Slut-Shaming A U.S. President

With the #MeToo movement in full flight, why hasn't anyone in the legacy media finally held former U.S. president Bill Clinton to account for his lifetime of boorish behavior? What of his string of adulterous affairs with numerous accusers—even within the Oval Office? What of Juanita Broaddrick's 40-year-old allegation of rape? Is it fair for Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen to slut-shame the sitting U.S. president: while giving worse behaved Bubba a complete pass? For one thing, Mr. Clinton's juvenile high jinks—among them, the Lewinsky affair: a national scandal that virtually brought the country to a standstill, and led to Bill's impeachment—happened while he was in office. How is that comparable to a porn star's allegation of a consensual affair with Donald Trump, then a private citizen, in 2006?

Where is this partisan's “honesty, dignity and rectitude”? In reality, Mr. Cohen engages in the yellowiest journalism by using language better suited to the gutter: “But Trump himself is a slut. He is a liar and a moral harlot who revels in irresponsibility and bad-boy behavior.” To paraphrase the Bible, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” (John 8:7). That would be good advice for the Post's holier than thou columnist to heed: especially given his own sexism directed at a younger, female subordinate in the workplace. As reported in June of 1998 by the Washingtonian's Harry Jaffe in “Cohen Gets Kid-Gloves Treatment in Harassment Case”:

“Among the allegations reported to [deputy managing editor Milton] Coleman: Cohen asked [Devon] Spurgeon to come into his office and close the door, then queried her about her generation's view of oral sex. Also at issue: a conversation where Cohen said it's too bad Bill Clinton is the only one who can grope in his office and get away with it. He also is said to have intimidated her with references to his connections with top Post editors, such as Tom Wilkinson, who can hire and fire.”

How is it not beyond creepy for a then 57-year-old man to question a then 23-year-old editorial aide about sexual mores? At the time, the Post's response was simply to move his office to a different floor. As for curbing potential misdeeds, that's about as effective as moving an accused pedophile priest to a new perish. Indeed, all these years later, where's Richard Cohen's, or The Washington Post's, integrity and transparency regarding these events? As of now, this stone thrower is still employed there. In fact, sanctioned for decades to point fingers at others while ignoring his own less than chivalrous conduct. (As was typical in the Clinton era of “bimbo eruptions,” the wagons were circled and the young woman in question was blamed.) Unfortunately, his journalistic old boy's club is still stuck in Clintonian amber. Neither Clinton nor Cohen have yet received their deserved comeuppance in 2018.

Upon reflection, how was the lurid, sex scandal-plagued Clinton era not a shadowy reflection of recently exposed Hollywood sex scandals (read: Clinton friend and donor Harvey Weinstein), and the #MeToo movement? In both cases, didn't prominent Democrats misuse their lofty positions to exploit underlings for sexual favors? Specifically, when Bubba chased Monica around the resolute desk in the Oval Office, wasn't Bill's bad-boy behavior (with her and others) equivalent to the adulterous antics of a bathrobed Harvey? Rightly, today's press has excoriated the disgraced movie mogul Yet, Bill's extramarital affair with then 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky is still treated with kid gloves. Ironically, his still traumatized former paramour, now 44, couldn't bring herself to hold the Clintons responsible in her candid March 2018 Vanity Fair article: he for his arguably predatory behavior; she for calling Lewinsky a “narcissistic loony toon”. Shouldn't the Clintons be held to the same standard of conduct that the media is rabidly trying to hold The Donald to?

The hard left media continuing to protect the coddled Clintons conveys the message that questionable actions, or words, have no bearing on character or a president's ability to lead the nation. And despite the sea change regarding sexual harassment, Bill and Hillary have survived their various imbroglios, haven't they? So, it stands to reason that President Trump will also survive the supposed peccadilloes of his past. Before applying such blatant double standards to U.S. presidents, Democratic surrogates of the biased MSM need to take a long look in a mirror. Not to do so shows the truth of what they are: untrustworthy mudslingers of salacious leftist propaganda.

Twitter: @DavidHunterblog

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Exorcising Democrats' Confederate History

Why are progressives clamoring to remove many of America's mementos dedicated to the Old South? Generations later, can remnants of Civil War Democrats cause active psychological “harm”? That seems highly unlikely. However, what's real is the targeting of Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart and Jefferson Davis. If that's the liberal standard for destroying their icons, who has caused more recent and lasting damage than Barack Obama? Therefore, isn't it logical for them to purge both ancient root and modern branch? Yet, fear not, President Obama's safe from their revisionist historical pruning. It's only his antebellum counterparts who find themselves on the chopping block.

Let's pull some contextual threads from this spidery progressive web, shall we? Reportedly, Democrats in Alexandria, Virginia want to rename a main thoroughfare, Jefferson Davis Highway. Also, they want to move a statue on State Route 400 of a Confederate soldier, “Appomattox,” to the comparable obscurity of a nearby museum. Erected in 1889, is the presence of this unarmed Southerner—like the street named for the Confederacy's president—suddenly noxious to the average commuter? Do they trigger so much daily trauma that they're right to nix them? Not to be outshone, Fairfax County is embroiled in a two-year debate to strip Confederate General Stuart's name from one of its most racially diverse high schools. Their dragnet is not local however, it's a monstrosity cast widely across state lines as far as Louisiana.

