The New York Times on Monday published an opinion piece alleging Hillary Clinton is being criticized for Bill Clinton’s transgressions against women because “it’s always the woman’s fault.”
So read the title of the piece – “Hillary Clinton Is Criticized Because It’s Always the Woman’s Fault” – by guest Times contributor Katha Pollitt, a columnist for The Nation.
Pollitt was writing in the Times’ “Room for Debate” section, which invited guest contributors to respond to the question: “Should the former first lady, now Democratic presidential candidate, get credit or blame for her partnership with her husband?”
“Blaming the wife for the husband’s dalliances is an old old story, of course, which is being given a faux-feminist gloss today,” declared Pollitt.
She paraphrased an argument by Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post, saying that if Hillary “takes some credit for the successes of the Clinton administration… she should take the blame for Bill’s personal failings as well.”
Pollitt used broad strokes to dismiss claims that Hillary Clinton not only enabled her husband’s predatory behavior, but actively covered it up and even waged a campaign to discredit, silence, or intimidate Bill’s female victims.
Pollitt lamented that the rules for women have changed.
She wrote:
Now women who make the best of an imperfect marriage are not only still held to account for their husband’s behavior — that Hillary is a frigid harridan is still a popular theme on social media — they are blamed as co-conspirators or doormats for not walking out the door. And they’re called bad feminists for not embracing his other women. Before, she had to stay. Now, she has to leave.
The columnist briefly zeroed in on one of the most serious charges against Hillary. Juanita Broaddrick, the woman who famously accused Bill Clinton of rape, told this reporter in November that during a personal meeting in 1978, Hillary strongly implied the alleged rape victim had to stay silent about her traumatic experience.
To Pollitt, the Broaddrick-Clinton meeting was simply Hillary behaving as she always did at political meet and greets.
She wrote:
As for covering up, Juanita Broaddrick, who claims Bill Clinton raped in her 1978 and Hillary tried to silence her by uttering a political platitude and pressing her hand in a particularly meaningful way, it seems much more likely that Hillary did what she did thousands of times at political gatherings.
Broaddrick says she was raped in 1978 by then-Arkansas Attorney General Bill Clinton in a hotel room. She was a nursing home administrator volunteering for Clinton’s 1978 gubernatorial bid.
Broaddrick initially said that she shouldered the blame since she allowed Clinton up to her room.
Three weeks after the incident, Broaddrick says she was still in a state of shock and denial. She said she attended a private Clinton fundraiser at the home of a local dentist, where she had an encounter with the Clintons and says she was directly approached by Hillary.
Broaddrick said a friend of hers who had driven the Clintons to the fundraiser from a local airport informed her “the whole conversation was about you coming from the airport. Mostly from Mrs. Clinton.”
She recalled: “And so then about that time, I see them coming through the kitchen area. And some people there are pointing to me. He goes one direction and she comes directly to me. Then panic sort of starting to set in with me. And I thought, ‘Oh my God, what do I do now?’”
Broaddrick said that Hillary approached her “and said ‘It’s so nice to meet you’ and all of the niceties she was trying to say at the time.
“And said, ‘I just want you to know how much Bill and I appreciate the things you do for him.’ And I just stood there, Aaron. I was sort of you might say shell-shocked.
“And she said, ‘Do you understand. Everything you do.’
“She tried to take a hold of my hand and I left. I told the girls I can’t take this. I’m leaving. So I immediately left.”
Broaddrick said that “what really went through my mind at that time is ‘She knows. She knew. She’s covering it up and she expects me to do the very same thing.’”
Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.