The \u2018Stop Hillary\u2019 campaign is on fire! Join the surging response to this theme: \u2018Clinton for prosecution, not president\u2019<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nAlready, supporters knew that Clinton was their \u201cgovernor-in-waiting,\u201d and sure enough, by 1977 he began contemplating his bid for the chief executive spot. His only question was whether he should skip this step and go directly to the U.S. Senate. His first campaign call was to Dick Morris, to help him decide whether to run for governor or senator. Once he\u2019d decided on the governorship, he spent the spring of 1978 running two campaigns. Publicly, he had his own primary election to deal with, though he was far and away the strongest Democratic candidate. Privately, he spent hours plotting with Dick Morris to improve the then-governor\u2019s chances of beating his Democratic rival in the U.S. Senate race \u2013 in hopes of neutralizing that rival\u2019s status as Clinton\u2019s main competition as rising Democratic star in Arkansas politics. In the general election that fall, Clinton won with 63 percent of the vote to become governor at age 32.<\/p>\n
In 1978, 35-year-old Juanita Hickey worked as a registered nurse. She was married to her first husband, Gary Hickey, but having an affair with her future second husband, David Broaddrick. She had started her own nursing home in Van Buren, Arkansas, a successful endeavor that eventually grew into two residential facilities \u2013 one for the elderly and one for severely handicapped children. The young, charismatic Clinton was in the midst of his gubernatorial race and had made a campaign stop at her nursing home that spring.<\/p>\n
While glad-handing there, Clinton told her to be sure to stop by campaign headquarters if she was ever in Little Rock. She was so impressed with him that for the first time in her life she volunteered to help a political campaign, agreeing to hand out bumper stickers and signs. She thought he had \u201cbright ideas\u201d for the state and felt eager to pay a visit to his Little Rock headquarters, excited about picking up T-shirts and buttons to hand out.<\/p>\n
Not long after that, she attended a seminar of the American College of Nursing Home Administrators at the Camelot Hotel in Little Rock. She stayed in a hotel room with her friend, Norma Kelsey. After they checked in to their room, Broaddrick called Clinton campaign headquarters and was told to call Clinton at his apartment. She did, and asked Clinton if he was going to be at his headquarters that day. He said no, but suggested they meet for coffee in the hotel coffee shop. A bit later the same morning, Clinton called her and asked if they could meet in her hotel room because there were reporters crawling around the coffee shop.<\/p>\n
She agreed.<\/p>\n
She felt \u201ca little bit uneasy\u201d meeting him in her hotel room, but felt a \u201creal friendship toward this man\u201d and didn\u2019t feel any \u201cdanger\u201d in him coming to her room. When Clinton arrived she had coffee ready on a little table under a window overlooking a river. Then \u201che came around me and sort of put his arm over my shoulder to point to this little building and he said he was real interested if he became governor to restore that little building and then all of a sudden, he turned me around and started kissing me. And that was a real shock.\u201d Broaddrick pushed him away and said, \u201cNo, please don\u2019t do that\u201d and told Clinton she was married. But he tried to kiss her again. This time he bit her upper lip. She tried to pull away from him but he forced her onto the bed. \u201cAnd I just was very frightened, and I tried to get away from him and I told him \u2018No,\u2019 that I didn\u2019t want this to happen, but he wouldn\u2019t listen to me.\u201d But he \u201cwas such a different person at that moment, he was just a vicious awful person.\u201d At some point she stopped resisting. She explained, \u201cIt was a real panicky, panicky situation. I was even to the point where I was getting very noisy, you know, yelling to \u2018Please stop.\u2019 And that\u2019s when he pressed down on my right shoulder and he would bite my lip.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clinton didn\u2019t linger long afterward. \u201cWhen everything was over with, he got up and straightened himself, and I was crying at the moment and he walks to the door, and calmly puts on his sunglasses. And before he goes out the door he says, \u2018You better get some ice on that.\u2019 And he turned and went out the door.\u201d The whole encounter lasted less than 30 minutes, but it changed Juanita Broaddrick\u2019s life forever.<\/p>\n
When questioned by an interviewer, \u201cIs there any way at all that Bill Clinton could have thought that this was consensual?\u201d Juanita Broaddrick answered, \u201cNo. Not with what I told him, and with how I tried to push him away. It was not consensual.\u201d The interviewer, NBC\u2019s Lisa Myers, pressed for specificity. \u201cYou\u2019re saying that Bill Clinton sexually assaulted you, that he raped you?\u201d Broaddrick answered, \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Broaddrick\u2019s friend Norma said that when she left their shared hotel room that morning, Broaddrick had told her that she planned to meet with Clinton. When Norma called around lunchtime, however, Broaddrick sounded so upset that Norma returned to the room to find Broaddrick\u2019s lip and mouth badly swollen and her pantyhose ripped off. Broaddrick told Norma that Clinton had sexually assaulted her.<\/p>\n
Broaddrick was too upset to stay for the nursing home meeting, so she and Norma drove the two hours back to Van Buren immediately, stopping for more ice to apply to Broaddrick\u2019s swollen mouth. On the drive back, Norma says, Broaddrick was in shock, and very upset, blaming herself for letting Clinton into her room. \u201cBut who, for heaven\u2019s sake, would have imagined anything like this?\u201d Broaddrick said years later. \u201cThis was the attorney general \u2013 and it just never entered my mind.\u201d In her NBC interview, Broaddrick said she didn\u2019t tell her then-husband, Gary Hickey, who says now that he doesn\u2019t remember her lip being swollen (she says she explained that to him as an accident). Broaddrick did tell her now-husband, David Broaddrick, soon after she returned home, that she had been assaulted by Clinton. David Broaddrick recalls that her lip was \u201cblack\u201d and \u201cmentally she was in bad shape.\u201d Broaddrick told three other friends soon after the attack, all of whom vouch for her story.<\/p>\n
About three weeks after the rape, Broaddrick told Lisa Myers, she and her first husband attended a Clinton fund-raiser together. She still \u201cfelt in denial\u201d and \u201cvery guilty\u201d and at that time still felt like she should \u201cjust shut up and accept [her] punishment\u201d for letting Clinton into her room, since that must have given him \u201cthe wrong idea\u201d about what she had wanted to happen. After that, Clinton called her half a dozen times at her nursing home. Once he got through to her and asked when she was coming to Little Rock again. She just said, \u201cI\u2019m not,\u201d and left it at that.<\/p>\n
