The Left Changes Its Mind on Bill Clinton
It isn’t clear what is causing Democrats to re-evaluate their support for the former president.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday became the latest liberal luminary to scurry away from Bill Clinton some 20 years too late.
“If it happened today there would have been a very different reaction,” said the mayor in reference to the White House sex scandal involving Mr. Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. “I don’t think you can rework history. I think if it happened today—if any president did that today—they would have to resign.”
The mayor’s comments follow those made last week by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who told the New York Times that she, too, now believes that Mr. Clinton should have resigned after his affair with Ms. Lewinsky was revealed. The senator used the “things have changed” explanation as well, then added that “in light of this conversation, we should have a very different conversation about President Trump, and a very different conversation about allegations against him.”
Put differently, Ms. Gillibrand wants Donald Trump held to a different standard than the one she and her fellow Democrats were willing to hold Bill Clinton to way, way back in the 1990s. Have the liberal politicians and journalists now changing their tune about Mr. Clinton grown a conscience, or do they merely want another pretext for attacking the current White House occupant? The political left had a teachable moment two decades ago and didn’t learn anything from it.
This piece originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal