My friend made a great point today after lunch.
“If Barack Obama had done a half of the things, a third of the things, that Donald Trump has done,” he said, “the evangelicals would be screaming for his scalp! But with this guy — Trump — they shrug and give him a pass. They say, ‘That’s just Donald.'”
Yes. Indeed.
His point is worth examining a bit more closely.
The issue of the day is the fling he took with Stormy Daniels, the porn star. And then we have the 10-month romantic relationship he allegedly had with Karen McDougal, the former Playboy model.
Are these issues by themselves worthy of an impeachment? Oh, I don’t think so. Then again, there might be more “there” there to discover … take it away, special counsel Robert Mueller.
The notion that the evangelical voter base would give the president a pass on a 12-year-old sexual episode speaks loudly and clearly to the duplicity those voters are exhibiting.
If we flash back about, oh, 25 years to the 1992 presidential campaign of Arkansas Gov. William Jefferson Clinton, you understand where I’m going with this.
The far right of the Republican Party that today is giving Trump a pass because what he did was so long ago was going apoplectic because of alleged affairs Clinton had with women well before he ever became president.
I cite the cases involving, oh, Gennifer Flowers and Paula Jones … to name just two of them. Flowers came forward with an allegation that she and Clinton had a fling. What was the right wing’s response then? They went ballistic, man! They flew into paroxysms of rage!
These days? No sweat. He’s a changed man. He wants to “make America great … again.” The president deserves God’s grace.
To be fair, I’ll concede that progressives who largely gave Clinton a pass in 1992 are filled with rage and anger at Trump today. But their tolerance then is ancient history. I’m talking about the here and now.
Which brings me back to the point my friend made this afternoon. If someone other than Trump had done what he’s being accused of doing, our friends on the right and the far right would be … um … beside themselves with rage.
Hypocrites.