Part 2 of 2
Clinton appealed the Jones v. Clinton appellate decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to take the case but didn't hear arguments for it until February 1997. In May 1997 the Supreme Court ruled nine to zero that a sitting president does not have immunity from civil suits concerning alleged conduct that occurred before he took office. [82] Clinton had avoided it until after his re-election, but by the summer of 1997 depositions and other pretrial discovery began in Jones v. Clinton. [83] For the first time in the whole drama, a new name surfaced: Kathleen Willey. [84] Jones's lawyers subpoenaed her to testify after being tipped off about an incident involving Ms. Willey and Clinton inside the White House. In September 1997, Jones's lawyers Gil Davis and Joseph Cammarata quit the case. [85] They had tried to convince Paula to settle in August 1997, but she insisted on an apology, which Clinton steadfastly refused. Soon after that round of settlement talks broke down, Paula and Steve found themselves on the receiving end of an IRS audit. [86]
In his memoirs, Clinton says that Jones refused to accept a settlement in 1997 "unless I also apologized for sexually harassing her," adding, "I couldn't do that because it wasn't true." [87] And we all know that Bill Clinton couldn't possibly say anything that wasn't absolutely, 100 percent true. The rejected settlement offer Clinton is probably referring to here would have included a $700,000 payment by Clinton's insurance companies plus a statement from Clinton that Jones never engaged in "any improper or sexual conduct" and that any implication to the contrary was regrettable. [88] Jones refused this offer -- to her lawyers' consternation-because it didn't include an apology and she felt she had no need for absolution from Clinton. [89] The apology she wanted was for his boorish propositioning of her, not for "sexually harassing" her. Bill Clinton has made himself memorable for parsing words (it depends on what the meaning of "is" is) so it's not unfair to parse his own words. Sexual harassment has a specific, technical, legal definition, and that wasn't specifically the behavior for which Jones demanded an apology.
In August 1997 Judge Susan Webber Wright dismissed two of Jones's four claims, which knocked out the insurance carriers and left Clinton personally on the hook for any eventual payout to Jones. The two claims the federal judge dismissed were relatively unimportant sideshows to the sexual harassment issue: defamation and false imprisonment. In My Life, Clinton seizes on the dismissal of these two minor claims to make it sound as if Jones's whole case had fallen apart. Plus, Clinton goes on, after her lawyers quit in September 1997, her new attorneys were" closely associated with and funded by the Rutherford Institute, another right-wing legal foundation financed by my opponents." [90] He concludes smugly, "Now there was no longer even a pretense that Paula Jones was the real plaintiff in the case that bore her name." [91] Given that Jones had just refused to settle for big bucks without an apology, it seems odd to try to argue that her lawyers' connections to right-wing causes automatically discredit her. Clinton was able to hire top-notch bulldog attorneys (with substantial ties to Democratic causes) to defend him; if Paula Jones could find powerful attorneys only within the conservative camp to come to her aid, I'm not sure that goes quite as far as Clinton hopes toward discrediting Jones or her case.
In October and November 1997 depositions began in earnest. Jones, her sisters and mother, her two friends Pamela Blackard and Debra Ballantine, Dolly Kyle Browning, Gennifer Flowers, and others all testified under oath. In November 1997,as speculation once again heated up about Paula Jones's claim that she could identify "distinguishing features" of Clinton's genitals, Clinton's lawyer made the undignified protest on national television that a recent medical examination had revealed "In terms of size, shape, direction, whatever the devious mind wants to concoct, the president is a normal man. There are no blemishes, there are no moles, there are no growths." [92] The American public was doubtless relieved to hear that.
A few days before his own deposition, Clinton told reporters he expected the case to go to trial (it was set for May 1998) and that he dealt with the distraction by putting the unpleasantness "over in a little box" so he can" go on and do my work." [93] It was a coping mechanism he'd inherited from his mother Virginia Kelley, who once wrote: "I've always felt the past is irrelevant. I've always maintained that whatever's in someone's past is past, and I don't need to know about it ... I've trained myself not to worry about what-ifs, either .... And when bad things do happen, I brainwash myself to put them out of my mind." [94]
On January 17, 1998, President Clinton became the first sitting president ever to be deposed as a defendant. (Coincidentally, the same week, Hillary gave sworn testimony about Whitewater to Kenneth Starr. [95]) Clinton testified that he could not recall with any specificity being at the governor's Quality Management Conference at the Excelsior Hotel on May 8, 1991, and that he never made sexual advances to Paula Jones. His own lawyer, cross-examining him, queried: "[H]ow can you be sure that you did not do these things which are alleged in Ms. Jones's complaint" given that you can't remember being at the hotel that day? [96] Clinton answered, "Because, Mr. Bennett, in my lifetime, I've never sexually harassed a woman, and I've never done what she accused me of doing. I didn't do it then, because I never have, and I wouldn't." [97] Maybe he just never thought of it as harassment. During his deposition Clinton admitted sleeping with Gennifer Flowers but denied sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky and others.
