Revising Lewinsky

Last year, people decided to revisit the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

This time, however, they did so with compassion.

Poor Monica was the victim of a sexist time.

Bill got off easy, while Monica was dragged through the mud, and then thrown in history's scrap heap.

Okay, I thought, I'm onboard for this line of thinking.  After all, when the scandal went down, Lewinsky seemed like an adult to me, because I was just a kid, and now I'm almost a decade older than she was when it happened, so I can look at her with a different perspective.

People in their early twenties do stupid shit.  And the stupid shit you do in your twenties shouldn't ruin your life.

But then this year rolled around...

And suddenly, Monica was off the hook, and Hillary Clinton was impaled on it.

As for Bill--Well, he's the guy, so people love him.  They don't want to love him, but they just can't help themselves.  He does that "Aw shucks, I'm just a country boy, but here's some jokes about Republicans" thing better than anybody, and so the thought of him getting head from a girl in her twenties and then lying about is met with chuckles and nostalgia.  Like, "Oh, that Bill.  Couldn't keep his pecker in his pants, but you know, that was part of his charm."

But Hillary?

Hillary was the evil troll who set upon destroying Monica Lewinsky.

Just Hillary.

Not Kenneth Starr (Who?  Who was he?  God, I wish we had some way to look this stuff up.  Some magical box that let us find out what happened before today.)

Not the Republican Congress.
Not Newt Gingrich.
Not the Media.

Just Hillary.

Now, I'm a little worried about writing this, because I don't want to slut-shame, but...

I don't think you should hold what somebody does at the age of twenty-two against them forever, but that being said--Blowing a married guy is not a good choice.

It's not smart.
It's not sexy.
And in that moment, making that choice, you're being an asshole.

A slut?  I wouldn't say that.
An asshole?  Yes.

Blowing married people makes you an asshole.  And it makes the married person you're blowing an asshole.

And yes, you can be an asshole at twenty-two, because the law says if you stab somebody to death at twenty-two, you get tried as an adult.

If you're old enough to vote, drink, and watch an Eli Roth movie without supervision, you're old enough to be an asshole.

Now, after twenty years go by, you're also allowed to look back on the things you did, and how people treated you, and reflect.

Yes, maybe you did caught up in a giant witch hunt that cost the tax-payers millions and became a national joke, and yes, maybe that wasn't fair.

But at some point, you also have to go--I blew a married guy, and that was stupid and wrong, and I apologize to that's guy's daughter and wife.

Meaning Chelsea annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd...?

That's right.

Now, should Bill apologize?

He should apologize every hour on the hour for the rest of eternity, but you should also apologize.

You don't totally get off the hook.
That's not how that works.

You weren't six, you were twenty-two.
And yes, twenty-two falls under "young and stupid" but it doesn't fall under "young and not responsible for your actions."

Sorry, but no.

You were an asshole.
Hillary was not.

Has she been an asshole about other stuff?  Totally.
But getting cheated on does not make her an asshole.  It makes her a victim.

And if she called you a slut, guess what?  She's entitled to do that.
You blew her husband.  That gives her carte blanche to say whatever she wants about you.

Women who get cheated on aren't required to be noble about it.
If I were Hillary, I would have lit your twenty-two year old ass on fire and draped you from the nearest flagpole as a warning to other rambunctious interns with Daddy issues--

--But that's just me.

I mean, forget about blowing the President.
You blew Hillary Clinton's husband.

You blew the husband of the toughest (and some might say scariest) woman in the world.
That was just dumb.
That was just really dumb.

So upon examination, yes, you definitely got raked over the coals.
But now there's this thing creeping in.

This discussion of the affair with phrases like "But you know Hillary..."

No.

No, no, no.

We're not doing that.
We're not going down that road.

The flip side of slut-shaming the other woman is implying that the guy wouldn't have had to cheat if his wife wasn't such a shrew.

All that does is free the guy from taking any of the blame, and it has added misogynistic bonus of making both women look bad at the same time.

So why don't we just leave the affair alone?

I'm not saying pretend it never happened--although George W. and Cheney are still walking around free for some reason, so apparently ignoring history is something we're all just going to have to get used to.

We impeached Clinton, we dragged Lewinsky through the mud, it was a huge waste of time and money, and then we looked back and agreed it was stupid, and now we can all move on.

No need to open that up again and try to find a way to peg the whole thing on Hillary just because she's running for office.

There's a lot of stuff you can criticize her for, but her husband cheating on her isn't one of them.