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S03:E10 The Wilderness


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The Starr Report brings the world to a standstill. The President is impeached. Linda faces the aftermath of her decisions, Paula makes desperate choices, and Monica considers how to move on with her life. 

Season Finale!  Airing November 10, 2021.

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Linda's story about her father makes me understand where she came from a little better.  I was not expecting that plastic surgery scene, yikes.  It gave me unwanted flashbacks to Nip/Tuck.

I felt so sad for Paula.  That psychic hotline was embarrassing and that Penthouse shoot was degrading.  It's something else her high-powered friends only came back to denounce her for dabbling in the "occult" and doing a nude shoot.  If they were actually good Christians, they would have helped her find a job so she wouldn't have to do such desperate things.

Did the release of the report actually break the Internet?  I don't think I used the Internet that much in the late 90s, but I couldn't imagine something like that happening now.  I'm too addicted!

It's terrible that Juanita's interview was just denounced as being another one of Clinton's women by the people in the bar.  The details of her assault was shocking. 

I don't understand Hilary at all.  She admitted her daughter read that disgusting report and she decided to stay, and even allowed Bill to share her bed again?

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17 minutes ago, Blakeston said:

Imagine having excess funds, and deciding that plastic surgery for Linda Tripp is the best use for it.

I did laugh at the idea that Linda Tripp had plastic surgery that left her looking exactly like Sarah Paulson, and that Ann Coulter apparently is incapable of referring to anyone by their first name.   

I felt like this season was a complete mess.  Too much time jumping, too many people the show did not flesh out well and too many scenes of Monica watching television and getting upset.  It also seemed like you needed a desk reference with you to watch each episode.  Without Wikipedia, I don't think the average person watching this would have a great understanding of anyone's behavior or actions outside of perhaps Monica, Paula and Clinton.  By the time they got to the release of the Starr Report, I felt like the show had run out of things to say.   

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19 minutes ago, peridot said:

It's terrible that Juanita's interview was just denounced as being another one of Clinton's women by the people in the bar.  The details of her assault was shocking. 

I missed why Juanita decided she wanted to go public.  Can someone help me?

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Just now, Ms Blue Jay said:

I missed why Juanita decided she wanted to go public.  Can someone help me?

They did not really explain why Juanita decided to be interviewed.  Perhaps it was because she recognized she had been identified as Jane Doe #5, and decided she had to speak out publicly. 

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I remembering reading the Starr Report (at work!) and I think I was bored by the sexual details, but I think I felt it was just a lot of mind numbing details that shouldn’t have been in the report to begin with. I remember there was a mad chaotic scramble to get the report the day it was released, but I don’t recall if it took down the Internet. It wouldn’t have surprised me if it did given how many people wanted to read it and the state of the Internet then

I was surprised there wasn’t a postscript, at least on what happened to the 3 main women

I’m still not sure this series should have covered this topic, but I think they did a pretty good job

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Well, all in all I give this season a C.

I knew next to nothing about Monica except she had an affair with Bill Clinton.  Now that I know more, I kind of feel bad for her.  Then again, that's just how my heart is.  She was a victim, though, and for that, she has my condolences.

Linda Tripp.  I don't think she was pure evil but she was despicable and got precisely what she deserved by being seen as a villain.  Also, she kind of reminds me of Frank Grimes from that one episode of The Simpsons "Homer's Enemy" with the Clintons filling in the Homer role.

We didn't get enough of the conservatives in the House and Senate and their machinations.  I mean, we had nothing on Gingrich. And I always saw Ken Starr as being more, I don't know, ruthless in his investigation.  I didn't feel that.  I mean, yes, there was that episode where Monica was held prisoner in that hotel room by Colin Hank's character but I didn't much care for how they portrayed Ken Starr in this.  Don't tell me he didn't have an agenda.

And I kept forgetting about Paula Jones while watching this.  This is how all this started.  And I had no idea she posed for Penthouse to make ends meet.  I shouldn't porn shame, but all of what happened was because of her accusations against the president, so for her do go and do this (I don't care if she needed the money), is one big shit ton of hypocrisy.

The Clintons are the Clintons and will always be the Clintons.  They're bulletproof.  That's all I'll say.  My heart went out to Chelsea when she read that report, though.  And with what happened to Juanita.

Lastly, I wish they showed a "where are they now" montage at the end like they did at the end of the OJ Simpson mini-series.  It frustrates me that I don't know what's become of some of these people.  I mean, we all know what happened to Hillary and Brett Kavanaugh and Ann Coulter, but what's become of Paula Jones or Linda Tripp's family. 