In 1979, Broaddrick accepted a non-paying position on a state advisory board relating to nursing homes \u2013 a position to which Gov. Clinton appointed her. For over a decade she dealt with the governor\u2019s office on occasion but not Clinton personally, except for a 1984 letter Clinton sent her after her nursing home was named one of the best in the state. At the bottom is a handwritten note, \u201cI admire you very much.\u201d She interpreted it as a \u201cthank you\u201d for her silence.<\/p>\n
In 1991 she attended another nursing-home meeting in Little Rock, with two friends. In person, Bill Clinton called her out of the meeting; one friend confirms seeing the pair talking. Immediately, Broaddrick says, Clinton \u201cbegan this profuse apology,\u201d saying to her, \u201cJuanita, I\u2019m so sorry for what I did. I\u2019m not the man that I used to be, can you ever forgive me? What can I do to make this up to you?\u201d<\/p>\n
Feeling \u201cabsolute shock,\u201d she told him to go to hell and walked away. \u201cIn that moment,\u201d Broaddrick tells me, \u201cI let go of my guilt and put it where it should have been all those years: on him.\u201d She continues, \u201cIt was a relief not to blame myself anymore.\u201d When she went to lunch with two of her friends who were also nurses just after the freak encounter with Clinton, the three women \u201cactually began to discuss the possibilities that Bill Clinton might be remorseful.\u201d However, \u201cthat faded as soon as he announced his candidacy for president about three weeks later.\u201d Broaddrick and her friends were all at work when the news broke, \u201cand we just looked at each other and shook our heads in disgust.\u201d<\/p>\n
As early as the 1992 presidential race, Juanita Broaddrick\u2019s story entered the realm of rumors that swirled around Bill Clinton. Though her own account didn\u2019t appear in the news until one week after the Senate acquitted President Clinton in February 1999, her name had been circulating among the media, Clinton\u2019s political opponents, and later, Paula Jones\u2019s legal team. Broaddrick\u2019s \u201cphone rang incessantly with requests for interviews, all of them refused\u201d until January 1999.<\/p>\n
In November 1997, investigators for Paula Jones confronted Juanita Broaddrick \u2013 and tape recorded the encounter \u2013 but she slammed the door in their faces saying she didn\u2019t want to relive the \u201chorrible thing\u201d that had happened. When Jones\u2019 attorneys subpoenaed Broaddrick, she signed an affidavit saying she\u2019d never experienced unwanted sexual advances from Bill Clinton. Paula Jones\u2019 lawyers used Broaddrick\u2019s story, disguised as \u201cJane Doe No. 5\u2033 in a court filing based largely on a 1992 letter to Broaddrick from a friend of hers, Philip Yoakum. In that letter, Mr. Yoakum wrote that he was \u201cparticularly distraught when you told me of your brutal rape by Bill Clinton, how he bit your lip until you gave into his forcing sex upon you.\u201d When this letter and the Jones court filing hit the news in March 1998, Mr. Yoakum told reporters he\u2019d tried to get Broaddrick to go public during the 1992 campaign, but she\u2019d said to him, \u201cWho would believe me, little old Juanita from Van Buren?\u201d<\/p>\n
Some people would. Reporting in March 1998 on the Yoakum letter, NBC\u2019s Lisa Myers called Broaddrick\u2019s story \u201cpotentially the most explosive allegation out there.\u201d Myers pointed out that \u201cJuanita Broaddrick has never tried to sell any story. She has never gone after the president. She is a nurse who built a nursing-home business. She is a respected member of her community in a little town in Arkansas.\u201d Through lawyers, the White House called Broaddrick\u2019s story (as represented in the Paula Jones court papers) \u201coutrageous\u201d and smugly pointed journalists toward Broaddrick\u2019s affidavit denying it.<\/p>\n
Ken Starr provided the impetus forcing Juanita Broaddrick\u2019s story into public view when he subpoenaed Paula Jones\u2019 lawyers for records relating to Broaddrick and three other specific women (in addition to Kathleen Willey and Monica Lewinsky) in March 1998. In April 1998 Broaddrick admitted to the OIC that she\u2019d lied in her affidavit, but Starr didn\u2019t pursue her story because she insisted she\u2019d never been threatened or bribed into silence \u2013 hence there was no obstruction of justice angle for Starr to use in his investigation. To the public eye, Juanita Broaddrick\u2019s story remained a mere footnote to the Paula Jones lawsuit and the Monica Lewinsky scandal engulfing the Clinton administration throughout 1998. She spoke with The Washington Post in April 1998 but insisted on staying off the record.<\/p>\n
Even though she\u2019d signed the affidavit and had consistently refused to discuss her story on the record, \u201cJane Doe No. 5\u2033 appeared in materials turned over to Congress during impeachment hearings and reportedly influenced several wavering Republicans to vote in favor of impeachment, although House of Representatives prosecutors declined to include her story in their case against Clinton at the Senate trial.<\/p>\n
Rumors about her story wouldn\u2019t disappear. Some of them offended Broaddrick, and one in particular pushed her over the edge into public disclosure: on New Year\u2019s Eve 1998 a friend handed her a tabloid story stating that Clinton had bribed David Broaddrick to suppress his wife\u2019s account. By January 1999, NBC correspondent Lisa Myers had been trying to persuade Broaddrick to tell her story publicly for months. Kathleen Willey tells me, \u201cLisa Myers called me and asked me if I would talk with Juanita.\u201d Willey talked with Broaddrick \u201cmany times \u2026 I told her what I went through\u201d going public with her story. \u201cJuanita would tell me, \u2018I\u2019m just so afraid that I\u2019m finally getting this off my chest and then people won\u2019t believe me,\u2019\u201d Willey tells me sadly. \u201cShe kept saying, \u2018I don\u2019t want it to be for naught.\u2019\u201d After everything Willey had been through herself, she didn\u2019t feel like she could offer Broaddrick much comfort. \u201cI had to tell her there are no guarantees; look who you\u2019re dealing with,\u201d Willey says, before adding quietly, \u201cAll of us involved in this Clinton thing, we really have not fared well.\u201d Willey stopped short of giving Broaddrick any specific advice. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t tell her what to do,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Broaddrick was in her mid-50s in January 1999 when she finally relented and taped an interview with NBC. NBC had the scoop, but held off airing the interview for a month, citing the need for further investigation into the details of Broaddrick\u2019s account. The delay frustrated Broaddrick, who said NBC had been investigating for nearly a year already, even combing through \u201cold papers about the case we settled with two employees fired for theft 20 years ago.\u201d During the delay, NBC interviewer Lisa Myers told Broaddrick, \u201cThe good news is you\u2019re credible. The bad news is that you\u2019re very credible.\u201d The story looked explosive, and NBC wanted to make sure it was \u201crock solid\u201d before airing it.<\/p>\n
