Randi Kreiss

Bill’s bad behavior does not disqualify Hillary

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During his first term in office, Bill Clinton was earning good grades as president, proving to be a masterful politician and a great communicator-in-chief. He was the major player on the world stage. Stature, legacy and global respect were his to lose and, sadly, he did his best to do so. In 1995, he began an extramarital affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, a shocking moral lapse, which became public in 1998.

When he fell off the monogamy wagon (if he was ever on it) and had sex with Lewinsky, millions of supporters felt betrayed. Actually, “betrayed” is too mild a word. Along with other Americans, I was stunned and outraged by Clinton’s shocking abuse of a young intern. Although she was not a minor, he abused the power of his office, and effectively ruined her life. It was a searing humiliation for the first lady and their teenage daughter.

But that was Bill, his life, his presidency, his choices.

At the time, I admired Hillary Clinton for her strength, her determination to keep her family together and her refusal to be defined by his sexual escapades. She went on to become a senator from New York, a presidential candidate, the secretary of state and now the front-running candidate for president.

What went on, or goes on, between the Clintons in their private life, we can never know. Nor is it relevant.

Those who suggest that Hillary is somehow disqualified to run for president because her husband had affairs are sexist and wrong on every level. I am surprised to hear people, especially women, say that she doesn’t have the moral authority to denounce sexism where and when she sees it. Her husband’s philandering does not compromise her.

Opponents ask, how dare she talk about gender issues like abortion and contraception? How can she condemn the sexist talk and tactics of Donald Trump and others when her own marriage is a veritable glass house? They suggest she is somehow complicit in her husband’s profligacy. And that claim of complicity, I suggest, is deeply sexist in itself. Hillary is her own person. She will stand or fall on her own in this election.

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