After his humiliation under oath, Clinton's lawyers filed a motion for summary judgment. The federal judge granted the motion on April 1, 1998, which meant the lawsuit was dismissed without a trial, on the ground that the judge determined that Paula Jones's evidence, even if believed, was not legally sufficient to prove sexual harassment. [98] (Clinton points out in his memoirs that the federal judge in the Jones lawsuit was once his law student. While on the campaign trail in 1974, Clinton lost a handful of law school exams he'd been grading. One of those exams belonged to a "good student" who, twenty years later, was the Honorable Susan Webber Wright overseeing the Jones case. [99] Clinton remarks, "I don't think she ever forgave me for losing the exam." [100])
Although Paula Jones's lawsuit was dismissed, damage had already been done. The same weekend as the president's deposition, Newsweek and other media sources began breaking the story that would culminate in impeachment proceedings: the Monica Lewinsky scandal. [101] Within a few days, names like Kathleen Willey, Linda Tripp, and Monica Lewinsky hit the headlines -- and remained there for a year. By the time the lawsuit was dismissed by the lower court, Kenneth Starr was already investigating whether Clinton had obstructed justice by asking Monica Lewinsky to perjure herself in the Jones case.
Jones's lawyers filed an appeal with the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the two sides argued the case in October 1998. [102] By then, Clinton's seven months of denials concerning Monica Lewinsky had come to nothing, as he was forced to admit to a grand jury and a baited public in August that he'd been, well, less than completely honest.
Oral argument before the federal court of appeals seemed to favor Paula Jones, particularly since Clinton's public mea culpa suggested that his deposition for the Jones cases contained possibly perjurious statements. [103] Not wanting to risk the appellate court reinstating the Jones lawsuit, Clinton settled with Jones out of court on November 13, 1998. [104] She dropped her appeal, and he paid her $850,000 (more than she originally requested in her complaint). She never got what she set out for (an apology), and he ended up with more trouble than he'd ever bargained for from the five and a half year ordeal. A spokesperson for Jones pointed out in an interview after the settlement that even without an apology Paula had accomplished her goal: believability. [105] Especially after Clinton's public mea culpa in August, Jones's spokesperson said, Paula realized that nobody believed Clinton's denials anymore and became willing to settle the case even without an official apology from him. [106]
***
The case took its toll on Jones's personal life. By March 1999, just a few months after settling the lawsuit, she and Steve were living separately. Jones moved back to her parent's home in Arkansas, publicly saying the plan was for Steve to rejoin his family soon. They filed for divorce later that year, partly due to the strain of the entire Clinton ordeal, and Paula stayed in Arkansas. [107] By the end of 2000, Jones was a single mother of two young boys, and she chose to pose for Penthouse, earning a tidy sum for her appearance and sparking harsh criticism from conservatives and others who had supported her through her battle with Clinton. [108]
(At the end of 1994, Penthouse shabbily purchased partially-nude photographs of Paula from an ex-boyfriend, [109] and printed them along with an article entitled "The Devil in Paula Jones" portraying Paula as a slut. [110] Paula sued to stop the magazine from publishing the photographs but the court permitted it. [111] She then sued her ex-boyfriend for appropriating her image that way but settled with him out of court when he apologized to her. [112] This incident, of course, made her decision six years later to voluntarily pose nude all the more controversial.)
Ann Coulter, a conservative tongue-lasher who helped use the Paula Jones suit as a political battering ram against Clinton, said after learning of Jones's display in Penthouse: "She used to have dignity and nobility and tremendous courage. Now she's just the trailer-park trash they said she was." [113] Her decision to go buff, Paula said candidly, was for the money, to help put her kids through college and get out from under her legal and tax debts. [114] She didn't actually see much of the $850,000 settlement payment after her old and new attorneys had hashed out entitlements to legal fees, and even by 2000 she still owed lawyers money.