Broaddrick wound up giving The Wall Street Journal\u2019s Dorothy Rabinowitz a heart-to-heart chat, which the WSJ published on Feb. 19, 1999, a week after the Senate acquitted President Clinton. NBC aired its interview with Broaddrick on \u201cDateline\u201d on Feb. 24, 1999. WSJ editorial writer Dorothy Rabinowitz described Broaddrick as \u201ca woman of accomplishment, prosperous, successful in her field, serious; a woman seeking no profit, no book, no lawsuit.\u201d Ms. Rabinowitz continued: \u201c[She is a] woman of a kind people like and warm to. To meet Juanita Broaddrick at her house in Van Buren is to encounter a woman of sunny disposition. \u2026 She sits talking in the peaceful house on a hilltop overlooking the Broaddricks\u2019 40 acres, where 30 cows, five horses and a mule roam. \u2026. It\u2019s a good life all right.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the time it finally aired its interview with Juanita Broaddrick, NBC had done the thing properly. Lisa Myers reported that NBC had talked to four friends who corroborated Broaddrick\u2019s story, and had even tracked down a detail that would be often used to challenge it: Broaddrick could not remember the month or date of the rape. Springtime of 1978 was as close as she could recall, though she recalls with clarity many other details, like what she was wearing, the hotel room furnishings, the view from the window.<\/p>\n
NBC checked all of Juanita Broaddrick\u2019s personal and business records, public records, nursing-home records and convention schedules, and learned that there was a nursing-home meeting at the Camelot Hotel in Little Rock on April 25, 1978. State records even show that Broaddrick received credit for a seminar that day. The White House refused to answer NBC\u2019s requests for information, and NBC could find no evidence about Clinton\u2019s whereabouts that day, which contradicted Willey\u2019s claims; he had no \u201cpublic appearances on the morning in question,\u201d and newspaper articles \u201csuggest he was in Little Rock that day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other details checked out, too. The \u201clittle building\u201d visible from the hotel room window that Broaddrick says Clinton pointed to was the Pulaski County jail. Though it was torn down later, in April 1978 it was visible from river-facing rooms in the Camelot Hotel. Local law enforcement officials told NBC that Broaddrick was a solid citizen with no criminal record and that they took her allegations very seriously; of course, there was nothing that law enforcement could do, since the statute of limitations for the crime of rape had run out more than a decade earlier.<\/p>\n
Why did she refuse to report it when it occurred, or come forward when Clinton ran for president? \u201c[Given the] mentality of the \u201970s,\u201d she said, \u201cThere I was, I was married, I was also in a relationship with another man, and \u2026 I was there alone in a hotel room with the attorney general and I didn\u2019t think anyone would possibly believe me.\u201d As for coming forward during the 1992 campaign, she and her second husband, David Broaddrick, talked about it in 1992, but \u201c[it] brought up a lot of hurt, and a lot of things that I\u2019d buried years ago. And then we just decided it wouldn\u2019t be in our interest to do it. So we decided not to.\u201d Lisa Myers asked, \u201cDid you receive any payoff to stay silent,\u201d to which Broaddrick responded, \u201cOh goodness, no. I mean how could anyone be bribed or paid-off for, for something that, to not say anything about something that horrible?\u201d No one ever threatened her, either; staying silent for so many years was strictly her choice. Why did she sign a false affidavit? \u201cI didn\u2019t want to be forced to testify about one of the most horrific events in my life,\u201d she told Lisa Myers. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to go through it again.\u201d But signing the affidavit hadn\u2019t called off the hounds and there she was, reliving it all over again on national TV.<\/p>\n
When Kathleen Willey finally came forward with her story of unwanted sexual advances in March 1998, Broaddrick told Myers that she struggled again over whether to tell her side of things. \u201cI would get up in the morning and I would think: it\u2019s the thing to do. Then by nighttime I would think that could bring no good whatsoever to my life. And I\u2019m sorry for these women. I\u2019m sorry for what they went through, but I just wasn\u2019t brave enough to do it. There\u2019s nothing else to say.\u201d She talked to Ken Starr in April 1998 only because he granted her immunity and she was afraid of lying to federal prosecutors. By the time she bared her soul in public in January 1999, she \u201cjust couldn\u2019t hold it in any longer.\u201d Although she had \u201cburied this a long time ago,\u201d she now felt compelled to \u201cclear up all these stories\u201d floating around about her. Time had not healed all her wounds, however. When asked how she felt about Bill Clinton, she replied, \u201cI couldn\u2019t say it on the air. My hatred for him is overwhelming.\u201d<\/p>\n
As difficult as it was for Broaddrick to come forward, she expresses sympathy for the trouble her \u201cDateline\u201d interview caused Lisa Myers. \u201cI feel that Lisa suffered during this time,\u201d Broaddrick confides to me. While NBC postponed the airing of the \u201cDateline\u201d interview, some people created buttons that read \u201cFree Lisa Myers\u201d that were worn by Brit Hume and others on Fox News Network. Despite Myers\u2019s painstaking research and reporting, airing Broaddrick\u2019s story still carried a professional and political price. \u201cLisa and I remain good friends,\u201d Broaddrick tells me. Clearly, Lisa Myers remains one of the few journalists with the courage to stand by Broaddrick through this ordeal, and Broaddrick must deeply appreciate her professional integrity and personal support.<\/p>\n
Broaddrick is also tremendously proud of her son, attorney Kevin Hickey, who appeared on \u201cLarry King Live\u201d in March 1999 defending his mother against guests Dee Dee Myers and David Gergen, former Clinton advisers. Kevin was only 9 years old when the rape happened, and his mother didn\u2019t burden him with her ordeal until rumors began surfacing during the 1992 campaign. Then, she sat down with Kevin and told him what Bill Clinton had done to her. He was shocked and angry at then-candidate Clinton.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t believe what was happening,\u201d Kevin told Larry King. \u201cBut I could tell, just by the look in her face, that this was just a terrible, terrible experience.\u201d When Larry King asked Kevin what his feelings were toward Clinton, Kevin replied, \u201cDisgust. The guy has got into a high office \u2013 a lot of people think he\u2019s a very good politician and that may be true, but I think he leaves a lot to be desired as a person and that\u2019s pretty much my feelings of him.\u201d Dee Dee Myers and David Gergen were left fumbling for words, admitting that they found Kevin and his mother quite believable. Gergen said that Kevin\u2019s interview gave him pause because \u201cwhat mother would tell her son that she had been raped if it hadn\u2019t happened?\u201d Broaddrick says of her son\u2019s interview, \u201cHe was awesome. \u2026 Dee Dee Myers and David Gergen were speechless after Kevin\u2019s interview.\u201d After Broaddrick\u2019s interview with the WSJ, the White House issued its first direct statement mentioning Juanita Broaddrick by name.