My unsolicited advice to Anthony Weiner is to drop out of the race for mayor of New York City. But since you insist on staying, hold a press conference:

My fellow New Yorkers,

The New York Times, among others, tells me to quit the race. Here’s my proposition. I’ll resign when the Times poses this question. In the upcoming NBC-produced miniseries called “Hillary,” who will play Juanita Broaddrick and Kathleen Willey?

What, confused expressions? Interesting how the Weiner-get-out crowd forgets that “everybody lies about sex” – except when it comes to politicians whose last name is not Clinton.

Digital First Media, in a piece run by a bunch of news outlets, put out a list of the eight most recent political scandals. I’ll read the entry for President Bill Clinton: “The scandal: In 1995, Clinton had an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, then gave a misleading answer about it in a sworn deposition in a civil case.”

Are you kidding me? That’s the Bill Clinton “scandal”?

Maybe I just dreamt that a credible, professional woman named Juanita Broaddrick appeared on NBC’s “Dateline”? And that she accused Bill Clinton not of sending dirty pictures, but of rape.

When then-Arkansas Attorney General Bill Clinton was running for governor in 1978, Broaddrick, a nursing home operator, was a campaign volunteer. Clinton invited her to visit him at his campaign office when she was in Little Rock. A week later, Clinton suggested they meet instead in her hotel coffee shop. But because there were “too many reporters” in the hotel lobby, Clinton suggested they have coffee in her hotel room.

“Stupid me, I ordered coffee to the room,” Broaddrick said. “I thought we were going to talk about the campaign.” On “Dateline,” she said: “I first pushed him away. I just told him ‘no.’ … He tries to kiss me again. He starts biting on my lip. … And then he forced me down on the bed. I just was very frightened. I tried to get away from him. I told him ‘no.’ … He wouldn’t listen to me.”

Maybe I just dreamt about another credible woman, a Clinton campaign contributor named Kathleen Willey, who on “60 Minutes” accused then-President Clinton – not of calling himself Carlos Danger, but of sexual battery?

Willey, a White House volunteer and self-described “good friend” of the president, described her encounter when she asked Clinton for a paid position. “I just told him that my husband was in financial difficulty and that things were at a crisis point,” said Willey. But in a small room off the Oval Office, she says, Clinton hugged and kissed her. When she tried to push him away, “he touched my breasts with his hand … and then he whispered … ‘I’ve wanted to do this ever since I laid eyes on you.’ … He took my hand, and he put it … on his (aroused) genitals.” Finally, says Willey, she managed to push him away.

Feminist Gloria Steinem defended Clinton. She said his treatment of Willey – even if she was telling he truth – does not amount to sexual harassment, let alone sexual battery. Why? “(Willey) pushed him away,” Steinem wrote, “and it never happened again. In other words, President Clinton took ‘no’ for an answer.” So, if the touch-ee says no, then the touch-er commits no offense – provided, of course, that the touch-er is named Clinton, not Weiner.

Is it because these credible accusations of rape and sexual assault were never reported to authorities? But then neither did the eight women who’ve claimed sex abuse by the mayor of San Diego. Nor did many of the military servicewomen who recently gave congressional testimony about alleged rapes and assaults in the military.

Despite what I’ve done, I’ve never touched any woman after my marriage other than my wife, let alone had oral sex in the Oval Office. I sent texts and photographs. I’ve had therapy. Has the man many in the media affectionately call “Big Dawg” done so?

None of my defenders ever maligned an accuser. When Paula Jones, the Arkansas government employee, accused Clinton of sexual battery, defender James Carville said, “Drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park; you never know what you’ll find.”

None of my aides ever called someone like the truthful Monica Lewinsky “delusional,” let alone call her a liar, as the indignant, finger-wagging Clinton did on international television.

At first, I blamed a hacker for the photo that started the controversy. At first, Hillary blamed “the vast right-wing conspiracy.”

I never lied about my sexcapades under oath. I never settled a sexual harassment lawsuit for $850,000 after saying it lacked merit. I never pled guilty to perjury and never became the first sitting president ever held in contempt of court for perjury.

My wife’s forgiven me – just as Hillary forgave her husband, time and time and time again.

Finally, I’m OK with resigning. But I’m not OK with hypocrisy, double standards and selective memory. I’ll resign when the media and pundit class that defended Bill Clinton apologize to Juanita Broaddrick and Kathleen Willey.

Then I’ll know you’re serious. No questions, please.

COPYRIGHT 2013 LAURENCE A. ELDER
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