There should be a rule: If you had nothing to say about Bill Clinton’s history of sexual misconduct until 2016, then you don’t get to be appalled about it now.
That takes care of just about everyone in the national media.
After the former president said in a TV interview Monday that he didn’t want to relitigate the Monica Lewinsky affair, reporters and commentators complained that he wasn’t sorry enough.
“Clinton is probably correct that history (and public sentiment) have validated his view of the impeachment drive against him as basically illegitimate,” New York Times reporter Nick Confessore said on Twitter. “But the opposite is happening regarding his underlying personal behavior. And he does not seem prepared to grapple with it.”
Why would Clinton suddenly be “prepared to grapple” with what the press excused him for right up until — let me check my watch — six seconds ago?
It was just one presidential election ago that Clinton was cast by the media as a god.
The New York Times raved about Clinton’s “impassioned plea” to re-elect former President Barack Obama at the 2012 Democratic National Convention.
“The 2012 campaign has solidified (or restored) Mr. Clinton’s status as the hardest-working man in a game he loves and plays like no one else,” said yet another article in the paper.
Washington Post writer Jena McGregor called it “a masterful piece of political oratory” and lauded Clinton’s “stirring yet down-home style.”
CNN Republican commentator Alex Castellanos said the speech would be “a good reason why” Obama would win re-election.
After Clinton’s interview this week, MSNBC “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski called the confrontation over Lewinsky “the interview that I’ve always wanted to see” and that she had “been waiting decades for.”
She didn’t have to wait that long. Brzezinski and her co-host Joe Scarborough interviewed Clinton themselves eight years ago.
Neither of them asked Clinton about the thing Brzezinski had “been waiting decades for.”
Instead, here’s a bit of what Scarborough said to Clinton while Brzezinski looked on: “Sitting here listening to you talk, I know there are a lot of people that are opinion leaders and shapers that watch this show that are sitting there thinking, ‘Why can’t he run for president in a couple years?’”
Here’s a little more of Scarborough: “You’ve always been known as the brightest, first in class, however you want to put it …”
And finally: “What have you done through the years and what do you hope to do through the years that will continue making this world a better place?”
Brzezinski’s main contribution was to ask Clinton what the Obama White House “could do better” in their public relations.
She and the rest of the media haven’t been “waiting decades” for a sufficient Clinton confession. They only want one now because it’s the last thing standing between them and feeling fully justified in wanting one from President Trump.