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny allegation that the president assaulted Ms. Broaddrick more than 20 years ago is absolutely false,\u201d read a statement from the president\u2019s personal attorney, David E. Kendall. That was it. No attempt to argue that Clinton wasn\u2019t even in Little Rock on the day in question, or that he had never been alone with her, or even that they hadn\u2019t had sexual relations. The denial was immediately parsed by some in the press and public wary of Clinton\u2019s overly technical, legalistic use of the English language. Broaddrick wasn\u2019t known as \u201cMs. Broaddrick\u201d in 1978, some noted \u2013 at that time she was \u201cMrs. Hickey.\u201d She alleged rape, not \u201cassault.\u201d The denial even seemed to leave intact a possible loophole \u2013 Clinton could retort that consensual sex had occurred, just not rape. Clinton never addressed the charges; when questioned he answered, \u201cWell, my counsel has made a statement about the \u2026 issue and I have nothing to add to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
An initial smattering of coverage followed the February 20 Wall Street Journal interview, but the story faded quickly. On Feb. 23, 1999, journalist Richard Cohen wrote of the Clintons: None of the rules of political gravity apply to them. They just float above everything.<\/p>\n
Take the rape charge. It is that \u2013 get it? I feel I have to emphasize it: The president of the United States is accused of raping a woman back when he was attorney general of Arkansas. An account of this alleged rape ran on Page 1 of The Washington Post. Get it? Page One! The Washington Post! Do you want to know what happened next? Nothing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
A second wave of commentary and coverage washed up after NBC aired its interview on Feb. 24, 1999. Much of it focused on the perceived weaknesses in Juanita Broaddrick\u2019s account \u2013 particularly, that she could not recall the month or date of the rape, and that she attended a Clinton fund-raiser just weeks after it happened. Coverage focused on her story\u2019s import to the media industry more than on the impact of her story as such. The Chicago Tribune wrapped up its article with a tone weary with scandal fatigue: \u201cThe Broaddrick allegation \u2013 a devastatingly serious but old and unproven charge against the president of the United States \u2013 presented every newsroom in the country with a difficult decision.\u201d Columnist Mary McGrory wrote that Broaddrick\u2019s allegations were treated more as a \u201cpress mystery\u201d than as a bombshell. Michael Kelly spotted the problem: no one cares. Clinton\u2019s lawyer, Kelly observed, declared the allegation \u201cabsolutely false.\u201d But the lawyer couldn\u2019t know for certain the charge was false. \u201cAt best, he can know that Clinton says the accusation is false,\u201d Kelly wrote. \u201cAnd what is that worth?\u201d Kelly concluded, \u201cBut [Clinton’s lawyer] of course doesn\u2019t really care whether Broaddrick\u2019s story is true or not. He doesn\u2019t really care whether the president is a rapist or not. He doesn\u2019t really care, because he figures you don\u2019t really care either \u2013 at least, not enough to do anything about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Richard Cohen, a columnist for The Washington Post since 1976 who is no friend of conservatives (in a column after President Reagan\u2019s death Cohen refused to give Reagan credit for ending the Cold War, saying flippantly that the Soviet empire \u201cwould have collapsed sooner or later\u201d) remained troubled by Juanita Broaddrick\u2019s story. \u201cIs it possible the president\u2019s a rapist? Am I supposed not to care?\u201d Cohen wondered. \u201cWho is this guy?\u201d Cohen wrote, and answered himself: \u201cAt one time, I thought I knew. He was a somewhat left of center southern governor \u2013 progressive, a policy wonk, a product of the anti-war movement, and, of course, a womanizer. This much I knew, and none of it, including the last, bothered me much.\u201d But Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, and Monica Lewinsky were not what Cohen expected from Clinton. Now, with Juanita Broaddrick, \u201cA woman has cried rape. She sounds credible. \u2026 The White House denies the charge, but so what? I would expect nothing less. Anyway, we\u2019re not talking George Washington here. With Clinton, if there\u2019s a cherry tree down, we know who did it.\u201d You can almost see him shaking his head in dismay as he closed by repeating, \u201cWho is this guy?\u201d<\/p>\n
But Bill Clinton\u2019s constellation of previous denials-turned-admissions had at least somewhat caught up with him. Donna Shalala, Clinton\u2019s secretary of health and human services, had firmly and publicly expressed complete belief in Clinton\u2019s denial of the Monica Lewinsky affair in 1998. A year later, when asked whether she believed Juanita Broaddrick, Ms. Shalala would only say that she took the charges seriously, hadn\u2019t reached a conclusion about whether she believed Broaddrick, but didn\u2019t need to decide that in order to be \u201ca patriot and a professional\u201d and do her job in the Clinton administration.<\/p>\n
A senior White House official, speaking only on condition of anonymity, said: \u201cBill Clinton has got a problem. If he weren\u2019t president he would be in counseling. \u2026 But I don\u2019t think because he\u2019s got a sickness, that corrupts everything about him. \u2026 He is a great president.\u201d A sickness? Perhaps, but sexual addiction is just one part of the mix of influences shaping Bill Clinton\u2019s mistreatment of women. Former Clinton loyalist George Stephanopoulos, whose book about life in the Clinton White House, \u201cAll Too Human,\u201d came out less than a month after Broaddrick\u2019s charges aired, said it \u201crips my stomach\u201d to think of being in the White House and trying to duck her story. He thought Clinton\u2019s lawyer\u2019s denial was worded to give cover to the idea that there might have been a consensual sexual encounter. The man he knew and worked for from 1991 until 1996, he said, wasn\u2019t capable of such an assault, but \u201cI did not know Bill Clinton in 1978.\u201d Hardly a ringing endorsement from someone who used to consider Bill a friend as well as a boss.<\/p>\n
One newspaper editor wrote, \u201c[W]ho can say Broaddrick\u2019s charges are preposterous, outrageous, unthinkable? Who can say with certainty we don\u2019t have a rapist in the White House? Indeed, her story is so credible that NBC News \u2013 nobody\u2019s right-wing conspirator \u2013 aired it after weeks of double-checking the details. Major networks don\u2019t run such stories every day.\u201d The editor continued, \u201cJones, Willey and Broaddrick \u2013 there\u2019s something about Bill and sexual assault. He\u2019s either the most victimized man in America or our most famous victimizer. \u2026 Alas, his own may not have been the only lip Bill Clinton\u2019s ever bitten.\u201d<\/p>\n