Also, I'm disappointed the entire impeachment was done in the blink of an eye.

Edited by bmoore4026
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1 hour ago, Ms Blue Jay said:

I missed why Juanita decided she wanted to go public.  Can someone help me?

I'm no expert on this, but the Vox article I read stated that she spoke to her son, who was an attorney, and he advised her that lying on a civil deposition carries very different weight than lying to Kenneth Starr's inquiry.  So she decided to tell the truth to Kenneth Starr.  Because she has consistently stated that she received no compensation in exchange for her silence, she was relegated to an appendix, since the focus of the report was the idea that Monica had been asked to lie to the grand jury and had been given a job at revlon in exchange for her silence.  She also stated that Bill Clinton tried to apologize and ask her what he could do to make it right, and she also stated that Hillary Clinton thanked her for her silence.   I have no idea if this is true, but the link to the article is here:

https://www.vox.com/2016/1/6/10722580/bill-clinton-juanita-broaddrick

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God, poor Chelsea. No amount of therapy will make getting an eyeful on the Starr report okay.

That was a pretty bleak ending. Monica is forced to embrace her fame/infamy, while Linda remains delusional to the end, unable to accept that she was the one that ruined Monica’s life.

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Oh -- the memories.

Breaking the Internet:  Yup - it dd that.  I worked at the ISP/Internet division of a news company at that point (small local area..not national.), and I learned a metric asston of information on traffic and bandwidth that day because no one could load.  Plus..we were all on dial up at that point..and yeah - I think it was the first Internet Stress Test.

Linda -- well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions!  There were some times I felt a little empathy towards her, but Linda got precisely what she deserved. (Again - just save time and hand Paulson the Emmy now.)  And I loved the smack of realization that Lucianne was using her the same way she used Monica.

Whoever played Coulter and Drudge nailed it!

 

 

 

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"Men like him, they ruin lives, and they get away with it."  And all because people liked him. 

Well, in the end, I guess Sarah Paulson was given a pretty good speech about her character's motivation. And ultimately her lack of surprise at how things turned out.  Liars win. 

This was a good episode.  I liked the contrast of Paula's photo shoot with Hillary's photo shoot. Poor Paula, she really did think all she had to do was ask for an apology.  

I liked Bill's impassioned "it's a damned lie," which I don't know how many times he must have said that about other "Clinton women." The two men he was saying it to, I was expecting them to turn to each other and say, "Here we go again."  I kept thinking that that conversation must have been similar to ones Brett Kavanaugh would be having later on with the nominating committee for the Supreme Court. 

And in her inimitably crass way, Ann Coulter talking about letting in criminals into the presidency was supposed to be foreshadowing methinks. 

 

Edited by cardigirl
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2 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

while Linda remains delusional to the end, unable to accept that she was the one that ruined Monica’s life.

I mean, Monica was the one who decided to have a romantic relationship with a married President.  Monica was the one who decided to lie in her affidavit.  I don't say that to excuse Linda's behavior and actions, which were awful, but I can't really blame Linda for Monica's terrible choices.   

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Just now, txhorns79 said:

I mean, Monica was the one who decided to have a romantic relationship with a married President.  Monica was the one who decided to lie in her affidavit.  I don't say that to excuse Linda's behavior and actions, which were awful, but I can't really blame Linda for Monica's terrible choices.   

And, as Monica told her mother at the end of this episode, the President did nothing to help her through it. He could have stopped it, but chose to deny deny deny and then say nothing.  It wasn't just Linda, but Clinton too, as well as Monica's own mistakes that created the situation. 

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1 hour ago, txhorns79 said:

I mean, Monica was the one who decided to have a romantic relationship with a married President.  Monica was the one who decided to lie in her affidavit.  I don't say that to excuse Linda's behavior and actions, which were awful, but I can't really blame Linda for Monica's terrible choices.   

 

1 hour ago, cardigirl said:

And, as Monica told her mother at the end of this episode, the President did nothing to help her through it. He could have stopped it, but chose to deny deny deny and then say nothing.  It wasn't just Linda, but Clinton too, as well as Monica's own mistakes that created the situation. 

All true. But if Linda hadn’t sold her out to those that exploited her, she wouldn’t have been thrust in the spotlight and become a national punchline. She could have remained a private citizen and moved on with her life with a husband and kids like she kept hoping for.

But I guess we’ll never know for sure.

