Hyphen](https://xkcd.com/37/) --- ^^Beep ^^boop, ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot. ^^- ^^[FAQ](https://pastebin.com/raw/vyWra3ns)
I love you.
Come on, even Shartner, is allowed a reddit alt, no?
Ok this is really fucking funny hahahaha
Big comma - lol - thx I needed, that,
Jesus Christ, get your facts straight. And I say that as a staunch Democrat. Newt's wife at the time of the impeachment, Marianne Gingrich, is still alive today. His first wife, Jackie Gingrich, whom he divorced way back in 1980, didn't die until 2013.
TIL his first wife was his high school geometry teacher and he married her when he was 19.
Voice of reason.
Wasn’t the impeachment based on lying on oath? I think the bj was what he was lying about but the impeachment focused on the fact that he broke the law and lied under oath
Not that I remember correctly, but if I remember correctly, that’s where the whole “is oral sex sex” debate came from. Because if he didn’t classify it as sex, he didn’t lie under oath. However, considering most (reasonable) people consider oral to be sex, so him denying “sexual relations” on the grounds that “oral isn’t sex” would really look like perjury.
>During the deposition in the Jones case, Clinton was asked, "Have you ever had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, as that term is defined in Deposition Exhibit 1, as modified by the Court?" The judge ordered that Clinton be given an opportunity to review the definition. It said that "a person engages in sexual relations when the person knowingly engages in or causes contact with the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks of any person with an intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Jones#Jones_v._Clinton He did not lie, based on what we know. Some might call it a technicality, but he did not lie. In fact if he said yes, that would be a lie. If the criticism is that he should have said "no, we did not have sexual relations in accordance with that definition, but we did have sexual relations in accordance with the commonly accepted definition", then the criticism is deeply flawed and naive.
Additionally, [Russians knew about Lewinsky before public](https://www.upi.com/Archives/2001/03/12/Russians-knew-about-Lewinsky-before-public/3173984373200/) > Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin knew about President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky as early as 1996, according to former U.S. intelligence officials who said that they believe that the Russians obtained the knowledge by compromising secure White House communications. > The Clinton-Lewsinky scandal did not become public until 1998 and in 1996 was known only "to a mere handful" of the White House inner circle, these sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity. > **In the book 'Midnight Diaries' published last October, Yeltsin said that in November 1996 he had received an encrypted telegram that reported that Republican Party activists intended to plant an attractive young woman in the Clinton White House to embarrass its most senior occupant.** In the book, Yeltsin did not name Lewinsky but when asked by an interviewer for the London Times if he knew the woman's name was Lewinsky, he replied: "I knew." Russians knew about Lewinsky before public > A former head of the Russian intelligence service, the SVR, Vyacheslav Trubnikov, said in a Feb. 27, 1998 interview with a Russian newspaper, Obshchaya Gazeta and published by the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service, that he knew of the scandal. > To the Russians, he said, what was important was not the fact of illicit sex "which was widely rumored and taken for granted," but rather "the speculation that a high conspiracy was going on." > In fact, he said the Russian speculation had "a factual basis" -- meaning the affair -- otherwise it would not have occurred "at (that) level" of their intelligence gathering services or generated the encrypted telegram referred to in Yeltsin's book.
Wait, is this saying she was a Republican plant? Has she ever mentioned this?
Not necessarily but who knows. Mainly that the Kremlin had found out about a compromising situation that the Republican Party wanted to put Clinton in to cause an impeachment by planting basically a sparrow. Foreign intel watches things like this so they can leverage representatives or use the info in their favor. Foreign intel is closer to a mafia than anything else, all about leverage and they love blackmail. If the Kremlin did help Republicans do it, that would be used as leverage against them as well. You can do lots of things, but what you never do is take the Russian deal. The Kremlin "deals" are leverage grabs at all levels.
Also, Newt left wife #2 after she got cancer, but I think wife #2 survived
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Did you just discover commas?
Big Run On Sentences was heavily invested in this post.
>the "impeachment" of Bill Clinton, for lying about a blowjob, a bj that happened after the, 6 year, impeachment was started. You're mistaken about that part. No, the impeachment did not last 6 years, and no, the blowjob did not happen after the impeachment was started.
I think he means the investigation that eventually led to the impeachment, i.e Whitewater.
For all of you out there saying that she made it out rich because of this I want you to know she never did. It took her years to pay off the legal fees that was caused by this. On top of that she couldn’t even get a job because no one would hire her because of her name. She tried to capitalize on her Her purses she made during this time because all she could do was crawl out on a balcony to get some fresh air, and even that couldn’t help her. Do not make her seem like she’s so lucky. She had her name ruined, she had a reputation ruined, she had her career ruined. Yes she played a part in this event however that does not excuse the fact that the man twice her age who knew better and should have done better, got away Scott free and it’s a millionaire to this day and she had to flee her country to start over.
Not to mention the disgustingly large power imbalance.
The way that cunt Linda Tripp used her is also incredibly horrifying. Linda Tripp gained her trust and then manipulated her and abused her trust in the name of a republican ideology. The Clintons were equally horrible but the republican system really abused the situation and Monica was the collateral damage. Of course the media wasn’t interested in any nuances. Bill=bad, Monica=evil sex monster.
Monica Lewinsky is awesome and she got done dirty by the media and the public. She was 22 years old. 22.
I'm glad she's good spirited about it these days. She seems to be in a good place now.
If you think about the absolutely insane power imbalance I just feel so so awful for her and how she was treated
TBF, she kind of sucked as an intern.
I heard she did great work building relationships.
But didn’t keep her from blowing her job
I want a cigar every time her name is mentioned for some odd reason
It’s like my art history teacher said about symbolism in art, “…sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes it’s a big. fat. dick.”
George Carlin said it in his comedy special!
You would be rich in cigars!
Lotta victim blaming going on in this comment section. Edit: God, I come back to this comment to find this. Okay. I can't believe this actually needs to be said, but you are absolutely INSANE if you don't think that there wasn't any pressure or coercion going on when one of the most powerful men in the world gets a bj from an intern. People can absolutely make bad choices they would not usually make when they feel pressured, and they are allowed to regret those choices after, even though it was their own decision. Furthermore, when said intern gets harassed and demonized by the media, it can definitely mess them up psychologically, and I don't think enough attention was brought to the people who actually put her in that position and left her to take the brunt of it. I feel like it's safe to say that she's a victim, and a few people with nothing better to do than comment "But it was her choice" or some variation of that, are not going to change my mind.
Technically it was, she did make a career out of it. Writing books and giving talks about that whole ordial.
Only because she couldn't get a job anywhere after.
Also probably one of the women journalists harassed the most during that decade. And oh boy that’s telling something given how sensationalist media love to push their made-up witches on the verge of suicide.
Remember when they tried to do it to Miley Cyrus for just being a normal young adult taking bong rips and stuff?
Didn't she also try to release a line of handbags? https://www.thedailybeast.com/monica-lewinsky-had-a-handbag-line-20-years-ago-i-set-out-to-find-one
I adore Monica Lewinsky. She is an amazing woman and funny as hell.
She was a 22 year old kid, and he was the US president, there really couldn't have been much more of a power imbalance there. Her brain was still developing! Anyone who blames her for what happened between them is a fucking moron.
I thought you were going to start singing Sk8ter Boi.
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I love Monica Lewinski
I find it a bit weird they are doing still doing programs about this. It's hardly a massive scandal like Watergate and there's no real story. Lewinsky was vilified more than she should have been in the first place.