Blaming the Victim

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I've been following politics most of my life.

I understand how the game is played and how one side or the other is apt to use things — appropriately or inappropriately — to score points in political campaigns.

That is how it was with the alleged "war on women" that the Democrats used — admittedly, effectively — against the Republicans in 2012.

Sexism is like racism — in the sense that it really does no good to deny that it exists. Clearly, it does exist — but it isn't the exclusive domain of one political party. That's where propaganda comes in.

To assert that it is the domain of one side or the other renders the accuser no better — indeed, probably worse — than the accused, for the accuser gives in to the very prejudice that supposedly is being decried.

Right here in Dallas recently, we had a blatant example of how sexism is not limited to a particular party — or, for that matter, a particular gender.

A district judge — a Democrat named Jeanine Howard who is unopposed in her bid for re–election this year — issued a ruling in a rape case that was nothing more than a case of old–time victim blaming and shaming. Howard sentenced the defendant, now 20 (18 at the time of the assault), to probation.

"He is not your typical sex offender," she said.

The victim, a 14–year–old girl, "wasn't the victim she claimed to be," Howard said and imposed an incredibly light sentence on the girl's rapist, who had confessed to the crime.

Howard also suggested the crime was not a rape because the victim apparently was not a virgin, that she had been promiscuous and had given birth to a baby. Really. The judge might just as well have said the victim asked for it.

By Howard's logic, any female who has had sexual intercourse cannot possibly be raped — even if she says "no," which, apparently, the victim in this case did. Several times.

(The victim did consent to intercourse away from the school grounds, but the young man attacked her at school.)

Also, the victim and her mother both say she has never been pregnant. Not that that should matter — except, apparently, in Howard's courtroom.

Meanwhile ...

In Montana, an astonishingly lenient sentence for rape handed down by a district judge in that state has been overturned. G. Todd Baugh sentenced a former teacher to one month for raping a 14–year–old student — who later took her own life.

Baugh said the victim was mature for her age and asserted that she was "probably as much in control of the situation" as her attacker.

CNN's Carol Costello wrote an opinion piece on the two cases that was posted on CNN.com (she may have delivered it on the air, too; I seldom watch CNN anymore so I don't know). She wondered — a bit naively, I thought — "Is America really clueless about the meaning of rape?"

I think the answer to that is that a certain portion of America has always been clueless about sexual assault — and probably always will be. Costello never mentioned Howard's political affiliation; the Dallas Morning News did. She never mentioned Baugh's political affiliation, either. I tried to find it, but I couldn't.

Perhaps Montana is one of those states where judicial candidates run nonpartisan campaigns. That really isn't the point, though.

The point is that, regardless of what Americans may have thought would be the outcome of electing the first nonwhite president in the nation's history, a post–partisan America is one of those achievements that is easier said than done.

America has always been a nation of laws, but it is a lot easier to change laws than to change minds. It takes time, and I'm not speaking about the inevitable disappearance of a generation because attitudes tend to be handed down from one generation to the next.

I don't know how old Howard is, but I have seen pictures of her, and I know she isn't of Donald Sterling's generation. Hillary Clinton is much closer, I'm sure, and we heard allegations today from Monica Lewinsky that the former secretary of State blamed the women around her husband — herself included — for the affair.

As long as offenders are given that kind of pass, any improvements in gender relations (and racial relations, for that matter) will be cosmetic at best.

Beating the Rap

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"The vote itself was anticlimactic, coming three weeks after the close of my defense. Only the margin of defeat was in doubt. I was just glad the ordeal was over for my family and my country. After the vote, I said I was profoundly sorry for what I had done to trigger the events and the great burden they imposed on the American people, and that I was rededicating myself to 'a time of reconciliation and renewal for America.' I took one question: 'In your heart, sir, can you forgive and forget?' I replied, 'I believe any person who asks for forgiveness has to be prepared to give it.' "

Bill Clinton
"My Life" (2004)

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On this day in 1999 — 190 years after the birth of Abraham Lincoln — the U.S. Senate acquitted President Bill Clinton of charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.

It was the first time in more than a century — since Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, survived by a single vote — that an American president had been impeached by the House and then managed to be acquitted by the Senate. Articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon were approved by the House Judiciary Committee 40 years ago this summer, but Nixon resigned before the House could vote on them. Obviously, Nixon never faced trial in the Senate.