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40 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

 

All true. But if Linda hadn’t sold her out to those that exploited her, she wouldn’t have been thrust in the spotlight and become a national punchline. She could have remained a private citizen and moved on with her life with a husband and kids like she kept hoping for.

But I guess we’ll never know for sure.

She told 11 other people - if it wasn’t Linda it would have been someone else .

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1 hour ago, xhoipolloix said:

Ken Starr and his entire team are a nasty piece of work. Monica should never have been threatened with criminal charges or forced to testify. She and Paula Jones were used. 

Yes.  They were a means to an end.  If it hadn't been them they would have kept digging till they found something else to nail him with.  

 

35 minutes ago, chabelisaywow said:

She told 11 other people - if it wasn’t Linda it would have been someone else .

But would there have been proof?  Did Monica tell anyone else about the blue dress?  Linda had her own agenda.  It's one thing to disclose something someone told you but it's completely different to intentionally get someone to tell you things so you can use them to hurt someone else. 

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2 hours ago, chabelisaywow said:

She told 11 other people - if it wasn’t Linda it would have been someone else .

That always kills me. Did Clinton really believe Monica would tell nobody about their interactions? Of course she did, and she had every right to. 

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14 hours ago, TheGreenKnight said:

The episode opening with a misspelling made me laugh. I know mistakes happen, but it was the first shot....

That was pretty spectacular. 

The New York Times printed the Starr Report as a special section, and I had to stop reading it I was so repulsed. The level of detail of the sexual encounters was too much for me. I'm no prude, but I don't want to read that stuff in my daily newspaper.

I LOLed at everyone's frustration with the slowness of the internet and the subsequent crash. I remember my dad used to go down to the basement to turn on his iMac, then go upstairs and make a cup of coffee. Maybe by the time he went back downstairs he could log in and open a file.

If Cat really did fly out to L.A. to distract her on the day the tapes were released, she's amazing.

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3 hours ago, ifionlyknew said:

Yes.  They were a means to an end.  If it hadn't been them they would have kept digging till they found something else to nail him with.  

 

But would there have been proof?  Did Monica tell anyone else about the blue dress?  Linda had her own agenda.  It's one thing to disclose something someone told you but it's completely different to intentionally get someone to tell you things so you can use them to hurt someone else. 

Linda planted the seed to keep the dress as proof. Of course no one can say for sure if those 11 other people would have kept the secret. If not for that “proof” Monica would have been written off as delusional etc. I mean heck even with the proof she was. I don’t agree with the motive or whatever or the means - but I still don’t think Linda should have been vilified as she was. 

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33 minutes ago, chabelisaywow said:

I still don’t think Linda should have been vilified as she was. 

The attacks on her looks were completely vile and unnecessary, but that doesn't mitigate her other actions. She was a vindictive, resentful piece of shit. She deserves all the ridicule for that, IMO.

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Linda's story about her father makes me understand where she came from a little better.  

That she tried to get back at Clinton because she had daddy issues? It didn't make me like her any better.

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I felt like this season was a complete mess.  Too much time jumping, too many people the show did not flesh out well and too many scenes of Monica watching television and getting upset.  It also seemed like you needed a desk reference with you to watch each episode.  Without Wikipedia, I don't think the average person watching this would have a great understanding of anyone's behavior or actions outside of perhaps Monica, Paula and Clinton.  By the time they got to the release of the Starr Report, I felt like the show had run out of things to say.  

Agreed. 

I go back and forth between thinking there was too much of Linda Tripp, and thinking she was an important enough part of the story to delve into her POV. I mean, I understand she was a big catalyst in this story, but a lot of it did feel like a Sarah Paulson vanity project. 

On the other hand, there just wasn't really enough coverage of Ken Starr, the justice department, and everyone else who was out to get Clinton. I really didn't understand who half the players were or what their agenda was or why. I still have no idea who Colin Hanks was supposed to be!

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5 hours ago, ifionlyknew said:

Yes.  They were a means to an end.  If it hadn't been them they would have kept digging till they found something else to nail him with.  

"Something else to nail him with"??  I'm sorry, but if you rape/assault/harass/use/gaslight woman after woman for years and have the gall to run for the highest office in the land, I really have zero sympathy if your political opponents look to take you down for your reprehensible behavior.

I don't deny that the attacks against Clinton were politically motivated, but there's also no denying he's a disgusting POS who preys on women and, until very recently, largely go away with it (even by self-described feminists) simply because he's likable or better than the political alternative.

