When it’s the choice between standing with victims of sexual misconduct and siding with the powerful men who allegedly abused them, Hillary Clinton normally chooses the latter.
She has done this for her husband, former President Bill Clinton, who has been accused of multiple acts of sexual harassment and assault. She has even been an active participant in the sliming of her husband’s alleged victims.
On Wednesday, we were reminded once again of where Clinton’s loyalties normally lie when it comes to the intersection of sexual abuse and worldly power when journalist Ronan Farrow said she tried to cancel an interview with him because of his work uncovering disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s decades of misconduct.
“Hillary Clinton had scheduled an interview while I was at the height of the Weinstein reporting, and her folks got in touch and said, ‘We hear you’re working on a big story,’ [they] sounded very concerned, and tried to cancel the interview,” Farrow told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos.
The ABC anchor pressed, “Over the Weinstein stuff?”
“Over the Weinstein stuff,” Farrow responded.
Ronan Farrow says he had an interview slated with Hillary Clinton for his new book but her people cancelled it when they found out he was reporting on the Harvey Weinstein story: pic.twitter.com/2gHdYK7dFg
— Aidan McLaughlin (@aidnmclaughlin) April 25, 2018
Weinstein, of course, is a longtime Clinton friend and donor.
To hear she reportedly tried to back out of the interview of the Weinstein scandal is to be reminded that this is basically what Clinton does whenever she’s faced with a choice between victims and her allies.
You’d never think this, however, from following her 2016 campaign. On the trail, she presented herself as a fierce and tireless advocate for all women, particularly abuse victims.
“Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported,” she tweeted in November 2015.
That was just the start. As the election got underway, she played the women card and she played it hard.
“And it may be hard to see tonight, but we are all standing under a glass ceiling right now,” she said after she became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. “There are still ceilings to break — for women and men, for all of us. … This campaign is about making sure there are no ceilings — no limits — on any of us.”
Later, after Donald Trump accused her of running on the fact that she is a woman, her team concocted a response that went like this, “If fighting for women’s health care and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the ‘woman card,’ then deal me in.”
She said this at practically every campaign stop. You get the picture. The campaign was heavy on the girl power rhetoric, which makes it doubly jarring to know that the real-life version of Clinton is usually loath to side with alleged victims if means being at odds with her allies.
If she’s not running defense for her husband, she’s shielding a top campaign adviser credibly accused of sexual misconduct or she’s hiding from reporters who may or may not have difficult questions about her relationship to other serial predators.
Every survivor deserves to be heard indeed.
There’s a reason why Clinton was dogged throughout the 2016 presidential election by questions about whether she actually cares about women who say they’ve been sexually harassed and abused.