A year earlier, in January 1998, Clinton famously declared that "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss (Monica) Lewinsky." He also insisted that he never instructed anyone to lie.

But it was later revealed that Clinton did have an inappropriate relationship with Lewinsky.

And that was a big part of his detractors' case. From that act of deception sprang everything else.

Ultimately, they failed to persuade two–thirds of the Senate to convict, which is what the Constitution requires for the removal of a president. They fell short by a considerable margin. Clinton was correct when he wrote that the outcome was never in doubt. The bar was too high.

That was the calculating way that Clinton looked at things. It was something I picked up on when I covered one of his gubernatorial campaigns in Arkansas. I sat in on an interview with Clinton one day during his runoff with a former Arkansas lieutenant governor. It was observed to Clinton that supporters of the candidate who ran third in the primary were making noises about sitting out the runoff; Clinton, in effect, said he didn't care.

That may be hard to reconcile with the "I feel your pain" image that Clinton cultivated, but it represents merely one side of his political personality. That was the pragmatic, politically savvy Clinton, who understood that, in the most basic terms, if you took a voting bloc that large and that unpredictable, given the indifference most of that candidate's supporters had for both Clinton and his opponent in the runoff, he was better off if they chose not to participate. There was no telling which way they might go.

Clinton ran first in the primary, but he didn't quite reach 50%, forcing a runoff with the runnerup. The third–place finisher had received a lot of votes, but he didn't get enough to make the runoff. As I recall, there was only one other candidate in the primary; he ran fourth and attracted a relative handful of votes.

Therefore, if nearly all the people who voted in the runoff had voted for either Clinton or his opponent the first time, Clinton knew he would win — which he did.

In the Senate 15 years ago today, Clinton knew that the Republicans held the majority in the Senate. But, in order to reach the two–thirds threshold, they needed 12 Democrats to vote with them — and that wasn't going to happen. In fact, while Senate Democrats voted unanimously against conviction, some Republicans voted not acquit as well so the Senate's Republicans finished even farther from their goal than if the vote had been strictly along party lines.

After the vote, a number of Senate Republicans and their aides were quoted as saying they resented the fact that House Republicans had put them in that position. Perhaps they were right to feel that way. The next time the voters went to the polls, Republicans lost ground in the Senate but the numbers remained virtually unchanged in the House.

Promise Fulfilled

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My mother was a Democrat.

I have written here before of her death in a flash flood in 1995 — and I mention it now only because I have been thinking of a conversation I had with her the last time I saw her.

It was mid–April of 1995. I was living in Oklahoma at the time, and I had come to Dallas to spend Easter weekend with my parents. Through the course of that weekend, I had several conversations with my mother on a range of topics.

One of the topics was the new Republican Congress that seized power in the 1994 midterms. Mom was worried that Clinton, like the previous Democratic president, would be defeated when he sought a second term.

"Don't worry, Mom," I told her. "Clinton will win."

To this day, I'm not sure why I said that to her. Clinton's job approval ratings were in the mid–40s at the time — hardly encouraging.

I guess I was speaking from the perspective of having watched Clinton's rise, fall and subsequent rise again in Arkansas politics. (I watched it up close as a young reporter. I covered his runoff campaign for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination when he sought the office after being voted out in the previous election.) Maybe I wanted to reassure Mom that Clinton would not be another Jimmy Carter.

Deep down, though, I guess I must have believed it.

We never spoke about it again. She died a few weeks later — on May 5, 1995.

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But I thought of that conversation often in the next year and a half.

I thought of it exactly 18 months later — on Nov. 5, 1996, the day Clinton was re–elected over Bob Dole. He didn't receive 50% of the vote, but he won as many electoral votes as he did four years earlier against the first President Bush.

There really wasn't any suspense to speak of that night. The outcome was a foregone conclusion, as I recall.

There was simply no compelling reason to change presidents. Some troubling issues were raised during the campaign, most notably concerning Democratic fund–raising practices, but the economy was sound and foreign relations were relatively stable.

It was a different kind of relation that sidetracked the Clinton administration during its second term.

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After Clinton won re–election, he returned to Washington following a victory celebration in Little Rock and was greeted on the White House lawn by his staff.

Among those who lined up to greet him was a then–unknown intern named Monica Lewinsky. She embraced the president as he made his way along the line of well wishers, an embrace that was seen by millions on TV although practically no one knew who she was.

That would change in the years ahead. So would the economic and international stability — after Clinton left office.