Yes, Monica made mistakes, but he 100% sexually harassed her and used his position of power to use her and then cast her aside.  While there's less proof about the Broderick case, it has every calling card of a legitimate claim of assault - just look at the number of contemporaneous accounts of her injuries and how many people she confided in about it before deciding it wasn't worth crossing the Clintons and coming forward with her allegations.

All in all, I really enjoyed the show - I felt sympathy for almost all players involved not named Clinton - Paula Jones most of all.  As for Linda Tripp, I found Sarah Paulson's portrayal very intriguing - yes, much of what she did was selfish and awful, but this show I think did a great job of showing her as a real person - very flawed, with poor judgment, but ultimately a good person (in my opinion).

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7 minutes ago, mbgriffith1 said:

ultimately a good person

I'm sorry she had a crappy childhood, but that doesn't give her the right to illegally tape someone she called a friend (whether genuinely meant or not) and use it against her and others. Work out your issues with a therapist, not the president of the United States.

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Yes, I downloaded the report at the college library where I was a college student. After a while, it got boring and long. The internet was so slow then and not as stable. Like with the scene where Drudge was mad his website had gone down.

I liked it overall. It made you think how many lives were affected while Bill Clinton went relatively unscathed. 

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27 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

I'm sorry she had a crappy childhood, but that doesn't give her the right to illegally tape someone she called a friend (whether genuinely meant or not) and use it against her and others. Work out your issues with a therapist, not the president of the United States.

Just because I think she's ultimately a good person doesn't mean I think she didn't do anything wrong.

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1 hour ago, mbgriffith1 said:

"Something else to nail him with"??  I'm sorry, but if you rape/assault/harass/use/gaslight woman after woman for years and have the gall to run for the highest office in the land, I really have zero sympathy if your political opponents look to take you down for your reprehensible behavior.

I didn’t read the original post to mean that these charges were merely something trivial, but instead that those going after him just wanted something, anything to get him on — if they’d found something unrelated to assaulting women, they’d have used that instead. In other words, they zeroed in on these things to take him down, not to lift women up. Those men couldn’t care less about victims of sexual assault, and only acknowledge it as a crime when it helps them against a political enemy.

Edited by TattleTeeny
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1 hour ago, TattleTeeny said:

I didn’t read the original post to mean that these charges were merely something trivial, but instead that those going after him just wanted something, anything to get him on — if they’d found something unrelated to assaulting women, they’d have used that instead. In other words, they zeroed in on these things to take him down, not to lift women up. Those men couldn’t care less about victims of sexual assault, and only acknowledge it as a crime when it helps them against a political enemy.

Yeah I would certainly agree Bill’s opponents were primarily motivated by taking him down rather than helping women, but I think part of the motivation to take him down had to be a desire to “right”  all of his wrongs against women. 

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3 hours ago, mbgriffith1 said:

 

Yes, Monica made mistakes, but he 100% sexually harassed her and used his position of power to use her and then cast her aside.  While there's less proof about the Broderick case, it has every calling card of a legitimate claim of assault - just look at the number of contemporaneous accounts of her injuries and how many people she confided in about it before deciding it wasn't worth crossing the Clintons and coming forward with her allegations.

I think Broaddrick lost her credibility by first denying anything happened under oath, and then later changing her story.  As to Monica, from all I know, she initiated the affair and pursued Clinton.  I think his behavior in his marriage was sleazy, but I view the Monica/Bill relationship as a consensual affair. 

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3 hours ago, mbgriffith1 said:

All in all, I really enjoyed the show - I felt sympathy for almost all players involved not named Clinton - Paula Jones most of all.  As for Linda Tripp, I found Sarah Paulson's portrayal very intriguing - yes, much of what she did was selfish and awful, but this show I think did a great job of showing her as a real person - very flawed, with poor judgment, but ultimately a good person (in my opinion).

I think the show, and mainly Sarah Paulson, did a really good job of humanizing Linda. Yes, I still believe what she did was reprehensible. But, I don’t think she was a bad person, which is an improvement on how I felt about her before I watched the show. 

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4 hours ago, mbgriffith1 said:

While there's less proof about the Broderick case, it has every calling card of a legitimate claim of assault

I heard Juanita Broaddrick on a podcast a couple of years ago (can’t remember which one) telling her story, and either she is the best actress since Meryl Streep or she is telling the truth. It was even worse than what they showed here. I believe her. And Bill Clinton is a miserable excuse for a man.

