YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT HYPOCRISY?
YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT HYPOCRISY? BILL CLINTON GIVES NEW MEANING TO THE TERM!
By
Ken Eliasberg
Forgive me for interrupting my omnibus-issue columns (of which there will be three), but one of Slick Willie’s latest effusions was just too irresistible to pass up. As previously noted, I had intended to, and will, spend the next 6 months or so reliving the Clinton days, just to acquaint some of our youth who may have been too young to be aware of what was transpiring during the Clinton White House years and/or to remind the rest of you of the degradation and dishonesty that the Clintons visited on America. And I did not intend to start the process with Bill; rather it was (and remains) my intent to devote most of the ensuing months to Hillary. But, it is difficult to separate the two, for, as I noted in a previous column, they are really two halves of the same despicably dishonest whole. But watching Bill Clinton campaigning in South Carolina reminds one of just what a sociopath this guy is. While trying to justify his taking a step back from his overly enthusiastic campaign in support of his wife (in response to some of the heat that he was taking for savaging Barak Obama (while blaming the whole ugly mess on poor Barak)), he waxed sentimental in justifying his deplorable conduct. What did he do? In the act of purporting to back off, he reminded his listeners how difficult it was to hear unkind comments about someone he loved. Who might that be? His wife, silly. Now wouldn’t that demonstration of love (touching though it may be to the niave, the terminally stupid, or the true believers) be somewhat more convincing if he hadn’t been sleeping with almost every woman who would go to bed with him (and groping (Kathleen Willey), raping (Juanita Broaddrick), and exposing himself(Paula Jones) to those who wouldn’t)?
The guy never ceases to amaze me. Normally, I would say that he gives the term chutzpah — not to mention hypocrisy - a whole new meaning, but it goes well beyond that. That’s why I use the term sociopath — someone who has a very limited concept of either honesty or right or wrong; someone who can look you in the eye, tell you it’s raining on a completely sunny dayand make many believe it. Why? Because he believes it; either that or puts on the most convincing act that you have ever seen. That’s why at one point I argued that if Ronald Reagan had been half the actor that Bill Clinton is, Reagan would have won an Oscar for Bed Time for Bonzo. But since then, I have seen the error of my ways. Bill Clinton’s not acting; he believe the garbage that he’s feeding you. Oh don’t get me wrong; there are times — most of them in fact — when Slick Willie is just flat out lying to you. He and his wife are the most mendacious people to ever come to Washington (and, in saying this, I am very familiar with the many despicable types, on both sides of the aisle, that have inhabited that town). But in the honesty department, they were penny ante types compared to the Clintons. When youcouple their dishonesty with their viciousness, you wind up with something in the nature of a political mafia.
But all of the dishonesty and viciousness can be explained in fairly rational terms. Bill’s dishonesty, however, goes well beyond anything rational. And that is why I use the term “sociopath.” As a character Bill’s grandiosity goes well beyond mild terms like narcissism or solipsism; these terms are much to mild to capture the essential and integral dishonesty of Slick Willie.
If the stakes weren’t so high — i.e. if we were not talking about the fate of America, whose security Bill so fundamentally violated — it would be almost amusing to watch him operate. Because he is an operator — the consummate operator; a sort of cross between Huey Long and Elmer Gantry — a disgustingly gutless gasbag, whose manipulative skills afford him almost instant access to the gullible, the ignorant, and those on the left who just don’t give a damn, i.e. those who say that we don’t care about what he did — he may be a dirt bag, but he’s our dirt bag — those who are so partisan that politics always trumps principles — even when national security is at stake.
But how he can stand in front of an audience and feign how hurt he is because his poor (and even more vicious) spouse is suffering the slings and arrows of political campaigning? Are these lefties so stupid as to buy that, or so partisan as not to give a damn? Don’t any of these people ask themselves how can he complain about routine campaign indignities that have understandably been placed in his wife’s path (mostly by her own design) when, in their totality, they pale in comparison to the multitude of hurts that this loving lethario has heaped upon poor Hillary? Doesn’t any lefty get it? Can’t they see through the charade that is the Clintons?
And the answer is, as previously noted, obvious. She hasn’t been hurt by his behavior; she has been humanized by it. Bill’s exposed infidelities have a transformative effect on Hillary’s image — she goes from villain (and let me assure you that she is one) to victim. Now lefty ladies, help me out here. As I have often inquired, how does a woman — particularly the allegedly world’s smartest woman — become a victim on her husband’s 500th (or more, since he has been cheating over the entire course of their more than 30-year relationship) dalliance? Help me out here — how does that happen?? And ladies, if you buy what the Clintons are selling in connection with marital infidelities, then would you buy it from your own husband, i.e. would you be so continuously forgiving of a compulsively serial adulterer? And, if you would not, how do you explain the tolerance which you lavish on the Clintons? I’d love to understand your reasoning.