The Irony and the Awfulness
As you can see in this story here, we are now getting the details of what we've suspected or known in outline since the news first broke last year: that Denny Hastert, the longest serving Republican Speaker of the House in history, second in the line to the presidency for eight years, was a serial pedophile who preyed on adolescent boys in his charge when he was a high school wrestling coach before entering electoral politics. What is worth remembering is that Hastert's improbable rise to the pinnacle of political power in Washington was a direct consequence of Republican party efforts to exploit and eventually criminalize Bill Clinton's extramarital sex life in order to overturn the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections. The chain of events is clear and straightforward.
First, before reviewing the history, lets stipulate that sexual abuse of minors is a category greater offense than marital infidelity, which is inherently private and really no business of the state's one way or another. Still, Hastert's rise is so inextricably tied to sexual hypocrisy and political moralizing they inevitably become part of a single story.
From before Bill Clinton became President in January 1993, Republican opponents realized that his sexual impulsivity and history of extramarital affairs was one of his greatest political vulnerabilities. The key was how to take the story out of the super market tabloids and into the courts. The first big opportunity was the Republican-backed sexual harassment lawsuit filed by Paula Jones in 1994. It was the legal maneuvering over the Jones lawsuit combined with the double-dip, wildly partisan and almost infinitely wide-ranging Independent Counsel investigation of Ken Starr that led to the revelation of Clinton's sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, which finally led to his impeachment, the first in 130 years, in 1998.
Now, as Hillary Clinton's campaign gathered steam in 2015, there was a reevaluation of this whole sordid history. Absent much of the political context of the 1990s and with different attitudes toward accusations of sexual harassment and rape, many now think that Jones', Juanita Broaddrick's and Kathleen Willey's accusations against Clinton are presumptively true. I have no desire or ability to litigate these claims here. I will simply say that I think the quality of the evidence, the extremely politicized context of each accusation and the wildly abundant evidence of consensual liaisons leaves little reason to believe that Clinton was or is more than a serial cheater on his wife.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-irony-and-the-awfulness