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15 minutes ago, Kathcart said:

I heard Juanita Broaddrick on a podcast a couple of years ago (can’t remember which one) telling her story, and either she is the best actress since Meryl Streep or she is telling the truth. It was even worse than what they showed here. I believe her. And Bill Clinton is a miserable excuse for a man.

COMPLETELY agree.  And this isn't a "times were different then" thing - rape has always been rape.

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I will never believe Linda Tripp did the right thing. She hated Clinton and led Monica on and even taped her for 22 hours. 

None of her co-workers liked her and I doubt her children did as well.

She had a huge agenda and it was all based on getting Clinton and not her family or Monica's well being.

I don't think anyone even using Tripp liked her.

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A post-script would have been really good to explain what happened to the principals afterwards and comment on the legacy of these events a bit more. 

I was online at the time, at 15 years old, but don't remember the star report crash (probably because I wouldn't have cared at the time.)

The clear class narrative at play between Paula's and Hillary's photo-shoots was very striking; the people who used Paula had nothing to offer her in the end (not even so much as a waitress job in D.C.) but wanted to attack her for needing money.  The public's sympathies were with Hillary, not with the women that Bill used and abandoned to the wastelands where they were treated like trash.  I thought I read that Al Gore was cast at some point--maybe not, but it would have been valuable to explore how, though Clinton survived without resigning, things didn't go as well for his VP. 

I was glad to see Linda lose her book deal; in the end she was a narcissist who took out her resentments on people who she felt didn't like/promote her enough on a young intern who was being sexually harassed by the president.  She had a backstory and feelings of her own, but so did Monica. 

Overall I thought this was a really powerful season.  I think it could have used another episode or two at the end to flesh out some things.  But, I definitely have more empathy for Monica Lewinsky's experience now then I did at the beginning, so that's good.

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12 hours ago, TattleTeeny said:

I didn’t read the original post to mean that these charges were merely something trivial, but instead that those going after him just wanted something, anything to get him on — if they’d found something unrelated to assaulting women, they’d have used that instead. In other words, they zeroed in on these things to take him down, not to lift women up. Those men couldn’t care less about victims of sexual assault, and only acknowledge it as a crime when it helps them against a political enemy.

Yes. If Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky didn't exist people opposed to Bill Clinton would have still tried to find something to impeach him with. 

11 hours ago, mbgriffith1 said:

Yeah I would certainly agree Bill’s opponents were primarily motivated by taking him down rather than helping women, but I think part of the motivation to take him down had to be a desire to “right”  all of his wrongs against women. 

I respectfully disagree. Knowing how they treated Monica I don't think they cared at all.

8 hours ago, maggiemae said:

I will never believe Linda Tripp did the right thing. She hated Clinton and led Monica on and even taped her for 22 hours. 

None of her co-workers liked her and I doubt her children did as well.

She had a huge agenda and it was all based on getting Clinton and not her family or Monica's well being.

I don't think anyone even using Tripp liked her.

Yes. Linda Tripp did not do this to get Monica out of a bad situation.  She wanted to help bring an end to Clinton's presidency.  

2 hours ago, AllyB said:

There is absolutely no hypocrisy in Paula's actions. How would consenting to a Penthouse shoot for any reason whatsoever, meant that she consented years in the past to her boss exposing himself to her and her wanting to be apologised to for that? It doesn't. Regardless of what a woman ever, ever consents to in one situation, it doesn't mean she consents to anything a man wants to do to her, and she is entitled to call him out on sexual indecency and want to be apologised to.

I 100% agree.  So many people made money off Paula Jones and yet when she found herself unable to find a job and did what she needed to do to support herself and her child she is condemned for it.   Why is it when a woman takes her clothes off she loses people's respect but when a man exploits a woman taking off her clothes he doesn't?

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15 hours ago, TattleTeeny said:

I didn’t read the original post to mean that these charges were merely something trivial, but instead that those going after him just wanted something, anything to get him on — if they’d found something unrelated to assaulting women, they’d have used that instead. In other words, they zeroed in on these things to take him down, not to lift women up. Those men couldn’t care less about victims of sexual assault, and only acknowledge it as a crime when it helps them against a political enemy.

Exactly.  They didn't care anything about the women, as evidenced by the way they treated them in the quest to get something to hang Clinton with.  Operation Prom Night?  No, you can't call your lawyer?  Humiliating Monica over and over again to get exact details and then publishing them to the world?  They treated the women as a means to their own gratification, as much as Clinton did.

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