Year of the intern

National Review, Feb 23, 1998 by Kate O'Beirne

During the Year of the Woman in 1992, a record number of women ran for the Senate, many of them expressing their determination to avenge the treatment accorded Anita Hill by male senators during the Clarence Thomas hearings. This November, these avenging female senators will be running for re-election during the Year of the Intern. At the Democratic convention in New York City during the Year of the Woman, feminists published a newsletter titled The Getting It Gazette. That title now aptly describes the adulterous adventures of the man nominated at that convention. But like battered spouses, Clinton's female supporters will bear any humiliation rather than abandon their guy.

Hillary Clinton rallied the sisterhood to provide cover for her lying Lothario, and it has meekly complied. Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organization for Women, finds the intern scandal "frustrating" because it is "such a distraction from the key issues that are facing us, questions of public policy and foreign policy." To help us all put the pesky distraction behind us, NOW is asking White House and congressional officials to sign a pledge "to reject sexually intimate relations with employees and volunteers." Now there's a campaign pledge! But not everyone needs to make such a declaration. Not everyone has Bill Clinton's contempt for women.

Signed pledges to keep hands off the help haven't gotten other sexual miscreants off the feminists' hook. When John Tower was nominated to be Secretary of Defense in 1989 and allegations of adulterous conduct surfaced, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D., Md.) manned the barricades to prevent someone who "so clearly demonstrates disrespect for women" from taking the top Pentagon job. The senator declared, "The phrase `conduct unbecoming an officer' is an important concept in the U.S. military. It has been applied over the past two hundred years in order to maintain a standard of behavior that inspires respect not only of the military but of us civilians, too. I believe the Senate should apply the same standard to the man who would be second in command in the United States."

Sen. Mikulski hasn't explained what standard of behavior is appropriate for the Commander-in-Chief. But as a member of me Senate Ethics Committee, she concluded that Sen. Bob Packwood should be expelled owing to his "systematic abuse of women, power, and this Senate."

Sen. Packwood's mistreatment of women became public knowledge during his re-election campaign in 1992, but it had been well known to his feminist supporters for over twenty years. He grabbed one abortion-rights lobbyist in his office in 1982. She later explained that she did nothing about the assault because Packwood enthusiastically supported her agenda.

So long as the misbehavior of the feminists' faithful friend could be kept secret, it was. But once he had been outed as a sexual predator, his female colleagues demanded that the Ethics Committee conduct public hearings. Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California, Patty Murray of Washington, Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois, and Dianne Feinstein of California agreed that "serious allegations of misconduct by any member of the Senate should be fully and publicly aired."

Sen. Packwood was finally forced to resign in 1995. Sen. Boxer praised the "precedent-setting" Ethics Committee decision because "in recommending his expulsion they are sending a very clear message that the Senate has zero tolerance for the type of behavior he exhibited over the course of his public service." Two years earlier, Sen. Boxer had urged Packwood to resign. At that time, Sen. Feinstein declared that if he was guilty as charged, "his credibility as a United States senator is destroyed.... he should resign."

Sen. Murray was chiefly concerned with vindicating Packwood's accusers in order not to discourage similarly mistreated women from seeking redress. "If you are harassed, keep quiet, say nothing, the cards are stacked against you ever winning," she said. "Procedures, rules, and other issues will obscure the allegations being investigated."

Patricia Ireland said of the Packwood case, "This has to be a heads-up for men in power. You can't treat women as the spoils of power." Unless you're the husband of a feminist icon, and she's willing to protect you.

The Kathleen Willey and Monica Lewinsky scandals expose Bill Clinton's immorality, recklessness, contempt for women, and betrayal of his daughter. Hillary Clinton serves as his enabler in exchange for a share in his political power--he can abuse his as long as she gets to wield hers. She gets to screw around with health care, he gets to screw around. And if he gets caught like a naughty little boy, she will take charge and clean up his mess--and see her power enhanced. This is the pathetic role model feminists urge young women to emulate.

Although any self-respecting woman would prefer a Promise Keeper randomly plucked off the Washington Mall to Hillary's philandering partner, feminists sneer at husbands who celebrate fidelity and defend the country's most prominent Promise Breaker.