The media didn\u2019t give Clinton a free pass on the Broaddrick story, but there did exist an overall lack of direction; \u201cwhere do we go with it from here,\u201d summed up the sentiments of many journalists. With no legal, criminal, or impeachment machinery pushing the story along it petered out quickly, with most commentators\u2019 final words centered on the sad thought that no one will ever know for sure whether we twice elected a rapist to the highest office in the land. Noting that Newsweek\u2019s only coverage of the Broaddrick story had been a pithy remark in its \u201cConventional Wisdom\u201d item-of-the-week box (she got a sideways arrow for not coming forward sooner but, opined Newsweek, her charges \u201csound like our guy\u201d), one columnist summed up the reaction to Broaddrick this way: \u201cHe raped you, Juanita? Yeah, sounds like our guy. But what\u2019s your point?\u201d<\/p>\n
Refusing to comment directly on Broaddrick\u2019s credibility, The New York Times editorialized that Clinton\u2019s \u201ctalk to my lawyer\u201d statements were insufficient responses: \u201cThere is no legal or constitutional remedy for the [Broaddrick] situation,\u201d wrote the Times. \u201cBut surely there is a limit to how long Mr. Clinton can speak through his lawyer on these matters. \u2026 [I]t would be nice to hear Mr. Clinton himself address the matter and provide his version of what transpired, if in fact the two did meet in a Little Rock hotel room in 1978.\u201d<\/p>\n
Professor Susan Estrich called The New York Times \u201cdeeply out of touch with the people of this country\u201d for making such an unreasonable request of Clinton. The Washington Post also disagreed with The New York Times \u2013 but for a different reason. Hearing Clinton speak directly to the matter wouldn\u2019t help us figure out Broaddrick\u2019s story one bit, editorialized the Post: \u201cMr. Clinton\u2019s word in this realm by now has no value. That leaves us with an accusation that cannot be reasonably accepted, nor easily ignored. It is a mark of where Mr. Clinton has brought us as a country that he cannot begin to ameliorate that fact.\u201d<\/p>\n
On an episode of NBC\u2019s \u201cToday,\u201d Dorothy Rabinowitz, the journalist whose Wall Street Journal interview with Broaddrick brought the story into the mainstream, defended her assessment of Broaddrick\u2019s credibility. She said that Broaddrick\u2019s 21-year delay may mean the legal system offered no recourse, but history still had a right to know her story in order to evaluate the person of Bill Clinton. Rabinowitz, who had earned respect among her peers for her investigative reporting about false claims of child sexual abuse in the mid-1990s, added that talking face to face with Juanita Broaddrick is to \u201cfind yourself in the presence of someone you suspect is telling something that happened.\u201d The show\u2019s other guest for the segment, Alan Dershowitz, dismissed Broaddrick\u2019s story as \u201cgossip,\u201d though he admitted that Clinton\u2019s word wasn\u2019t any better than Broaddrick\u2019s when it came to matters of sex.<\/p>\n
Attacks on Juanita Broaddrick\u2019s character were kept to a minimum, but some pundits took their shots. Bill Press, co-host of CNN\u2019s \u201cCrossfire,\u201d wrote for the Los Angeles Times that he didn\u2019t believe Juanita Broaddrick for the following reasons: (1) she couldn\u2019t remember the date of the rape (\u201cIf she was scarred for life, wouldn\u2019t she remember the date?\u201d); (2) she was cheating on her first husband at the time so at most Broaddrick and Clinton probably had consensual sex (\u201cIf you\u2019re cheating on your husband, and then cheat on your boyfriend, do you tell your boyfriend the truth?\u201d); and (3) she attended a Clinton fund-raiser and accepted appointment to a government post after the alleged rape (\u201cWhy did she still want to support a man who raped her?\u201d).<\/p>\n
Former White House Special Counsel Lanny Davis protested, \u201cIs journalism about reporting facts or not? \u2026 It is not corroborated because her girlfriend saw her with a swollen lip. That doesn\u2019t make the charge of rape a fact. \u2026 How do we know she didn\u2019t lie to all her friends? We know that, voluntarily \u2026 she swore out an affidavit that she now says she lied about.\u201d His protest might have been a bit more convincing if we hadn\u2019t watched a similar affidavit signed by Monica Lewinsky go up in smoke just six months earlier.<\/p>\n
Feminists had trouble discounting Juanita Broaddrick\u2019s allegations. Gloria Allred, an attorney who filed the first formal charges against Sen. Bob Packwood for sexual harassment, is a rape survivor herself who never reported the rape to police. Whether or not anything could be done legally about Broaddrick\u2019s rape, Ms. Allred insisted that the public has a right to know if the president is a rapist. Denise Snyder, executive director of the D.C. Rape Crisis Center, cautioned people about viewing Juanita Broaddrick\u2019s two-decade delay in coming forward as a slight on her credibility. When the assailant has \u201ca lot of power and a high public profile,\u201d such delays are common, she said.<\/p>\n
Patricia Ireland \u2013 the then-president of NOW who also voiced support for Kathleen Willey \u2013 issued a pre-emptive statement calling on the White House to treat Broaddrick \u201cfairly, respectfully,\u201d and not to \u201ctrash this woman,\u201d whose allegations must be taken seriously. On \u201cLarry King Live\u201d Ireland added that even if President Clinton looked America in the eye and denied the rape, there\u2019s a \u201ccertain credibility gap\u201d to whatever he\u2019d say. She added that she understood why Juanita Broaddrick felt reluctant to come forward for so many years.<\/p>\n
Susan Faludi, author of the influential 1992 feminist tome \u201cBacklash: The Undeclared War Against American Women,\u201d found Broaddrick \u201ccredible\u201d but wasn\u2019t sure \u201cwhat Juanita Broaddrick wants done [about her allegations].\u201d So she used Broaddrick to take a swipe at conservatives, for whom \u201cwomen can be damned\u201d unless \u201cthe perpetrator is Clinton.\u201d By contrast, feminist author Andrea Dworkin stated flatly, \u201cI believe that Clinton is a rapist. I believe the woman \u2013 and if I had doubts about the woman, I trust what I perceive about him.\u201d She classified \u201cwhat he did to Paula Jones\u201d as assault, and from there, she said, \u201cit\u2019s a very clear line to rape. \u2026 Suddenly, every time you look at this man you have to think about rape. It\u2019s harder to sleep, it\u2019s hard to work \u2026 because this man is the president. That\u2019s obscenity \u2013 right there.\u201d She didn\u2019t stop with castigating Clinton, either. \u201cEssentially, while what\u2019s left of the women\u2019s movement shows any support for Clinton, they\u2019re destroying the movement itself as any kind of refuge for women who\u2019ve been sexually assaulted,\u201d Dworkin said cogently. Apparently at least one feminist icon truly believes in feminism\u2019s motto \u2013 the personal is political \u2013 enough to apply it even to a leader who\u2019s good on \u201cwomen\u2019s issues\u201d if that same leader mistreats individual women.<\/p>\n
