The Juanita election

Did I not tell you? Did I not predict this?

The rest of this campaign will be about Juanita Broaddrick and her comrades-in-deception. Trump has no other choice. He has no other effective weaponry in his arsenal, unless his pal Vladimir can concoct something a little more persuasive. (The previous offering sucked.)

I suspect that tonight's debate will be Juanita, Juanita, Juanita.

Younger folks won't know that her story is not new and that the public rejected Broaddrick's credibility when her claims were first aired. Yes, there is video of her weeping as she describes the horrors allegedly inflicted upon her. Tawana Brawley emitted enough moisture out of her eyes to end the California drought. If you know where to look, you can find video of women weeping as they recount being abducted by the UFO people.

We're all going to have to get over the collective delusion that women never lie and that tears are truth.

For background, you should first turn to the all-important Conason/Lyons book The Hunting of a President; the relevant excerpt should be available to you here. But before you go there, you may want to see this review for background...

Into the great swag belly of Arkansas we go, where (as Mr. Conason and Mr. Lyons illustrate) two mentalities dominate the impressive roster of Clinton-haters. The first is a cloak-and-dagger puerility that lingers on after the demise of the Cold War, a deep attraction to intrigue, which a certain sort of Republican–in the tradition of the old Nixon “ratfucking”–can’t seem to outgrow. Thus a decent share of the Arkansas portion of the book reads like Don DeLillo’s Libra –socially isolated men seek a purpose in conspiracies that are largely projections of their own prurient imaginations, fomenting wild stories about the Governor’s sexual and narcotic appetites.

Although the name "Roger Stone" does not appear in these words, his stench perfumes the air.

By the way, Stone's writing partner, Robert Morrow, offers a review of the Conason/Lyons book on Amazon. Morrow claims that Clinton not only raped Broaddrick but others. Morrow's source of information is a scandal sheet called Capitol Hill Blue -- a little-regarded publication which has offered fake "scoops" about both the Clintons and Bushes, both clans being hated by Roger Stone (who happens to be Trump's best pal). Stone loves to schmooze with friendly reporters, and there is good reason to suspect that Capitol Hill Blue writers have used Stone himself as a source of information. That's one way for a dirty trickster to get a smear on the record.

(For what it is worth, Robert Morrow now calls Donald Trump a child rapist.)

The Broaddrick tale is long and involved, as these stories invariably are, but the bottom line comes to this: She has no credibility. No objective party who has examined her tale believes that Bill Clinton flew into rape mode the moment he met her. David Brock (when he was a right-wing hit man) couldn't take her seriously. Even the National freakin' Enquirer couldn't take her seriously.

Juanita Broaddrick attended a pro-Clinton fundraiser for Clinton after the alleged incident. She told the lawyers for Paula Jones: "I do not have any information to offer regarding a nonconsensual or unwelcome sexual advance by Mr. Clinton."

(For more context, see here.)

After the spirit of art took hold of Juanita, she not only spoke of rape, she added the detail that Bill Clinton savagely bit her face, leaving a lasting wound. Oddly, there are no photos of this bite mark. (Yes, children: Cheap cameras were widely available back then, and nearly everyone had at least one.) There are no medical or police records. Neither was there any corroborative testimony as to the existence of this mark -- although for all I know, Trump money may have purchased such testimony in more recent days.

Puh-LEEZE let's not have the usual pseudofeminist guff about how all women who cry rape are truth-tellers, even when they change their stories or act in a friendly fashion toward the "rapist." There are lots and lots and lots of fake "rape" claims out there -- far more than you may think. Before the end of this post, I'll offer hard data.

Money and fame can play a huge role. History buffs will want to check out my previous post on the attempt to smear theater impresario Alexander Pantages.

(There are also religious/cultural factors. Some women, especially in the Bible Belt, have found it easier to tell their families "He raped me!" rather than "Okay, so I got horny." Back in the bad old days, this kind of thing would happen a lot after a white woman gave birth to a non-white baby.)

Broaddrick offered her rape story only after it became apparent that the Republicans could enrich any woman willing to make sexual accusations against Clinton. The payments to other claimants were not direct; there were book deals, a softcore photo shoot for Penthouse, things like that.

In Broaddrick's case, she offered allegedly corroborative testimony from two women. Alas, those witnesses had a pre-existing grudge against Clinton: He had commuted the sentence of the man who killed their father. (This whole tale has a sub-theme of Governor Clinton going to great lengths to establish himself as a victims-rights advocate after a couple of early commutations created a backlash.)

There are those who have theorized that there was consensual sex, which Juanita Broaddrick transformed into a rape scenario upon confessing all to her boyfriend. For what it is worth, the only southern woman I ever dated had once employed a similar strategy. (And no, that situation had nothing to do with me. She had pulled that stunt years earlier.)

