Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., built her political career on the backs of the Clintons.
But now that the former first family’s political fortunes have all but evaporated following the 2016 presidential election, the New York senator has jumped on a 20-years-too-late bandwagon that says it is time we get serious about Bill Clinton’s storied history of sexual misconduct.
With friends like these, right?
Gillibrand was asked directly this week if Bill Clinton should’ve resigned from the White House when it was discovered he was engaged in an extramarital, extra-sleazy relationship with a 22-year-old intern named Monica Lewinsky. Remember, America’s 42nd president was 49-years-old at the time.
“Yes, I think that is the appropriate response,” the New York senator said during an interview this week for the New York Times’ podcast, “The New Washington.”
What a difference a year makes.
It was just last January that Gillibrand wrote in an essay announcing her support for the Democratic nominee for president that, “In my adult life, politically, no one has inspired me to get off the sidelines and truly make a difference more than Hillary Clinton has.” It was just last year that she wrote of her first senatorial campaign, “I was lucky enough to receive guidance and mentorship from Hillary during that run, and was truly honored that President Bill Clinton campaigned for me in my first run for Congress in 2006.”
True, Hillary is not Bill, but you try telling them that. The Clintons are a package deal – remember “Buy one, get one free”? – and it has been that way since Bill’s first presidential campaign in 1992. At any rate, Gillibrand, whom the Clintons rewarded in 2009 for her years of loyal service by bequeathing her the Senate seat previously held by Hillary, has treated both as equally excellent public servants.
The Clintons campaigned for her, and she returned the favor in 2016 by campaigning for them. It was a symbiotic relationship that worked out quite nicely.
But that was then, back when the Clinton brand mattered. Today, after Hillary’s stunning and unbelievable loss to Donald Trump, the brand has lost most of its value. So, Gillibrand has turned on them, tossing Bill Clinton overboard to cash in on the “Me Too” movement.
“Things have changed today,” Gillibrand told the Times this week, referring specifically to the Lewinsky scandal. “I think under those circumstances there should be a very different reaction. And I think in light of this conversation, we should have a very different conversation about President Trump, and a very different conversation about allegations against him.”
Twist the blade a little harder, senator.
Gillibrand’s remarks this week on the Lewinsky scandal are so disingenuous, so contemptibly opportunistic, that it’s difficult not to come away from this deeply annoyed.
She didn’t sit and meditate on this. This isn’t a conclusion reached after years of careful and deliberate consideration. Gillibrand came to this conclusion a mere 12 months after she embraced, boosted, and stumped to put Bill and Hillary back in the White House as if the world’s fate depended on it.
She has spent years licking their boots and begging for their scraps. She was doing it as recently as last year! She thought they were going back to the White House, and she didn’t give a damn what kind of skeletons they had in their closet. But now that the Clinton star has faded, and now that we’re currently engaged in a national conversation about the intersection of power and sexual misconduct, well, now it’s time to talk seriously about Bill’s sordid past.
Draw your own conclusions.
