So it came as a surprise to him when he had no more skirts to hide behind when Craig Melvin asked on the “Today” show whether his actions in the ’90s would fly in the #MeToo era. Bill went to his usual go-to: his excellent record on appointing women. But that Faustian deal of doing good for all women while being bad with a few was no longer on the table. “How would you have approached the accusations differently, or would you have?” Melvin asked. “Well,” he replied, “I don’t think it would be an issue because people would be using the facts, instead of the imagined facts.” So here are the facts, which were as clear 20 years ago as they are now. When Monica Lewinsky came into the Oval Office and flashed her thong, Bill Clinton should have said: “Young lady, go back to your office. I am the president of the United States.” Like Humphrey Bogart in “Casablanca,” Bill should have been doing the thinking for both of them. The power differential between a 22-year-old intern and a 49-year-old boss makes any sexual interaction wrong. And if you throw in the fact that he was president — the country’s parent and someone serving in loco parentis for the youngest White House staffers — it’s an inexcusable abuse of power. Gloria Steinem was off-base when she tried to bolster Clinton in a Times op-ed as the scandal unspooled, writing that “welcome sexual behavior is about as relevant to sexual harassment as borrowing a car is to stealing one.” It took Lewinsky herself 20 years to sort through the trauma and start moving beyond what she calls her PTSD. As she wrote in an eloquent March Vanity Fair piece, “I’m beginning to entertain the notion that in such a circumstance the idea of consent might well be rendered moot.” It was Trump-level narcissism and selfishness on Bill Clinton’s part to force the high-ranking women in his inner circle — Hillary, Madeleine Albright and Donna Shalala — to go before the cameras and vouch for him when he knew the truth and could simply have admitted it, rather than lying, parsing and besmirching. The feminists lost their way performing as human shields, letting Clinton Inc. demonize the willing and unwilling women in Bill’s life and treat them as collateral damage, human sacrifices to the sisters’ dream of a feminist president and first lady.<doc-sep>When Donald Trump was confronted with his taped admission that he had grabbed women “by the pussy” in October 2016, he was quick to change the subject. “Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course—not even close,” he deflected in a statement that doubled as an attack. Clinton must have been taking notes. He trotted out a strikingly similar response when the NBC reporter Craig Melvin, in a bold and incisive interview that aired on the Today show Monday morning, brought up Clinton’s mid-’90s affair with then-intern Monica Lewinsky. Melvin asked the former president if he would have “approached the accusations differently” if they’d come out today, with the #MeToo movement churning in the background. Advertisement “Do you think President Kennedy should have resigned? Do you believe President Johnson should have resigned?” Clinton said, growing openly annoyed with the line of questioning. “Someone should ask you these questions, because of the way you formulate the questions.” Advertisement Advertisement Imagine how powerful it might have been for American boys and men to watch a former president and hero of the Democratic Party grapple openly with his bad sexual behavior. Much like Donald Trump has called the sexual harassment and assault allegations against him “fake news,” Clinton accused Melvin of manipulating information to make him look bad. “You typically have ignored gaping facts in describing this, and I bet you don’t even know them,” he said, seeming to indict the media at large. “You are giving one side and omitting facts.” He offered no examples of the facts Melvin supposedly ignored. Clinton also framed recent reassessments of his actions as attacks borne of political anger—progressives are “frustrated that they’ve got all these serious allegations against the current occupant of the Oval Office and his voters don’t seem to care”—and noted two separate times that “two-thirds of the American people” supported his decision to remain in office after he admitted to the affair. His self-exoneration calls to mind both Trump’s insistence that sexual assault allegations against him are inventions from the minds of his haters and his invocation of the November 2016 election as a response to any criticism. Advertisement Clinton’s aggressive refusal to believe that he has anything to learn from the #MeToo movement is profoundly disappointing. Imagine how powerful it might have been for American boys and men to watch a former president and hero of the Democratic Party grapple openly with his bad sexual behavior. He has all the money and fame a mortal could ask for—with his own presidency two decades past and his wife’s presidential aspirations fettered, he has little reason to fear whatever consequences might come from an honest reckoning with the Lewinsky affair. Clinton could have set a rare positive example for men accused of sexual misconduct, who would do well to reflect on their wrongdoings rather than lash out at anyone who mentions them. Advertisement Advertisement His stance is also unnecessarily defensive. Though Juanita Broaddrick brought credible sexual assault allegations against Clinton more than two decades ago, no one is accusing him of raping Lewinsky. Her contemporary take on the affair is much more nuanced. In an essay published in Vanity Fair earlier this year, she called it “a gross abuse of power.” “He was my boss. He was the most powerful man on the planet,” she recalls in the piece. “He was 27 years my senior, with enough life experience to know better. He was, at the time, at the pinnacle of