Cynics and sexists say that men always pay for it. But some guys really, really, really pay for it. Which brings us to today's historical conundrum:
Who paid a higher price for a little female companionship -- Julian Assange or Bill Clinton?
Also: Can you think of any other historical examples in that league? The guy in Hard Candy comes to mind, but he's fictional.
25 comments:
Bill Clinton. He was not accused of rape.
But I was just thinking of a tangent this morning. When Clinton was asked about his relationship, why in Hell did he not turn tables and say noyb and why in Hell are you asking such things in the first place?
Since when do we have to answer loaded questions?
It would've served Dukakis well, also, when asked if Kitty were raped would he favor death penalty in that case. His response should've been, what kind of sick person asks such a question?!
How can we train people to resist compliance and change the paradigm of the discussion? Well...that is my current pondering...back to yours...
OK this doesn't answer the question, but William Hague is looking a right fuckwit when he says Britain doesn't recognise 'diplomatic asylum'. They didn't complain when the US sheltered Cardinal Mindszenty in their embassy in Budapest for 15 years.
Ecuador should escalate this. There are so many ways. The head of mission could handcuff himself to Assange and walk to a diplomatic car. Etc. Etc.
They've got to be prepared to break off relations. Seal Assange in a bag, label it diplomatic, walk him to a car, and see if the Brits dare intervene. Yes, diplomatic pouches aren't supposed to be used like that, but misuse is a matter for the sending state not the receiving state...and if relations are going to broken anyway...
The whole world knows Assange is being persecuted.
The British press are looking like the fawning bunch of lickspittles they are, when they claim the British parliament has granted Britain powers to raid embassies. No, mateys, Parliament doesn't have that authority, and nor do any men in tights or Beefeater costumes, or even the 'queen' or the National Union of Journalists' MI6 liaison officer.
As I've said, a lot of British diplomats must have chewed the carpet when they heard about the semi-literate British threat, which looked as if it had been penned by a dickhead at a town hall.
But...wait a minute...at least one former diplomat has weighed in to help the government out. Step forward Christopher Meyer. The idiot has even got a Twitter account. I don't know whether he's got his memoirs out. In vile patrician fashion he explains that "What we have said to them is that if we believe an embassy is used improperly we have powers to revoke the diplomatic immunity from the embassy". Don't you just love the syntax there - the posh equivalent of using rising intonation at the end of a sentence, or saying "obviously" all the time, to underscore how you think the person you're talking to is an idiot. Can't you communicate your bullshit brief any other way, Christopher, you fucker?
BTW let's hope no-one confuses Christopher Meyer with William Hague's alleged gay lover Christopher Myers. Or for that matter with Hague's former "early-morning judo partner", Olympics chief Sebastian Coe. Which isn't to say Hague and Meyer shouldn't get a room together.
The shot heard round the world.
Had Bill Clinton not dallied with Monica Lewinski, Ken Starr's witch hunt would have been just that and Al Gore would have had a better shot at the White House.
How much of the print and broadcast media's animus toward Al was the result of Bill's actions and how much was on order from Wall Street/Corporate America?
We were subjected to eight years of republican mismanagement that resulted in 911 and the extra deaths from exposure in the aftermath of Katrina. Not to mention the financial collapse.
Did you ever see the Documentary 9/11?
It was made by two French filmmakers who were going to follow a probationary NYFD firefighter for the day. In one of the scenes the firefighters are in the lobby of WTC 2 when the sounds of bodies hitting the ground are heard. The stricken look on their faces tells the story of people jumping to their deaths from WTC 1 rather than burn.
Then there is the botched response to the Katrina disaster that hit New Orleans, elderly people in wheel chairs dying from heat stroke or dehydration because relief efforts were delayed by Bush's FEMA director's incompetence.
Bill Clinton is doing OK for himself and Julian Assange is having his 15 minutes which will get him more girls should Obama not kill him.
So the answer to your question as to who suffered most is the rest of the world.
Are any supporters of Assange in Sweden reading this? If so, how about mentioning the Swedish "safe passage" "protective passports" issued by Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest during WW2? These helped save many thousands of Jews from being murdered by the Nazis. Yes he was from the Wallenberg family that owns Sweden, but you gotta give credit where it's due. (Meanwhile the Zionists cooperated with the Nazi round-up.)
The documents had no standing under international law, but...they worked. Whatever works, eh?
zee, Assange is not accused of rape. It's a bullshit "sexual coercion" beef that doesn't even exist in any other country that I know of. I've written about this and will write again.
As I recall, the law allowing Clinton to be asked that question under oath was signed by Bill Clinton.
27(6): The sending State or the mission may designate diplomatic couriers ad hoc.
That option could be a goer. There is no point in trying to appointing him a diplomat, because he wouldn't become one until he was accredited by the receiving state. But couriers can be appointed ad hoc - and their persons are inviolable. So he could carry a letter to a car.
Abuse of Vienna rights is a matter for the sending state. All the receiving state can do is the usual - PNG, downgrade the mission, etc.
Meanwhile...
1961 Vienna Convention: 27(2): "The official correspondence of the mission shall be inviolable.".
A tattooist was seen entering the embassy...
