In light of recent news about prominent men being accused of sexual assault and abuse, I think back to the Bill Clinton days. Then, as now, Republicans were dishonest and hypocritical. Now, they criticize any man on the left outed as being an abuser and remain silent on the same behavior from the right. When forced to comment on one of their own, they typically choose to withhold judgement until all the facts are in, secure in knowing that there could never be enough facts presented to force them give an honest assessment.
Back then, it was the same. I remember the day I heard the name Monica Lewinski,White House intern, and what Bill was accused of. Even though I was a committed Democrat and a Clinton admirer, my first thought was that he should resign the presidency. And I believe many others who voted for him thought the same.
But over succeeding months, that changed as Republicans used a special prosecutor and an investigation into a real estate deal in Arkansas to move toward impeaching him for lying about his encounters with Ms. Lewinski. If they had been honest, and made the case that his actions with her, and the other women that came forward, disqualified him to lead the nation, I, and a lot of other Democrats would have agreed with them and he might have been forced to leave office. But they weren't honest of course, and they tried to convince the country that they were moral champions of decency and to impeach him for lying about his affair was the righteous thing to do. Only Republicans bought that charade and he remained in office for a full second term.
Whether his behavior with Ms. Lewinski or any of the other women could be classified as assault or abuse I don't know, since there wasn't much of an honest investigation by legal authorities or legitimate media into the incidents. But from what I know, Trump's activities with women were a lot more heinous than Bill's. Republicans did then what they're doing now: covering up their own misdeeds and trying to criminalize the same actions by their opponents. I'm not sure if not having the capacity to recognize your own hypocrisy is a prerequisite of becoming a Republican, or if that ability is lost over time, but it is a constant with them.
There are no morals more relative than conservative morals, and no hypocrisy quite like conservative hypocrisy.
