Hillary Clinton & Louise Penny (& Bill Clinton & Jeffrey Epstein)

So what do we think, readers, about the Clintons’ characteristically cool and elegant refusal to appear before a Congressional committee that is politically motivated and probably obfuscatory to talk about their fleeting (or not) connections to Jeffrey Epstein?

I hate thinking about Jeffrey Epstein. Virginia Guiffre’s memoir was painful to read (and necessary to read, given my teaching and research work).

And I really hate thinking about Hillary Clinton’s novel take on the “stand by your man” stance when Monica Lewinsky was being publicly humiliated.

In some jurisdictions, there’s a law about the right to be forgotten: to not have one’s past minor misdeeds archived and disseminated for all time.

But Monica Lewinsky, who was–this is important–in her early twenties when she had a sexual relationship with then-President of the United States Bill Clinton–has been afforded no such courtesy. And to her enormous credit, she has salvaged her life and done good in the world.

But Hillary Clinton compounded the harm that Monica Lewinsky experienced when, first, as a very minor White House underling with a crush she was sexually exploited by the most powerful person in the world; then betrayed by a supposed friend; then ridiculed by a host of late-night talk-show hosts who still owe her apologies. And perhaps a donation to the charity of her choice.

Monica Lewinsky wasn’t the first “other woman” in Bill Clinton’s life. And those women paid a much higher price than he did for his marital infidelity and deception of the American public. I’d like to see him unwelcome at any gathering of Democrats that includes the young women who are the party’s future.

Well, that won’t happen. There’s still a cult of personality.

And there’s Hillary Clinton, and here I am deeply hypocritical: I think she would have been an excellent president, and I’m sorry she lost the election. But I also think that while female partners of men who misbehave sexually are not responsible for their husbands’ choices, they are responsible for how they choose to respond to the revelations. And that was not a good moment for Hillary Clinton (who is a person of enormous accomplishment; just her work at the Children’s Defense Fund is more than most of us achieve in a lifetime on behalf of the more vulnerable).

But a young intern is also vulnerable, and standing passively by while her reputation is shattered and she’s turned into the target of a national joke is not my idea of feminist advocacy or moral courage.

I tried reading her co-authored novel with Louise Penny and couldn’t quite finish it, because I don’t read well when I’m angry.

But.

A colleague reminded me at dinner last night, when we wandered into the topic of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, that people are complicated. I acknowledge that we all contain multitudes, etc. We’re all better–I think this is Sister Helen Prejean’s coinage?–than the worst thing we’ve done.

But we’re also the sum of the choices we make in life about how to treat others.

There’s a continuum from Monica Lewinsky to Virginia Guiffre. And while I don’t think that the show trial-like aspect of Republican-controlled Congressional hearings merits full cooperation, the Democrats need to think very carefully about where they stand on the issue of the sexual exploitation of young women. Wearing a (very much) younger woman on their arm has been a political prerogative of political men in the western political tradition since, probably, Julius Caesar.

And it’s not entirely one-sided: trading access to youth and beauty for access to money and power is not always exploitation.

But it’s a slippery slope.

Maybe Monica Lewinsky would like to co-author a mystery novel about a woman who escapes sexual exploitation and finds a way to hold the powerful people who harmed her to account. I have some plot ideas.