Tipsheet

Hillary: Hey Look, This is Not the Harvey Weinstein I Once Knew, or Something

After waiting five days to put out a short statement on the Harvey Weinstein scandal through her spokesman, twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton finally personally addressed the issue in a CNN interview on Wednesday.  She told host Fareed Zakaria that the allegations against Weinstein make her feel "sick," "shocked" and "appalled," distancing herself from a man she had "known in the past" -- pointing out that "many others" within her political party are also in the same boat.

Notice how, within this short snippet, she emphasizes on multiple occasions that she's not alone among politicians who've counted Weinstein as a friend and major supporter.  Because this isn't really just her problem, you must understand.  But the fact is, the Clinton-Weinstein nexus was deep, lasting, mutually-beneficial, and thrived until very recently.  As in, like, six days ago.  John Sexton reminds us of a few facts: "In reality, Weinstein was a bundler for her campaign last year. He hosted not one but two 'star-studded' fundraisers for her campaign last summer. After her loss, Weinstein was invited to the special donor consolation party she hosted in December. Someone she 'had known in the past' is not an accurate description," he writes.  Then again, accurate descriptions aren't really her thing.  Never change, Hillary.  Asked about whether she'll return the gobs of Weinstein cash that have filled her campaign funds over the years, Clinton says that she intends to bundle the movie mogul's money into her annual charitable donation:


Say, will that charity be the Clinton Foundation, or one of its offshoots, perchance?  And what about this obvious criticism of her proposed gesture?


It's still a better plan than the DNC's insultingly ridiculous posture, which entails keeping almost all of Weinstein's money, and "giving away" the rest to political organizations whose missions are directly in line with that of the DNC.  A very, very low bar.  Finally, we highlighted one of (liberal) celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain's negative tweets about Hillary's response to all of this earlier, but here are few more, for the road:


The replies from liberals to this thread range from "but whatabout?!?" to, ta da, "misogyny!"  By the way, does Hillary have any updated thoughts on believing the stories of all female victims of alleged sexual assault vis-a-vis another prominent man in her life?