Hillary Clinton after winning the Nevada Democratic caucus vote in 2008. Todd Heisler/The New York Times
I’m sorry, gentle reader. You’ve spent the week listening to terrible news on everything from flu to foreign affairs, and now we’ve got a story about how Hillary Clinton tolerated sexual harassment in her presidential campaign.
There are several ways to handle this, and one is definitely to consider moving to another country. Another is to say that you’re not going to listen to any of this as long as the country is run by a man whose track record on sexual issues is Cro-Magnon. Or to ask what would have happened to Hillary if she had been recorded bragging about how fame gives her the right to grab men by their private parts.
But let’s be tough-minded and think this new controversy through: According to a Times report by Maggie Haberman and Amy Chozick, during the 2008 presidential campaign, a senior Clinton aide named Burns Strider was accused of sexually harassing a woman who had the bad luck to be working in his office. Clinton’s campaign manager recommended he be fired. Instead, the candidate opted for sending him to counseling and docking him several weeks’ pay. The law firm that worked for the campaign said it had set up a process for handling sexual harassment complaints and this was “appropriate action.”
One of the deep, deep ironies of this story is Strider’s job, which was “faith adviser.” Among his duties was sending Clinton scriptural passages every morning.
Things I take into consideration here: As Gail points out it was a first offense, and he likely would have remained in the Democratic Party system anyway. It was ten years ago when the landscape was very different. Hillary’s 2008 campaign differed from her 2016 campaign. The earlier campaign was not focused as heavily on women’s issues as the later one. In fact, advisors steered her away from the “woman candidate” role then.
Finally, and this is key to my take, no one, least of all Hillary Clinton, has ever said Hillary Clinton was perfect. It was an imperfect decision. She is human and makes mistakes.
I called her today to tell her how proud I am of her and to make sure she knows what all women should: we deserve to be heard.
But was it a mistake? Possibly it was, but I don’t have enough info to make that judgment. One of the main takeaways for me of yesterday’s mass hysteria in the media and on social media over a 10 year old sexual harassment case is how heavily pre-conditioned (one might say brainwashed) we ALL are to believe the worst of Hillary even without all relevant facts. The assumption even among her supporters yesterday seemed to be that even if she wasn’t exactly “shielding” Strider, she was leaning in his favor over the interests of the victim. In fact, we don’t know how Hillary reached this decision or who was consulted about it beyond her campaign manager–a woman who over the course of that campaign would reveal issues of her own. We only know what the consequences for the harassment were, not how they were arrived at. We don’t even know if the victim wanted her harasser fired. Many don’t. They just want the harassment to stop. I was struck by how no one yesterday seemed to be centering the victim in their concerns–until Hillary took to Twitter last night and did center her. Unfortunately, too many commentators just saw a chance to attack Hillary and took it. Their faux outrage was pretty apparent beginning with media outlets like the NYT, MSNBC, and CNN, all of whom also chose not to fire sexual harassers.
As for the concerns of Gloria Steinem and other progressives about having a “faith advisor” to help in outreach to religious communities, this has been a blind spot for Democrats for a long time. In the previous presidential cycle, John Kerry was criticized after the election for insufficient outreach to faith communities that would be sympathetic to progressive messaging, leaving all religious voters vulnerable to George Bush’s faith dog whistles. In the African American community, especially, religious outreach is essential. The problem isn’t having a faith advisor. It’s having one who engages in sexual abuse.
And that this story swamped the much more timely and relevant Steve Wynn story is further proof where none was needed that our political media is broken beyond repair.
How come Hillary Clinton keeps getting her reputation tarnished because of the actions of the Men around her? Do men’s reputation ever get tarnished based on the actions of the Women around them, usually Men are viewed as noble for putting up with the situation.
It’s because if the media keep the focus on Hillary–“it’s all her fault!”–they never have to look in the mirror. Mark Halperin apologist, Morning Mika, has now joined the lynch mob.
This story has officially reached the point where I want to be loaded into a rocket ship and shot directly into the sun.
I agree completely with your assessment of the “shielding” incident. It’s not fair to judge something that happened 10 years ago through today’s #metoo standards.
Hillary is ALWAYS held to a different standard than everyone else…..which is why we have the pussy grabbing nut job in the White House to begin with. He can do anything … she can’t. Bottom line. By the way – I wonder when the media is going to give the Trump marriage the same scrutiny as they did the Clinton’s.
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But was it a mistake? Possibly it was, but I don’t have enough info to make that judgment. One of the main takeaways for me of yesterday’s mass hysteria in the media and on social media over a 10 year old sexual harassment case is how heavily pre-conditioned (one might say brainwashed) we ALL are to believe the worst of Hillary even without all relevant facts. The assumption even among her supporters yesterday seemed to be that even if she wasn’t exactly “shielding” Strider, she was leaning in his favor over the interests of the victim. In fact, we don’t know how Hillary reached this decision or who was consulted about it beyond her campaign manager–a woman who over the course of that campaign would reveal issues of her own. We only know what the consequences for the harassment were, not how they were arrived at. We don’t even know if the victim wanted her harasser fired. Many don’t. They just want the harassment to stop. I was struck by how no one yesterday seemed to be centering the victim in their concerns–until Hillary took to Twitter last night and did center her. Unfortunately, too many commentators just saw a chance to attack Hillary and took it. Their faux outrage was pretty apparent beginning with media outlets like the NYT, MSNBC, and CNN, all of whom also chose not to fire sexual harassers.
LikeLiked by 1 person
As for the concerns of Gloria Steinem and other progressives about having a “faith advisor” to help in outreach to religious communities, this has been a blind spot for Democrats for a long time. In the previous presidential cycle, John Kerry was criticized after the election for insufficient outreach to faith communities that would be sympathetic to progressive messaging, leaving all religious voters vulnerable to George Bush’s faith dog whistles. In the African American community, especially, religious outreach is essential. The problem isn’t having a faith advisor. It’s having one who engages in sexual abuse.
LikeLiked by 2 people
And that this story swamped the much more timely and relevant Steve Wynn story is further proof where none was needed that our political media is broken beyond repair.
LikeLiked by 2 people
How come Hillary Clinton keeps getting her reputation tarnished because of the actions of the Men around her? Do men’s reputation ever get tarnished based on the actions of the Women around them, usually Men are viewed as noble for putting up with the situation.
LikeLiked by 2 people
It’s because if the media keep the focus on Hillary–“it’s all her fault!”–they never have to look in the mirror. Mark Halperin apologist, Morning Mika, has now joined the lynch mob.
This story has officially reached the point where I want to be loaded into a rocket ship and shot directly into the sun.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I agree completely with your assessment of the “shielding” incident. It’s not fair to judge something that happened 10 years ago through today’s #metoo standards.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I wish they would leave her alone.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hillary is ALWAYS held to a different standard than everyone else…..which is why we have the pussy grabbing nut job in the White House to begin with. He can do anything … she can’t. Bottom line. By the way – I wonder when the media is going to give the Trump marriage the same scrutiny as they did the Clinton’s.
LikeLiked by 1 person
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[…] I said when I first posted on this issue, Hillary is the first person to admit that she is not perfect and sometimes, like all […]
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Strongest and most brilliant woman ever😍
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