Around this time \u2013 during and just after the impeachment trial \u2013 Clinton\u2019s job performance rating remained high, hovering at about 64 percent. However, the percentage of people who believed him to embody the values most Americans try to live up to had plummeted to about 30 percent, and only about 35 percent of the public believed him to be honest and trustworthy.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s nothing schizophrenic about those numbers. A dishonest, untrustworthy man can make official decisions favored even by those who think him dishonest and untrustworthy. Pundit Morton Kondracke argued that nothing should be done about Juanita Broaddrick\u2019s story \u2013 legally or politically. But as a \u201ccultural test\u201d people should know as much about President Clinton\u2019s \u201cpersonal\u201d behavior as possible, even if it meant considering the possibility that a sitting president is a \u201cmonster\u201d who \u201csexually assaulted a woman, biting her lip to impose himself on her.\u201d<\/p>\n
One month after Juanita Broaddrick\u2019s charges aired publicly, Bill Clinton faced reporters in his first solo press conference in over nine months. One reporter had the audacity to pose this question: If the first president was remembered for never telling a lie, what would be Clinton\u2019s legacy in this respect? \u201cClinton\u2019s face tightened. Then, in an edgy voice, he pleaded for people to look just as hard at the veracity and motives of his critics as they have at his own.\u201d In a \u201cbox score,\u201d Clinton went on, \u201cthere will be that one negative,\u201d but \u201cthen there will be the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times when the record will show that I did not abuse my authority as president, that I was truthful with the American people, and scores and scores of allegations were made against me and widely publicized without any regard to whether they were true or not.\u201d He didn\u2019t bother explaining which \u201callegations\u201d were true and which weren\u2019t. And he never directly addressed Juanita Broaddrick\u2019s charges. Maybe he feared this was finally a he said, she said battle he might lose.<\/p>\n
Broaddrick filed a lawsuit against Clinton in the summer of 1999 to obtain documents the White House may have gathered about her, claiming its refusal to accede to her demand for such documents violated the Privacy Act. The case was dismissed in 2001. In the middle of that lawsuit, Broaddrick\u2019s nursing-home business found itself audited by the IRS for the first time in its 30 years of existence. \u201cI do not believe this was coincidence,\u201d Broaddrick declared, \u201cI do not think our number just came up.\u201d<\/p>\n
For a while Juanita and David Broaddrick returned to their quiet, successful life in rural Arkansas. But, Broaddrick tells me, \u201cMy life with David gradually began to deteriorate before and after the interview [on ‘Dateline’].\u201d Her husband had been \u201ctotally against my coming forward and I think the unwanted publicity into our private lives gradually destroyed our marriage.\u201d They divorced in 2004. Juanita still owns one of their two nursing-home facilities, and their home and acreage, and David owns the other facility. \u201cWe are both very happy now,\u201d she says, \u201cbut I will always wonder if we would be together and happy had I not come forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is a woman of tremendous strength, whose zest for life and self-confidence shines through her voice as we talk. She loves to play tennis and is on two teams. She is financially comfortable and has even begun to date again. \u201cMan, that is a trip at 62,\u201d she laughs. She baby-sits her \u201cnew, precious grandson\u201d and has a \u201cvery happy life.\u201d She remains an outspoken critic of former President Clinton, but tells me, \u201cLife goes on, and it is a great life.\u201d<\/p>\n
The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, a division of the Centers for Disease Control, reports that about 40 percent of rape victims described their attacker as a friend or acquaintance, and that fewer than half of all rapes are reported to authorities. Juanita Broaddrick fits within those statistics.<\/p>\n
Whatever the circumstances of the rape, most victims experience some level of psychological trauma. Juanita Broaddrick didn\u2019t walk us step by step through the long days and nights she must have spent processing what happened to her, but the Rape Treatment Center at UCLA Medical Center tells rape victims that common reactions to the psychological trauma of rape include: shock and disbelief; intense emotions of anger, anxiety or depression; unwanted memories, flashbacks, or nightmares; physical symptoms like sleeplessness, headaches, or stomach pains, fear for personal safety even in situations that didn\u2019t previously cause any concern; and feelings of guilt and shame. Acquiring information about all the \u201cnormal\u201d reactions does little, though, to actually help a woman feel better about experiencing the brutal act of rape.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d rather disclose my limitations in looking at Juanita Broaddrick\u2019s story than wonder quietly to myself if I managed to pull off neutrality in writing about her experience. These pages aren\u2019t intended for my own life story, but I doubt my ability to write about Juanita Broaddrick without imposing some of my own experience onto my interpretation of hers.<\/p>\n
Many years ago I was sexually assaulted \u2026 raped \u2013 the word still sticks uncomfortably in my throat. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve said it out loud for years, and I\u2019m even grateful to be writing this instead of speaking it. Reading the transcript of Broaddrick\u2019s interview with \u201cDateline\u201d I noticed immediately that Broaddrick got through her narrative of her encounter with Clinton without saying the word \u201crape.\u201d She answered \u201cyes\u201d when Lisa Myers asked if Clinton raped her, but she never did utter the word herself. A Clinton defender used that omission to insinuate that maybe Broaddrick wasn\u2019t really alleging rape; I tend to see it as understandable reluctance to \u201cown\u201d rape as a personal experience.<\/p>\n
In my own case, the offender was a person I\u2019d known since childhood. I told no one for months, and when I eventually confided in a few close friends it was through a cloud of alcohol rather than deliberate disclosure. It took a long time working with dear friends and a wonderful therapist before I could accept the word \u201crape\u201d for what had happened to me. It took many more months to shed the guilt I felt in believing I had caused it to happen, and for the recurring nightmares to stop. It took even longer to let go of the anger that eventually surfaced in my consciousness. In fact, by the time I reached the height of my anger phase, the statute of limitations had passed, precluding me from attempting revenge or remedy through civil or criminal action. Even if the statistic floated by feminists that one in four women suffers rape overestimates the actual number, even one is too many. The trite phrase \u201cWhatever doesn\u2019t kill you makes you stronger\u201d truly means something when it comes to experiencing rape, because for a while you feel as if a part of you has died, and recovering means finding a new, stronger life and identity.<\/p>\n
