Hillary Clinton, Harvey Weinstein, and Phony Moral High Ground

In Washington and in Hollywood, the moral high ground is something that far too often is a just a construct of pundits and spin merchants. People confidently act as if they hold it but end up looking like fools to anyone who isn’t part of their political camp. The following tweet encapsulates the ridiculous results that occur when people try to pretend they have legs to stand on.

https://twitter.com/molratty/status/917438420967858176

Both Chelsea Clinton and Donald Trump Jr. look like idiots here. Chelsea’s dad is by most accounts the Harvey Weinstein of politics so her sharing of Juddle Gum’s thread indicting Donald Trump for sexual misconduct shows that she is as much a political conniver as her mom. Trump Jr. taunting Hillary about her relationship with Harvey Weinstein is equally stupid given that his dad boasted about engaging in exactly the same kind of behavior as Weinstein—leveraging power and stardom to have his way with women. (Politically it got dismissed as “locker room talk” in the same way Clinton’s proclivities were dismissed with “everybody does it.” Only the politically motivated and uncurious act as if that put the matters to bed.)

This war between the desire to score political cheap shots and the desire not to look like a complete jackass is probably why Hillary Clinton has been silent on the news about Weinstein. She’s gone that route before of course, but given how much money she has accepted from Weinstein and her tolerance for her husband’s behavior, maybe even she recognizes how unserious she would look if she spoke out against Weinstein. She knows the sh*t storm that will hit her no matter what she says on the matter.

Deadline Hollywood writes that Hillary is damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t speak out against Weinstein. That’s exactly where she should be, having painted herself into a corner with decades of hypocrisy and faux moral outrage.

“She’s damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t now in this situation,” a deep-pocketed Tinseltown donor to the Democrats told Deadline of any statement by Clinton about the scandal that has seemingly buried now ex-The Weinstein Company boss.

“You’d hope for better, but this is so typical Clinton denial, isn’t it?” the insider added of the delay by the ex-First Lady in addressing claims by Ashley Judd, Rose McGowan, former local FOX TV reporter Lauren Sivan and others. “With her history with Harvey, her husband’s history, nothing she can say will suffice at this point.”

Having given a keynote address at Stanford University and continuing her “What Happened” book tour in San Francisco the day after the New York Times published a detailed piece on Weinstein’s behavior and six-figure settlements, Clinton made no mention of the reports or the producer.

Can you imagine a Hillary speech not taking a swing at a Republican mega-donor in a Weinstein-esque predicament? It would probably be the foundation upon which she’d build an overwrought “fighting for women” snow job.

Active on social media today, the former Secretary of State has still said nothing about the scandal, which was quite unlike her fast and extended online response to the mass shooting in Las Vegas late on October 1. Clinton does still calls herself a “women+kids advocate” on her Twitter bio and says “To all the little girls watching…never doubt that you are valuable and powerful & deserving of every chance & opportunity in the world” on a pinned tweet dated November 9, 2016.

"To all the little girls watching…never doubt that you are valuable and powerful & deserving of every chance & opportunity in the world."

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 9, 2016

Clinton’s silence about Weinstein is an unwritten addendum to that tweet: Having to watch a disgusting yet powerful pervert pleasure himself into potted plants or having to stay married to a serial adulterer and probable rapist in order to take advantage of those chances and opportunities.

I’m sure a team of advisers is frantically trying to put together a response to the Weinstein news that minimizes the resulting embarrassment to Hillary when she delivers it. They’re probably focus grouping Weinstein’s wealthy enablers to make sure the statement does not alienate any future political donations from them.

Whatever she says, Hillary’s phony moral high ground will in reality be well below sea level.

*UPDATE*

Hillary released a statement which is about as generic as you can possible get. She was SHOCKED and APPALLED by the ~~vast right wing conspiracy against~~ revelations about Harvey Weinstein.