An About-Face So Fast It Was A Spin
I’ve formed a theory about Bill Clinton, the President with the supposedly distinctive … uh … genital area.
I formed this theory the other day after reading a news story about remarks made by Bob Bennett, the President’s hotshot lawyer in this court case Paula Jones has filed.
Now, in case you’re not fully up to speed on all this, permit me to summarize: Paula Jones was an employee of the state of Arkansas when Bill Clinton was governor. She alleges in a lawsuit that Clinton, as governor, ordered a state trooper bring her to a hotel room where the governor was staying.
Once inside the room, Ms. Jones alleges, the governor dropped his pants and invited her to … well, I suppose that printing the direct quote from the governor as cited in Ms. Jones’ lawsuit is totally out of the question - especially when my home newspaper is read by so many impressionable state legislators.
Ms. Jones maintains that she was highly offended by this proposition, said no and left immediately. She claims that she filed suit only after the state trooper recounted the story of taking her to the hotel room and left the impression that she’d cooperated with the governor’s request.
The trooper did that in an article in a conservative publication in which Clinton’s old troopers blabbed about his romantic adventures outside marriage.
She also maintains that she can back up her allegation. She says that when Bill Clinton dropped his pants, the governor displayed a distinctive characteristic on his, ahem, genital area.
She hasn’t been specific, but this characteristic has been described as either a mole the size of a quarter or (absolutely no kidding) a tattoo of an American eagle.
For a few years now, this has been only an allegation by Ms. Jones, who has since left Arkansas state service and become the darling of the political right. Now, however, the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that she can take the President to court on a charge of sexual harassment.
He was, after all, her boss’s boss. He was in charge of the entire state government, and she was only a low-level worker. This is the classic sexual harassment scenario - a guy with workplace power accused of soliciting sex from a subordinate employee.
But all the gender warriors who were so worked up about Anita Hill’s charge that Clarence Thomas had talked dirty to her seemed surprisingly disinterested in what Paula Jones says was done to her.
It was starting to look like gender activists figured that only women with agreeable politics could be harassed. And only men with disagreeable political views, like Thomas, could be guilty of doing it.
What’s interesting about this is that the other day Bob Bennett went on television to say that if Ms. Jones insists on pressing this suit, then he plans to explore her sexual history in court - in lurid detail. Bennett would grill her mercilessly on who, when, how many times and in what positions.
Usually, the gender warriors are the first to complain that a woman’s sexual history is irrelevent to whether she’s been harassed, abused or raped. And, Tuesday, they finally took a stand on behalf of Paula Jones. The National Organization of Women condemned the tactic Bennett threatened, and NBC reported that Bennett has decided against using it after all.
What wonderful stuff all this is. But, about my theory. It’s simply this. That American eagle, if it’s there, is hiding its face behind its wings.
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