For more, you may want to check into this USA Today interview with Sydney Blumenthal:

Flemington, NJ: How did you handle the Juanita Broaddrick accusations, which even people I know who hated Bill Clinton thought were lies? Her story is that in pursuit of campaign bumper stickers, she wanted a meeting with the candidate (Clinton); she called him at his home and arranged a meeting at HER hotel; her roommate was absent to "go shopping;" the meeting was changed from the coffee shop to HER room; in the time Bill Clinton walked from the coffee shop to her room, Juanita set up a "coffee service" in the room (which she could still see in her mind as she talked to Lisa Myers); that Clinton assaulted her almost immediately upon entering the room and then he did it again. He bit her face savagely but Juanita can produce none of the doctors, nurses, patients, patients families, etc. she had to encounter at her nursing home who would have had to see a severe facial injury. How did you handle this terrible story that was so obviously false and yet was run on broadcast primetime TV?

Sidney Blumenthal: That story was manipulated. It was a terrible story done by someone who had filed conflicting affidavits, and whom the Republican party in 1992 hired an investigator to look into, who determined the story was false. Tom DeLay used that story to threated Republican members of Congress to force the impeachment vote. He put that terrible uncorroborated story in front of them and told it would be released to their constituents. I have from congressmen on the record that they were threatened opposition if they didn't vote his way. The Brodderick story was an instrument of his coercion for impeachment. Remember he said Clinton was impeached because he had "the wrong world view".

But the Broaddrick tale does not stand alone. If you are looking for a one-stop-shopping research source regarding all of the tales that Trump will try to tell tonight (in his usual marble-mouthed fashion), go here.

Many of the newer stories are being washed through Alex Jones, that paragon of credibility. As is always the case with Jones, we are forever being warned that the witnesses are in danger of being killed by that infamous Clinton Hit Squad. Right-wingers have been caterwauling about this imaginary Hit Squad for decades, even though enemies of the Clintons tend to live long, comfortable lives. For example, the assassins never seem to find their way to AJ's house.

More to the point, those hallucinatory hit men have never found their way to Juanita Broaddrick's house, even though it has been clear for decades that Hillary Clinton has long had her eye on the presidency. If Juanita Broaddrick is telling the truth, and if Evil Hillary really does possess both the power and the willingness to have people whacked, then why wasn't Broaddrick targeted years ago? If her car had developed catastrophic brake failure in say, 2005 or 2013, how many people would have noticed the story?

The obvious conclusion: There is no Clinton Hit Squad. And there is no truth in Broaddrick's claims.

Bellow the asterisks, you will find some relevant words I wrote on a previous occasion:

*  *  *

Is it really the case that anyone who views an accuser suspiciously is a "rape apologist" produced by a "rape culture"?

Consider the Tawana Brawley case. I never condemned Al Sharpton for championing her cause. When women turn on the tears, they wield a weapon more powerful than C4.

Consider Crystal Gail Mangum.

Consider Danmell Ndonye, who withdrew a false accusation of rape after video evidence surfaced demonstrating that the sex had been consensual.

Consider television weather forecaster Heidi Jones.

Consider Paula Jones, who at first told friends that Clinton was "sweet, very sweet" -- and then changed her story, making herself out to be the victim of sexual harassment. Remember?

In late 1997, Judge Susan Webber Wright ruled Jones was "entitled to information regarding any individuals with whom President Clinton had sexual relations or proposed to or sought to have sexual relations and who were, during the relevant time frame, state or federal employees."

Fishing expeditions are permissible when males are targeted.

Ann Coulter considered Paula a "good Christian girl who had suffered sexual harassment." Then she -- Paula -- posed nude for a very hefty sum of money. Labor deserves payment.

Consider Gennifer Flowers, whose story kept growing like topsy. She also got the Penthouse pay-off. Bob Somerby:

Do famous accusers say things which aren’t true? Yes, they sometimes do—although the mainstream press, and the liberal world, worked quite hard to bury that fact during the Clinton jihad. One example: It seems abundantly clear that Gennifer Flowers made up a whole lot of crap about Clinton. (She raked in a whole lot of dough for her trouble.) But so what? By 1998, a jihad was on, with all the fools chasing Clinton around, determined to prove he was vile. As a result, the fools all stood in line to vouch for Flowers’ moral grandeur.

...So don't you fucking DARE try to tell me that women can't lie.

Here's the truth:

In a study that span nine years, sociologist Eugene J. Kanin’s findings were that in the United States, 41% of rape allegations are false. Kanin discovered that most of the false accusers were motivated by a need for an alibi or seeking revenge. Kanin was once popular and highly praised by the feminist movement for his groundbreaking research on male sexual aggression. His studies on false rape accusations have received very little interest.

Some people have criticized Kanin's methodology. But when Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld of the Innocence Project studied the FBI's testing of semen samples, they found that DNA had exonerated the accused "rapists" in a quarter of all cases. Keep in mind that semen samples are not obtained from many rape accusers. Keep in mind, too, that a false accuser would have to be pretty damned bold to maintain the charge even after physical evidence has been placed on a microscope slide.

Should accusers be investigated and cross-examined? Damned right.

They should be grilled about everything relevant, including, in certain instances, their sexual history. If men have to go through that kind of humiliation, then women should not be exempt. All arguments in favor of double standards are casuistry.