I still miss Mom, but I am glad she missed all that.

Nevertheless ...

The day Clinton returned to Washington and embraced Monica on the White House lawn, I went to the cemetery and stood next to Mom's grave for a few minutes.

"We won," I said, probably to no one in particular. I just felt a need to do that.

Re-nominating Clinton

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1996 Democratic National Convention-Clinton Acceptance Speech
- Watch more Politics Videos at Vodpod.

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It's ironic now, when one watches footage from the Democratic National Convention held in Chicago 15 years ago, to see and hear Bill Clinton thanking the delegates for entrusting him with the presidential nomination again.

It's ironic when one realizes that, at that time, Clinton was already involved in the relationship with Monica Lewinsky that would threaten to undermine his second term.

From the perspective of 2011, it's hard to look back at Clinton's second term and not see many ways in which trust was violated — and, as a result, much of a presidency was squandered.

But, on this night in 1996, he was the earnest Bill Clinton I remember from my days in Arkansas. When I lived there, he was defeated in his first bid for re–election, in part because he approved a modest increase in license tag fees.

As I say, the increase was modest, but voters perceived an almost cavalier attitude in Clinton and punished him for it. When he ran for governor the next time around, he publicly apologized to the voters for the increase.

Raising state revenue in the midst of what was then the worst economy since the Depression was necessary, but he still apologized "because so many of you were hurt by it."

Perhaps he didn't realize — or perhaps he chose to ignore — that the decisions elected officials make can influence the voters in many ways — especially those decisions that are intended to be known by only a few people because that is precisely the kind of thing that tends to leak out.

Anyway, as just about anyone old enough to remember the late 1990s will tell you, the revelation of Clinton's relationship with Lewinsky became the foundation of the impeachment charges that paralyzed his presidency.

The — ahem — moral seems clear: If you want your private life to remain private, don't run for office.

It is a reminder, I guess, that elected office — especially the presidency — is a sacred trust. The voters entrust the powers of the presidency to select individuals, and that carries with it certain expectations — of behavior, of policy direction, of a lot of things.

And it's darn near impossible now to listen to Clinton recite his administration's economic accomplishments — i.e., the millions of jobs that were created in his first term — and not feel somewhat wistful after one makes the inevitable mental comparisons to the current economic situation.

Because my roots are in Arkansas, I often feel — justifiably, too, I might add — that I grew up with Bill Clinton. It seemed he was always in office, mostly as governor.

He is quite a bit older than I am, but we both came from small towns in Arkansas (my hometown is considerably larger now, Clinton's is marginally so), and, when he describes his boyhood in his memoir, "My Life," he could be describing mine as well.

After I became old enough to vote, I supported Clinton every time he was on the ballot in the years I lived in Arkansas. Sure, I had heard the stories about his infidelity, but, from what I could see, if there was any truth to the stories, he did a good job of keeping his personal and public lives separate from one another.

No one asked me about Monica Lewinsky in 1996. Nobody had heard her name. That was something that came out after Clinton had been sworn in for a second time.

In 1996, if someone had asked me about Clinton's private life, I would have said that it did not seem to have had any kind of influence on his job performance. I didn't approve of the idea of a president who was unfaithful to his spouse, but I figured that, as long as it didn't affect his job performance, it was not my business.

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Going into the Democratic convention in Chicago 15 years ago today, there were some Republicans who complained that the vice president, Al Gore, was too wooden, too stiff — which always struck me as a weak complaint, a nitpicky kind of thing.

The sort of thing one quibbles over when one has no more arrows in one's quiver.

At the convention, Gore poked a little fun at himself, using the enormously popular "Macarena" song to do so.

Because much of the party's platform and other business were addressed ahead of time, the delegates to that convention had little else to do while they waited for the speakers so they danced to the "Macarena." The television cameras showed them dancing on several occasions, and Gore mentioned it during his speech.

Then he pretended to do his version of the "Macarena" — standing perfectly still (only his eyes moved) — and then asked, "Would you like to see it again?"

The crowd roared.

Seldom in modern memory had Democrats gathered for a national convention in such a jovial mood. Certainly, their last convention in Chicago — the one that nominated Hubert Humphrey in 1968 — had not been a pleasant experience.

And why shouldn't they be jovial? Clinton's job approval ratings had been in the 50s most of the year, and all indications were that he would be re–elected.

And he was.