I realise that the US government may be seeking to hand Assange a death sentence, so this isn't a laughing matter. But making Britain look as ridiculous as possible could be a effective tactic.
OK OK, not counting the Prom concerts...
The question was framed incorrectly by Starr. Asking someone if they had a consensual sexual relationship CAN NEVER be used to prove a non consensual relationship.
Somehow Starr's people got everybody confused over this one singular point. It would be like saying one is going to prove a bank was robbed by a certain person by showing that that person visited another bank on another occasion. It's ridiculous.
I would suggest that Hillary Clinton's presidential bid was probably hurt by the Starr Inquisition.
One thing that nobody will admit to, is it possible that Bill Clinton did a better job as president because of his White House Indiscretions?
People say, but it happened in the Oval Office. So instead, the president should have gotten a motorcade, gone to a local wherever, then come back? Much too inefficient, too costly, and too time consuming.
And the other thing people will not admit to, the first lady is not there to service her husband whenever he may feel the need, and the need may just occur because of all of the stress the job entails, and, because many times people who will be meeting with the president go to ALL EXTREMES to look and smell their best.
Until any of you are put into those kind of situations, please don't judge.
Fatty Arbuckle?
b, don't knock the Proms concerts. I quite enjoyed a recent Bruckner performance -- which YOU paid for, incidentally. I DRINK YOUR MILK SHAKE! How's THAT for socialism?
Penelope, I think Fatty is a good example.
Alessandro, I really shouldn't say this, but I suspect that the Clinton marriage fell into a familiar pattern many years ago. They love each other and can't imagine life without each other but they just can't stand the thought of having sex with each other.
I think that sort of thing is common. In fact, I would bet that the majority of marriages reach that point. Nobody ever discusses that fact, of course.
By the way, I LOVE the idea of tattooing a message on Assange. It's so absurd!
He barebacked on two women without their explicit consent.
In the US we call it rape.
I figured a guy as blind on gender issues as you(and really Joe, you're great and I love you, but you are REALLY blind on these issues) would love the gradiations of "gray rape" the Swedes have used that cloud the issue.
Far from knocking the Proms concerts, I meant to acknowledge them as an exception to the general rule that Britain is crap!
Compared to health provision in the US, the British National Health Service is also far superior (but inferior to the Cuban one)...and there aren't so many gun nuts...and the proportions of the population who are in prison or homeless are far smaller and...
I never followed that arduous Ken Starr fishing expedition. If the original charge was Whitewater, a bad real estate deal the Clintons lost money on, which was baffling enough a reason to "investigate" someone, how did it end up on who diddled whom?
I still hold that had Clinton replied, how is this relevant, and what business is it of yours and why are you wasting taxpayer money on this slime expedition, he'd have been a hero. Even if it was somehow a legit question, if he'd pled the fifth and denounced Starr at the same time, still a hero.
Same with Dukakis...if he'd disdained the questioner as vile for evening imagining such a scenario, he'd have beaten the trick question.
As for whether sexual coercion is "bogus," it's pretty much the definition of rape. If someone changes their mind, because, in this case, the jerk refuses to wear a condom, it's rape if the women did not want to proceed...regardless of initial consent.
That is the basis by which I judge whose life was ruined most. No one even had a right to investigate Clinton's dalliances, except Hillary. Assange brought it on himself. It would've been so simple for him to be courteous and caring, instead of a pushy prick. Win-win instead of lose-lose.
As Cenk Uyger pointed out out on last night's TYT broadcast, all the Swedes have do is buy a webcam if they want to ask Assange questions. They have Internet in Sweden, no?
The fact the Swedish government is unable to assure Assange that he will not be immediately be deported to an American gulag tells us all we need to know about their intentions.
What is both shameful and astonishing is the sight of the governments of two sovereign nations (UK and Sweden) and the US media machine dancing like puppets on the strings of the CIA.
The CIA uses the oldest entrapment in the book - a sex entanglement - and the media play right along, as if it isn't a standard technique of intelligence organizations all over the world. Hello? Has anyone ever read a spy novel?
Just remember one simple fact, and shove it up the Kossholes. Obama could end all of this with the stroke of his pen.
He won't because like blowing up Afghan wedding parties with drone launched hellfire he is trying to prove his creds with the neo-con hawks who like him never served.
Joseph, the rich and famous cannot plead the fifth, and Starr knew it and took advantage. Sure, legally they can, but all it does is explode the public conversation.
Plus, pleading the fifth suddenly makes one wonder, not only DID they have sex, but maybe it was forceful as well, it just escalates the discussion.
I have debated this issue of consensuality vs non consensuality several times in the past. I don't recall anyone ever being able to make the jump from one to the other.
Consensual sex with a hundred different partners just does not prove in any way that a person could therefore have had non consensual sex, which I assume is what the Paula Jones people were trying to prove.
And even that was because the republicans outed Jones and put her in the spotlight, WITHOUT HER CONSENT.