his career, while I was in my first job out of college.” Surely even a man with future earnings to protect could admit what anyone who’s ever had a single thought about sexual politics can see: What Clinton did was inappropriate, and she’s suffered far worse for his poor decision than he has. Advertisement The interview that aired on Monday was part of Clinton’s promotional tour for his new novel, The President Is Missing, written with thriller author James Patterson. Sitting next to Clinton, Patterson became just as incensed by Melvin’s questions. “I think this thing has been—it’s 20 years ago, come on. Let’s talk about JFK,” Patterson said at one point, naming other presidents who allegedly had extramarital affairs while in office. “Let’s talk about, you know, LBJ. Stop already.” Clinton chimed in with a non sequitur, reciting bits of his biography in his apparent defense: “I had a sexual harassment policy when I was governor in the ’80s. I had two women chiefs of staff when I was governor. Women were overrepresented in the Attorney General’s office in the ’70s, for their percentage in the bar. I have had nothing but women leaders in my office since I left.” Advertisement Advertisement If feminist responses to Patterson and Clinton’s defenses sound tired, it’s because many of us have already used them against Trump. Yes, it was also bad for JFK to sleep around in office, but no, he didn’t lie under oath about it; no, Marilyn Monroe was not a White House intern; and no, that’s not what the question was about. Yes, standards for workplace behavior were different in midcentury America, and hey, that’s a good thing, but no, that doesn’t mean presidents who served in the ’90s and lived to see the #MeToo movement should be measured by popular consensus from the Mad Men era. No, public figures are not exempt from having to re-evaluate their behavior with the wisdom of hindsight and progress, and there’s no statute of limitations on talking about things you did wrong. It also doesn’t matter that a lot of people told pollsters they loved you in spite of it all, and, no, sexual misconduct isn’t one of those things that gets canceled out when you “have tremendous respect for”—or stock your office with—women. Advertisement Clinton’s performance in this NBC interview offers a lesson to those re-examining their problematic faves in light of the past year’s revelations about the prevalence of sexual misconduct among men in positions of power. So invested are Clinton and his ilk in the maintenance of male sexual power, and so absorbed are they in their own continued defense of their legacy, that they will bluster, fib, deflect, and insult to divert attention away from any unflattering truth—20 years after it nearly cost Clinton his presidency. Even though it now puts him in the uncomfortable company of Donald Trump, even with a wife who has made herself a feminist icon, even with all the access to information and education that a self-styled ally could wish for, and even under the rapt eye of his biggest fans—a political party that’s growing ever more convinced of the imperative of gender equity—Clinton refused to subject his own behavior to any degree of scrutiny. If his response is a barometer for what the #MeToo movement can expect from a powerful liberal guy under the most forgiving circumstances, then this grand reckoning has been entirely one-sided.<doc-sep>USA TODAY On the Today show Monday, former president Bill Clinton revisited the controversy over his affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, saying he doesn't feel he owes her an apology. Clinton's telling response to #MeToo On Monday, Bill Clinton was asked about the #MeToo movement, sexual misconduct allegations and his affair with Monica Lewinsky — and his responses were telling. Clinton admitted he has never privately apologized to Lewinsky, though he said he has issued public apologies. When asked whether he owed Lewinsky an apology, Clinton’s response was, “No, I do — I do not.” Lewinsky was 22 years old and considered an adult when their affair started. But the power disparity between the two was perhaps the largest disparity possible — he was the leader of the free world, whereas she was an intern when the affair started. Those power dynamics are ripe for abuses of authority and power, both of which make consent a much more gray area than usual. And it would have been refreshing and admirable for Clinton to acknowledge that. In the midst of #MeToo, it would have been impressive and powerful for Clinton to demonstrate he had learned from the movement. He could have done so by admitting he had taken advantage of his authority during the Lewinsky affair, and by showing regret for having done so and for how his decisions affected Lewinsky — who was under immense public scrutiny and criticism, and who chose not to continue a career in politics as a result. More:Liberals were quick to turn away from victims like Monica Lewinsky in favor of feminist ‘champions’ like Bill Clinton Instead, not only did he refuse Monday to apologize for taking advantage of that power disparity, he also chose not to offer an apology for how he and his supporters disparaged Lewinsky, and destroyed her reputation in an effort to save his own skin. Furthermore, Clinton, who has faced multiple accusations of sexual misconduct, also had the audacity to say the #MeToo movement was “way overdue” and to shamelessly point out that there are “serious allegations against the current occupant of the Oval Office and his voters don't seem to care” — the latter of which could have also been said in the 1990s. Clinton’s unacceptable behavior certainly does not excuse President Trump’s unacceptable behavior. But Clinton and his most ardent supporters should look in the mirror and re-examine how their own actions, including their defenses of sexual misconduct, contributed