Sue the Bastards
Drudge emerges this morning from the primordial slime to report that one of the allegations in Ed Klein's new book about Hillary is that Bill raped Hillary and it resulted in the conception of Chelsea. Andrew Sullivan obvious needs some extra lucre to pay those bills from Fat Gap, because he's running an ad on his site for this particular piece of recycled Charmin.
At the peak of the Swift Boat Liars for Cash siecle, Kerry made the decision to ignore their charges, and conventional wisdom says much to his detriment. Nobody has yet figured out the best way to deal with this kind of smear campaign -- do you simply give them more headlines and coat your own persona in their sewage fiesta by fighting them in court?
Hillary is up for election in 2006, but her seat is considered safe. My impulse would be to sue narrowly -- that is, about this charge and nothing else -- so as to limit the amount of discovery a court could compel, and keep the other side from being able to go on a "fishing expedition" through your life.
My guess is the publishers made the decision to go with the story because fighting it in court would raise the specter of Juanita Broaddrick (the woman who claimed Clinton raped her in 1978), and they figured the Clintons would never want that flag hoisted in the media again. They might be right. But I would personally think a lot more of Hillary's leadership abilities for delivering a swift kick in the junk to this lot rather than pursue political expedience by sipping tea and nibbling on dainties with Newt.
posted by Jane Hamsher @ 6/13/2005 11:22:00 AM
<< Home