As the left's revisionist hysteria is never satisfied, Stuart's famous contemporary General Robert E. Lee is targeted in both places. Atop a pillar since 1884, his towering figure was removed from its New Orleans perch last Friday after 133 years. (His was not the first to fall. On May 11th, the powers that be removed a statue from the Jefferson Davis memorial there. On Saturday, a display—the word “LOVE”—was found on its vacated platform.) Only time will tell if his Virginia likeness—mutely astride his majestic horse in Lee Park since 1924—will suffer the same “loving” fate. As the land was specifically donated to showcase this Southern soldier, is it right to unseat him after 93 years? What's more horrible here, destroying the vestiges of progressives' 19^th century past or the wasteful expenditure to taxpayers of $300,000 to do it?

Doesn't all history have a worthy place simply because it happened? How can eradicating the lessons that shaped our collective cultural experience ever be the “right” thing to do? Isn't the mind-set to wipe clean the landscape—of old dignitaries' names and harmless inanimate objects—really a fascist desire to ban ideas themselves? (Will these safe space liberal “do-gooders” advocate “Fahrenheit 451”-style book burning next?) Obviously, their predecessors' dual stains of slavery and segregation—never acknowledged or owned by them hereafter—are of lasting shame. Well, frankly, they should be. Hence, their current self-serving agenda to simply airbrush monuments out of existence.

To this end, their go-to narrative is one of distraction and manipulation. To the muddleheaded, the dishonest proclaim often repeated nonsense: America is “secretly racist”! In the same vein as “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” liberals have kind of a politically-motivated hysterical blindness. What of the widespread advancements since the 1950s and 1960s Civil Rights movements? A prominent trend—the “black is beautiful” paradigm shift of the '60s and '70s—doesn't matter? Heck, these naysayers don't even acknowledge the cultural significance of the former occupant of the White House! So, concrete facts of societal progression are meaningless to them. Only their deluded aim to erase transgenerational political sins.

Seriously, it's been 152 years since the end of the Civil War! Only misguided spendthrifts waste today's public funds to “purify” the past. Obviously, historical footnotes—like the name of a road or a school, or four statues—have no magical power to corrupt anything of the now. What relevance to the day-to-day life experience of Americans do they really have? Very little, if any. In fact, their only intrinsic value are as markers showing where America has been—and how truly tolerant she has become!

Despite these ridiculous assertions, racism is not infused in the bronze edifices resembling long-dead Southerners. Likewise, it's not found in the hearts of persons striving to preserve them either. Interestingly, only Democrats' self-hatred persists with the passage of time. That liberal malady is seen in their psychological projection of guilt upon the rest us whose ancestors never owned a slave. Clearly, that's a problem better suited to the analyst's couch then the political realm. (On a related note, can our country be correctly viewed as innately “sexist” as Hillary Clinton is the latest nominee of her party—and the winner of the popular vote?) All elements described above encapsulate the schizophrenic thinking pervading every level of the Democratic Party.

In truth, tangible proof of America's well-established—and ever-expanding—pattern of embracing and celebrating diversity is everywhere! What of commonplace interracial marriage or the recent legalization of gay marriage? So, is it fair to automatically demonize a Republican simply for expressing a history-protecting impulse? Virginia's firebrand GOP gubernatorial hopeful Corey Stewart recently said:

“There’s all kinds of things that offend people, but that [removal] doesn’t make it right. That doesn’t make it so [fix the past]. This [the statue of Robert E. Lee] is a part of our history; if you don’t like our history, that’s too damn bad.”

Well, precisely. What's crystal clear is the Democrats have a cringeworthy history. Understandably, they're desperate to annihilate any reminders of the irrefutable and indefensible. Chief among them is their sole ownership of two infamous institutions: Virginia's antebellum past (read: slaveholding) and white supremacy (read: creating the Ku Klux Klan). As Abraham Lincoln preserved the Union, his party has a duty to safeguard the other side's artifacts for posterity. Without them as silent witnesses, falsely tarring conservatives with their own ongoing record of misdeeds becomes easy. If successful, all that would remain is a nebulous war of words for progressives to dominate. As George Santayana wisely advised: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Ironically, destroying America's Confederate past also diminishes her freedom-loving future.

Twitter: @DavidHunterblog

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Hollywood sees only color of money

Prestige is nice, but in Hollywood cash is always king. That's not awards, but box office profits. Based purely on economics, the movie-going public and film-making investment, the truth of tolerance is clear. Three of the five top-grossing actors are black: Samuel Jackson (#2: 4.6 B), Morgan Freeman (#4: 4.3 B) and Eddie Murphy (#5: 3.8 B). Further, all are Oscar-nominated with Morgan Freeman winning a prized 2005 statuette. So lack of exposure or popularity of African-American actors can't be the reason for a current lack of nominations. It is disingenuous to broadly assume because most Academy Award voters are white and male that that superficiality correctly indicates a deep-seeded racial bias. By the numbers, the charge of sexism might have legs, but artistic judgments (that award ceremonies are based upon) are inherently subjective. Therefore, no firm conclusions can fairly be drawn. Perhaps liberals would advocate a cultural diversity system for Hollywood similar to that of college admissions?

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