to our current political and cultural environment. Sarah Quinlan is a contributor at Red State. Views are her own. You can follow her on Twitter:@sarahmquinlan. More:Today's talker: Regardless of how they got here (or where they are now), migrant children are suffering What our readers are saying: With Bill Clinton, we know what happened and we also know that Monica Lewinsky was a willing participant — at least at that point in time. The problem with Clinton was that he was doing the nasty on "company" time, in the company office. If you are going to do things like that, take it away from the office and off work hours. — Larry Hubble You'll hear people blame society for the inconveniences within their lives, but those people are part of what makes up the society they despise. Thanks, Clinton. — John Glasgow Lewinsky wasn't a victim of sexual assault. To me, she was a groupie. — William Travis What about so-called Christian apologists for Trump? We liberals know we are not perfect, but conservative Christians claim to be speaking for God when they are making their excuses for the Trumps and Roy Moores of the world. — Robin Cox More:Today's talker: Trump's auto tariffs are an attack on the rule of law What others are saying: Emily Jashinsky, Washington Examiner: "(Bill) Clinton seems to have missed the mood of the public, and expects to laugh and deflect his way through tough questions like it's nothing, because for two decades his party dismissed those questions, too. But he may be in for a rude awakening if anyone in his circle is bold enough to pass along the message." Charlotte Allen, USA TODAY: "Clinton’s liaison with Lewinsky didn’t feature that sort of alleged physical violence — although there was certainly a #MeToo power imbalance between the young intern and her boss. Clinton has also been accused of crude sexual misconduct toward several other women. Yet the same feminists who recoiled when conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was charged with sexual harassment during his confirmation hearing gladly turned around and covered for Clinton because of his support of reproductive rights." Jim Geraghty, National Review: "There are a lot of people in this world who can complain about Donald Trump and the numerous allegations of gross sexual harassment and abuse surrounding him, and the fact that a significant portion of the president’s supporters either refuse to believe the allegations or dismiss them as unimportant. But Bill Clinton doesn’t get to make the complaint about the public not taking allegations of presidential sexual misconduct seriously enough. Dear God, have some self-awareness, man." To join the conversations about topics on USA TODAY, email letters@usatoday.com, comment on Facebook, or use #tellusatoday on Twitter.<doc-sep>
When asked whether he would handle the response to his affair with Monica Lewinsky, then a White House intern, any differently, Clinton said, “If the facts were the same today, I wouldn’t.” “I don’t think it would be an issue because people would be using the facts instead of the imagined facts,” he said in the interview on NBC’s “Today” show. NEW YORK — Former President Bill Clinton celebrated the MeToo movement in an interview that aired Monday but said that it would have accomplished little to change his response to the scandal that prompted his impeachment. He also said he had never privately apologized to Lewinsky and that he did not feel he needed to. “I have never talked to her,” Clinton told interviewer Craig Melvin of NBC News. “But I did say publicly on more than one occasion that I was sorry. That’s very different. The apology was public.” In the run-up to this year’s midterm elections, Clinton has been virtually invisible on the campaign trail because of new scrutiny of his past treatment of women, including Lewinsky. For years, he had deflected allegations of sexual harassment and assault from several women, but several of his accusers have felt empowered recently as the MeToo movement gained momentum. Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey, and Paula Jones, three of the women who have accused Clinton of sexual harassment, said in November that they felt newly vindicated. “It’s like me and Juanita and Kathleen have been screaming for years for someone to pay attention to us on the liberal side and it’s like no one would hear us,” Jones told The New York Times in November. That same month, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat from New York, said that Clinton should have resigned after the Lewinsky affair. “Yes, I think that is the appropriate response,” she said after being asked whether he should have stepped down. But Clinton bristled during the NBC News interview when asked whether he felt he had done enough to address the scandal. “Nobody believes that I got out of that for free,” he said. “I left the White House with $16 million in debt.” In a piece in the March issue of “Vanity Fair,” Lewinsky wrote that the MeToo movement had helped clarify her thinking about the affair, which she had previously characterized as fully consensual. “I now see how problematic it was that the two of us even got to a place where there was a question of consent,” she wrote. “Instead, the road that led there was littered with inappropriate abuse of authority, station, and privilege.” After the NBC News interview aired Monday, Lewinsky posted links to the piece on Twitter. While Clinton praised the MeToo movement in the interview, he admitted to having reservations with how some of it has unfolded. “I like the MeToo movement,” he said. “It’s way overdue. It doesn’t mean I agree with everything. I still have some questions about some of the decisions that have been made.” Clinton was being interviewed alongside James Patterson, the prolific author with whom he wrote the new novel “The President Is Missing.”