1.) We gauge a person's character by past actions, not only recent, and generally hold him responsible and expect some kind of remorse and expiation if he is to be credited with truly having reformed. Since Clinton has never truly owned up, or showed due remorse, or taken step to discharge his responsibility, there is no reason that I can see to let him off the hook for past actions;
2.) It is sophistical to view adultery in the narrow terms that Clinton did, since the sort of relationship he has more or less admitted, once having been caught, falls under anyone's definition of sexual infidelity. If he had not understood the common view of the matter, why would he have bothered to hide it?;
3.) If you are making no grand claims, why allege a significant improvement in character? Suppose that he merely realized that it would be harder to get away with approaching strangers, since they would have more to gain by running to the tabloids, and therefore decided to confine himself to women who he thought would be confused about their responsibility in the matter. Character, or cunning?;
4.) Actually, there have been a couple of other allegations of sexual assault, but they have not become as well publicized as the Broadderick matter;
5.) I am perfectly happy to judge his character by facts on the table. You are the one who is advancing speculations that are supposed to make his bad character appear good "in context", by supposing that he was worse, has reformed some, and that it is not merely caginess about hiding other transgressions, or the difficulty of getting away with things, that is keeping the level of post- White House allegations relatively low. If you simply say to me, "has he behaved according to the standards that are reasonable to expect from an adult in his position?", I have to say no, and that he lacks character, or even ordinary discretion. |