I have my own theories now about what might have made my attacker treat me the way he did, and my best guesses explain a lot about why I was convinced for a long time that I\u2019d brought it on myself. The guilt was soul-crushing. Broaddrick says her attacker left the scene with the words \u201cYou\u2019d better get some ice on that.\u201d Mine left with the words, \u201cLove you.\u201d You don\u2019t forget those words in a moment like that, and no matter what they are, they tend to leave you feeling somehow degraded, dirty, and disposable.<\/p>\n
Broaddrick talked about not coming forward because she didn\u2019t think anyone would believe her, and because she felt shame and fear about being perceived dishonorably due to the affair she was having at the time with the man who would later become her second husband. My reasons \u2013 instincts, more like \u2013 for keeping silent were a bit different, but also centered on shame and fear. I don\u2019t think I worried that family or friends wouldn\u2019t believe me, but I did feel entirely responsible and hated the thought of anyone I cared about thinking of me in some way tainted by involvement in something so ugly. Nor was I eager to invite conversations or questions about my sex life. The thought of going to the police was humiliating, and anyway, it was my word against his. I had no proof.<\/p>\n
Broaddrick says she and her then-husband talked about whether she should come forward while her rapist was running for president. They decided it was better for her not to. On balance, she thought, it could bring nothing good to her life. Though I\u2019ve never heard rumors of the person who raped me aspiring to be president of the United States, I have no desire now to hold him accountable in a public way. I still feel like I knew this person very well, and I long ago trekked the road of forgiveness and arrived with a sense of confidence that this person would never repeat that behavior. If I had been raped by a more-or-less stranger, maybe I wouldn\u2019t have that kind of confidence and would feel a sense of responsibility to other actual or potential victims to step forward and make his past behavior public knowledge.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d known this person for such a long time that we had many mutual acquaintances, and for quite a while I heard his name and saw his face much too often. Juanita Broaddrick had to live in a country where her rapist\u2019s face, voice, and image surrounded her all through the \u201990s. That kind of constant reminder might have pushed me over the edge to full disclosure, too. She admits to lying under oath, denying the rape in an affidavit for the Paula Jones case. I wasn\u2019t under oath, but I once lied to protect the person who raped me \u2013 to a federal investigator doing a background check on this person for a job.<\/p>\n
Broaddrick says her rapist once confronted her in person and apologized for what he\u2019d done. She told him to go to hell. The person who raped me apologized too, many months later, over the phone. I just cried.<\/p>\n
Most mentions of her experience also included the criticism that she can\u2019t remember the month of the alleged rape. Neither can I. You\u2019d think a person would remember the exact hour, day, month, and year of something like that. You\u2019d think. Except that\u2019s just it; you\u2019re not navigating through the experience with your head. You go through it with your body and your heart and soul. So I can say with certainty precisely where I was, the colors in the room, the tone of his voice, what I felt in each moment. But I cannot for the life of me say with certainty whether it happened in October, November, or December. I guess that\u2019s just me. Well, and Juanita Broaddrick.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s just her word against his. No possibility of legal action for the rape itself, so no possibility of any evidence other than her story. None of us were present that fateful day, and I realize that some people falsely accuse others of crimes, but I also recognize sparks of authenticity in Broaddrick\u2019s story.<\/p>\n
No one wants to think of Bill Clinton as a monster. But the possibility or plausibility of Juanita Broaddrick\u2019s story doesn\u2019t force a conclusion as black and white as that. Rape is always a horrific crime, but not all rapists are horrific people. Women consistently describe Clinton as charming, boyish, good-natured, fun-loving. That can be a genuine side of a person coexisting with a darker side of the same person. Years after the incident, Clinton took Broaddrick\u2019s hands in his and tried to apologize for what he\u2019d done, assuring her he was now a different person.<\/p>\n
Hopefully that\u2019s true. I don\u2019t believe the person who assaulted me is a monster. Far from it; I\u2019d known him as a kind, eventempered, patient man with an easy sense of humor, and before the actual assault I\u2019d never seen a clue of that kind of contempt or rage from him. Believing Juanita Broaddrick doesn\u2019t mean painting Bill Clinton as an evil human being who doesn\u2019t deserve to draw another breath. Very few people are entirely good or entirely evil. Believing Juanita Broaddrick, or even conceding that she might be telling the truth, for our purposes adds a final dimension to our look at how liberal politics influenced Clinton\u2019s behavior.<\/p>\n
The core mistreatment aspect of Juanita Broaddrick\u2019s experience with Bill Clinton is almost the polar opposite of his mistreatment of women like Elizabeth Ward Gracen, Sally Perdue, and Gennifer Flowers. The latter three women didn\u2019t suffer mistreatment sexually, but found themselves variously mistreated in the aftermath. Paula Jones and Kathleen Willey experienced unwanted sexual advances, but neither alleged unwanted sex. Juanita Broaddrick isn\u2019t the only woman ever rumored to accuse Bill Clinton of rape, but she is the only woman who has confirmed her claims publicly. Clinton didn\u2019t go through the trouble of smearing Broaddrick\u2019s reputation as he did with other women, but he didn\u2019t really have to; with no fear of legal or political repercussions, he ignored her and moved on, and he surely hopes we will ignore her, too. Her story faded quickly from the front pages, though \u2013 in the words of Charles Krauthammer \u2013 it is still \u201clingering, subterranean.\u201d What does it mean that we may have permitted a rapist to run the free world for eight years? Former Clinton political consultant Dick Morris may have had the most incisive one-liner in the wake of Juanita Broaddrick\u2019s public allegations: \u201cIf you\u2019re going to be a sexual predator, be pro-choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
A credible accusation of rape against any ostensible leader should be devastating, but against a leader held up as a champion for women it should have been shocking. As we\u2019ve seen, though, not many were shocked by Juanita Broaddrick\u2019s story. Sickened, perhaps, and maybe even angrier at Republicans for attacking Clinton than at Clinton himself, but few people found themselves so stunned that they could dismiss the story out of hand. One journalist said bluntly, \u201cThe president is accused of rape and nobody is shocked.\u201d Of course, the appropriate adjectives were used to report Broaddrick\u2019s story: horrific, terrible, monstrous; but after about two weeks her name and story faded into near-oblivion, even though the name and story of her attacker remained one of the most visible in all the world.<\/p>\n