That is the craziest part in all of this, the republicans kept forcing women without their consent to testify so they could force Bill Clinton to testify about a consensual affair. It's just nutty all the way around. I read at one point that Monica Lewinsky fantasized about diving out of the 8th floor of the building where she was being sequestered by Starr and worn down into confessing!
Over the years I have studied the various scenarios involving sex and monogamous couples. I have concluded that it is virtually impossible to not say or do something so hurtful at one point that the other partner has trouble forgetting it, and that both partners end up doing this but only remember the hurt they have received, not given out.
On top of that, there is the frequency issue, which can be hurtful as well if one partner wants intimacy more often than the other side.
Then there is the issue of "deserving it" versus "desiring it". I never hear or read about this aspect of a relationship.
Then there is the issue of intimacy during and after a pregnancy. Not only might there be less sex after a pregnancy and after birth, but if the dad is working while mom is at home, dad has to battle every night to get his time with the child.
Then it is up to mom to not feel like she is in a competitive battle with dad for the child's love and attention.
NONE of this stuff is every analyzed or discussed before marriage, and that is the biggest warning signal of all.
So when couples like the Clinton's are discussed, maybe how their child turns out is what should matter more, no?
Ahem--Bill Clinton left office with an approval rating of over 60%--higher than Eisenhowers--for Christ's sake. The Republican's attempt to take him down in a sex scandal did not succeed. Al Gore won the popular vote--and the election--save for a last minute intervention by the Supreme Court--Bill's sexual dalliances had little to do with the coming of George Bush II. Please, let us not, like many Republican's I know, rewrite history, most especially our own.
Alessandro, of course I think it is absurd for any man to be badgered in a court case about consensual sex which is not directly relevant to the case at hand. The judge should never have allowed such questioning.
And when the grand jury testimony was broadcast -- at Republican insistence -- the public was instantly sympathetic to Clinton, because he was being asked a bunch of personal questions that never should have been considered relevant to Whitewater.
So, fundamentally, nearly everyone understands that an accusation of wrongdoing doesn't justify a sexual fishing expedition. (If that image isn't too absurd!)
But sometimes the law can be pretty crazy. Well, judges can be.
Just so our memories are refreshed, here's a relevant story from '98...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/privacy022298.htm
From today's standpoint, the whole thing looks like a clear set-up.
My understanding of wbat julian assange is accused of is the same as josephs. However i do think its quitea serious charge. I think what he is accused of should be perceived as a crime. The problem is always proof. Its a he said she said isnt it?
Harry
My original reply to Aeryl was published prematurely. This revised version should read better:
Aeryl, you've been lied to. Assange did no such thing. I read a lot of material to research my previous piece, including translated Swedish reports.
Ardin is, to put it bluntly, the kind of nut who uses feminist argot to justify her psychopathology.
1. She has an established history of screaming "male dominance" under ridiculous circumstances. The things she has said are totally outrageous by any rational standards. She thinks using soft music to ply a woman is "coercion."
2. She has gleefully blogged about her joy in getting revenge on any boyfriend who cheats on her.
3. She happily put on a party for Assange some time after their last romantic encounter. Only when she found out he had been with someone else did she decide she had been assaulted. Her definition of assault is that he did not act like a gentleman.
She has zero credibility. ZERO.
4. The other woman claimed that Assange intentionally poked a hole in a condom. First, that's unprovable. Second, it's ridiculous. No man would do that. No man wants to have to provide for a possible unwanted child. And anyone who claims otherwise is simply mentally ill.
This woman, Sofia Wilen, also has zero credibility.
5. The judge who initially looked at the complaint thought the whole thing was ridiculous. Assange stayed in Sweden two extra weeks to see if the initial judge would want to speak with him further. He left only when the matter seemed to be completely cleared up.
6. Tellingly, these ladies picked a law firm with clear and unassailable CIA connections. As if there aren't any other lawyers in Sweden...
7. Another judge decided that the case had merit only after Karl Rove traveled to Sweden to confer with the Prime Minister. We don't know what they discussed, but I suspect that Assange was a talking point.
Yes, point 7 constitutes post hoc reasoning. Still, the sequence of events is worth keeping in mind.
This is a put-up job, clear and simple.
In reply to lastlemming @ 8:19.
Bill Clinton's high approval numbers didn't translate to fair treatment of Al Gore by the print and broadcast news media. On top of that Donna Brazil urged Gore not to use Clinton during the campaign because of his affairs. Both of these factors allowed republicans to whittle down Al Gore's lead to where the election was stolen.
I agree there's no sane reason for a guy to 'poke a hole' in a condom he's using with a casual partner, but it is a far-from-unknown practice for someone with an extreme dislike of condoms to resort to a little sabotage -- especially when it's with a woman he doesn't expect to see again. On more than one occasion, former roommates of mine who were escorts came home livid after a client had done so -- once, twice during the same session. I'm led to understand that by tearing the underside of the condom -- for instance, while ostensibly guiding the penis into the vagina -- the friction of intercourse will cause the tip to roll up like a sweatshirt hood, exposing the head of the penis. Supposedly the technique is discussed on 'hobbyist' websites [and, now, Cannonfire] -- which is not to suggest Assange strikes me as a trick, but, uh, he does.
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