OPINION

The Re-Rehabilitation Of The Clintons

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.

Tonight, former President Bill Clinton speaks at the Democratic National Convention. Tomorrow night, it’s his wife Hillary’s turn. The pervert and the enabler. Hell of a line-up Democrats have assembled. 

It wasn’t that long ago Democrats were condemning Bill for his well-documented perverted past. They didn’t mean it, of course, but they did it. 

Remember the #MeToo movement? When the left pretended to care about sexual harassment and women being abused by men? Democrat politicians and donors were dropping like flies – John Conyers, Al Franken, Harvey Weinstein, etc. – the party was having a rough go of it. 

Then came the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Democrats manufactured an opportunity for them to get a scalp. There was one big problem, however, the former president of the United States was a well-known philanderer who’d been accused on multiple occasions of not taking “no” for an answer. 

Bill Clinton’s handsy, gropey history with women and soiling dresses was well documented, he’d even confessed to an affair with Monica Lewinsky (eventually) when she was an underling in the White House. That’s a huge power discrepancy, which liberals told us was a no-no but looked the other way at the time. 

With the Kavanaugh hearing looming, Democrats recognized the hypocrisy was too much to ignore; they had to address it. 

The condemnation of Bill Clinton, nearly two decades too late, came from various quarters of the Democratic Party, with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) saying he should have resigned at the time. She, along with all those Democrats who suddenly found a conscience on the issue, of course, was silent about it before it became a political liability. Having situational ethics means you don’t really have ethics at all.

Bill and Hillary receded a little in the party, but reemerged after a while to resume their previous role. 

Then came Jeffrey Epstein, their friend and donor. Bill traveled around the world with the most famous child sexual predator in history. “Bill only traveled on Epstein’s “Lolita Express” for charity causes in Africa,” we were told. The story broke and quickly went away. Then Epstein “committed suicide” in custody and that was that.

But that wasn’t that. One of Epstein’s chief accusers claimed in a court filing that Bill was on the pervert’s private island, widely known as “pedophile island.” This fact was immediately ignored by traditional media outlets because it was wildly inconvenient. That doesn’t make it untrue.

I have no idea whether Bill was there or not, nor does anyone else ignoring the claim. Clinton’s spokesman denied it in a short statement and he’s not been asked about it (likely won’t be). Hillary has done interviews since then, and Bill’s chief enabler hasn’t been asked about it either.

The Clintons are helpful to Democrats again, at least right now. They have a lot of liberal friends with very deep pockets, and Democrats will do anything for money. 

Remember Ed Buck? If that name doesn’t sound familiar that’s because he was a huge Democratic Party donor in California who had a problem with young gay black men overdosing in his house and the national media did all they could to cover it as quickly as possible and move on. The party that loves identity politics and accusing people of racism, largely ignored this rich white guy’s penchant for victimizing gay black men because his checks cleared. 

Same reason people like George Stephanopoulos went to Epstein’s “welcome home dinner” after being released from prison on child sex charges a few years ago – if you have money, or can provide the party access to people who do, Democrats will forgive or ignore anything. 

The Clintons can bring in money, so the Clintons can do damn near anything in the eyes of Democrats. Sure, they’ll embarrass themselves and the party from time to time, but the checks clear, and they are big. So if a few lives have to be destroyed, if you have to take a Silkwood shower or lock your wallet away in a drawer somewhere while you meet with them, so be it. 

Normal people would have a problem with this, probably not be able to sleep over the prospect of empowering monsters to destroy lives. No one like that, no one normal, will be on your TV screen over the course of this week because, while the convention may be virtual, the lust for power and Democrats’ willingness to do anything to get it is quite literal.  

Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!), host of a daily radio show onvWCBM in Maryland, and author of the book,vOutrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter and on Parler at @DerekHunter.