Not that equal fame or celebrity is what Juanita Broaddrick wanted for herself. In fact, she did all she could for two decades to avoid reliving or being questioned about her attack. But since she did come forward, I\u2019m on the side of Dorothy Rabinowitz, who intoned that history has the right and responsibility to take her story into account when it evaluates the man who became our 42nd president. In some ways, Juanita Broaddrick is like all other rape victims, but in other ways, the identity of her rapist places her in a category of her own, with unique burdens. Most rape victims don\u2019t face the knowledge that their attacker is poised to grace the pages of history books, possibly painted as some kind of hero, for generations to come. Most rape victims don\u2019t have to stomach their attacker being heralded as the best thing to happen to women since the right to vote, much less hear about him selling 400,000 copies of his legacy-obsessed memoirs in just one day.<\/p>\n
With Juanita Broaddrick\u2019s story, we find ourselves back where we started: is it pure hypocrisy, driven solely by personal weakness, that propels a person so devoted to so-called women\u2019s issues in the political realm to be such a calloused abuser of women in his individual relations with them? Bill Clinton\u2019s victimization of Juanita Broaddrick certainly manifests psychological, emotional, and personal issues on Clinton\u2019s part, but it also illustrates a central feature of liberalism that can induce such raw, violent mistreatment of women.<\/p>\n
Modern liberalism paradoxically aligns itself with force to bring about goals of peace. This intrinsic paradox dooms liberalism\u2019s goals of world peace and global equality from the start. The rhetorical aims of leftism actually comport nicely with the message of Jesus Christ and other religious figures. Love your neighbor, care for the widows and orphans among you, make no distinctions between \u201cJew nor Gentile, male nor female,\u201d turn the other cheek, judge not lest ye be judged, and so forth. Imagine how beautiful our world today could be if we had spent the past 2,000 years practicing those lofty principles (regardless of whether every one of us revered Christ as God). As a code of morality, those principles encourage us to treat each other with genuine kindness, respect, and love. We cannot prevent every natural disaster or calamity, but we bear responsibility for creating much of the trauma that fills our modern world by refusing to practice love, tolerance, and kindness.<\/p>\n
But Christ spoke to people\u2019s hearts; he didn\u2019t suggest that his teachings ought to become the law of the land imposed on people by force. In fact, he recognized that such an effort is ultimately futile: you can use force to bully people into changing their acts, but you can\u2019t force people to change their innermost desires, intents, thoughts, or feelings. A change in the latter is only possible through an individualized, conscience-driven spiritual process. It cannot be imposed by other people; Christ made this clear when he proclaimed, \u201cRender to Caesar that which is Caesar\u2019s, and to God that which is God\u2019s.\u201d Yet the use of force to try to change people\u2019s hearts is precisely what political ideologues have attempted to do throughout history, sometimes out of a raw, inhumane desire for power but often out of good intentions to improve society by forcing people to do the right thing. Many admirable parallels exist between liberalism\u2019s central values and those propounded by Jesus Christ. Liberalism\u2019s exaltation of equality, fairness, and peace echo St. Paul\u2019s exhortation of \u201cfaith, hope, and love.\u201d The core values espoused by liberalism comprise an ancient set of moral tenets that, whenever they have been practiced, make the world a better place. But here\u2019s the harsh reality that makes liberalism a dangerous ideology: politics isn\u2019t about morality.<\/p>\n
Genuine morality must be voluntary, or it\u2019s no longer morality. Forcing you to choose correctly is no moral victory on your part because you had no real choice. And politics is always a discussion about how and when to use force. To pass a law, regulation, tax increase, or program always involves using force or the threat of force to bring it about. If politics is about enforcing morality, the paradox emerges: genuine morality cannot be achieved by force. To liberal ideology, politics is about enforcing values. Therein lies the problem.<\/p>\n
The values of leftism fit comfortably within a moral code, but they have no place in a political ideology. Liberalism\u2019s morality finds itself inevitably corrupted by association with political force, just as Christ\u2019s message has at times found itself corrupted by an unholy alliance between church and state. This is not to say that politics doesn\u2019t involve ethics. But there is a crucial distinction between morality and ethics. Every individual person needs a moral code to guide her beliefs and actions, but selection and practice of such a code needs to remain solely the province of her own conscience or else it isn\u2019t genuine morality. Every political system needs a code of ethics to guide it, but political ethics differ from personal morality. Personal morality tells us what we should choose; political ethics tell us what we are permitted to choose.<\/p>\n
When it comes to political ethics, the rules should be made according to the rights of everyone involved \u2013 and each of us possesses identical rights to own and use our own lives and property. That leaves each of us free to apply our own moral precepts to the problems of life and strive to make the world a better place using every nonviolent means at our disposal. No matter how noble the purpose, advocating the initiation of force against our fellow human beings can only perpetuate a culture of violence, dominance, and control, placing a world based on peace, partnership, and cooperation further out of reach. In a person psychologically or emotionally predisposed to mistreat women, attachment to liberal ideology can reinforce misogyny because of liberalism\u2019s advocacy of political force as an appropriate way to impose values. The political conviction that your ideology permits you to initiate force against citizens in order to mold their behavior can translate into a personal conviction that you can justifiably initiate force against a woman to wrangle submission from her.<\/p>\n
It does not require a stretch of the imagination to surmise that Clinton\u2019s political convictions instilled in him a belief that he could justifiably initiate force against a woman if she somehow threatened his ability to impose acceptable values on society. Juanita Broaddrick knows in her heart that Bill Clinton found himself capable of using the most egregious display of force possible against a woman. Many who have spoken with Juanita \u2013 including this author \u2013 believe her. Her credible accusation should leave us all disturbed at the thought that we put a rapist in the White House. Her story should encourage us all to think carefully about the connection between misogyny and liberalism, and whether we really want another Clinton presidency.
\n___<\/p>\n
The rape of Juanita Broaddrick<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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