Paula had said years earlier on a radio talk show that she would "never pose nude for any men's magazine," and when her voluntary appearance in the December 2000 Penthouse issue became public knowledge Larry King asked her, "What happened, Paula?" [115] She replied, "I meant it at the time, but I changed my mind." King pressed her: "You knew when doing it, though, that a lot of your friends, and supporters and people who stood by you would be outraged." Paula displayed a down-to- earth simplicity in her response: "None of my friends, first of all, Larry, are outraged ... because you know what? If you have true friends in life, they will always be your friends no matter what decision that you make in life. They are going to love you, support you, they don't have to agree with it, but they can support you and love you and stick by with you, and I have not had a problem whatsoever with any of my true friends." Anyone who has struggled with their direction in life, taking heat from the outside world while finding solace among a few true friends knows what she meant.
When Larry King confronted her with another quote from Coulter -- railing about how Paula is obviously not the Christian girl she'd held herself out to be and was no better than Monica Lewinsky -- Jones said Coulter had a right to her opinion, and she was sorry Coulter felt that way. Coulter and other commentators, Jones explained, rallied around her during the lawsuit, but once it settled they all vanished from Jones's life, leaving her as a single parent, struggling financially. "And all of a sudden, I didn't hear from anybody after the lawsuit had been settled or whatever to say: 'Paula, how are you doing? Do you need some help or is anything going on in your life that we can help you out with? How's your day going?'" Paula told King that she had no regrets. And no, she doesn't feel any guilt about opening up the can of worms that became the Lewinsky scandal. "[T]hat's Bill Clinton's problem," she retorted. In March 2002, she caused more people to shake their heads in bemusement by appearing on Fox TV's Celebrity Boxing in the ring against former figure skater Tonya Harding. [116] (Paula lost.) By summer 2004 Paula Jones was happily remarried, living with her new husband and their child (her third son) in Arkansas.
During the five years of legal warfare, Paula Jones endured endless references as a white trash bimbo, [117] and the Clintons found themselves knee-deep in debt. Amusingly, in the beginning Paula Jones made money and gave it to charity; the Clintons, on the other hand, lost money and had to become a charity. In the summer of 1994, a clothing company paid Paula Jones $50,000 to be a spokesperson; she kept half of it for her legal defense fund and gave the other half to an Arkansas shelter for abused women. [118] (The shelter ended up refusing her donation.) The Clintons, around the same time, started an unprecedented legal defense fund and accepted contributions from the public. [119]
Paula and her husband Steve tried to live a relatively quiet life during those five years, giving interviews only sporadically, focusing on raising their children. After being told by Jones that she wanted to keep her life quiet, one reporter wrote in late 1996, "Neighbors say the thirty year old housewife passes hours with the TV blaring and rarely leaves the gated complex without Steve, her spouse. When she does venture out, strangers approach her in restaurants, shops and Von's Supermarket. Some hurl epithets, others compliment her spunk and perseverance." [120] Attempting to be balanced, the New York reporter wrote about how "Jones's detractors, including several anonymous White House aides" continued to dismiss Jones as "a big-haired trailer park queen" and a "money-grubbing opportunist determined to shake down and embarrass the president of the United States," while Jones's "defenders describe her as a somewhat naive woman of simple values, motivated only by an obsession with clearing her name." [121] Jones told a friend, "I just want to tell my story. I deserve the chance to be heard." [122]
Paula Jones became a political football during the five years of her lawsuit, fumbled by conservatives who accused feminists of a double standard for not supporting Jones, and by feminists and left-wingers who used Jones to claim that conservatives never care about women until they have the opportunity to use one to attack a president they hate.
Paula herself once told reporters she felt nettled by feminists' refusal to come to her aid, speculating that maybe it was because of the hatchet job the press and Clinton defenders had done on her character. Comparing herself to Anita Hill, who received immediate, ardent support from feminists in 1992 Paula said, "You know, I'm not college-educated. And, I'm not a law professor. And they slammed me. They made me look like a -- you know, some kind of a trash from Arkansas. And I think that people didn't believe me because of the bad things that-that they were saying about me." [123] Yet the cruelty continued. Journalist Andy Rooney snidely said after watching an interview with Paula Jones, he believed her -- but his point was "what bad taste any man must have who was ever attracted to anyone so unattractive." [124] Rooney went on viciously:
I went to a library that keeps copies of dirty magazines like Penthouse under lock and key. I was able to look at the issue featuring Ms. Jones. She may be the most unattractive woman ever to voluntarily take off her clothes in front of a camera. In her old age, Helen of Troy was said to have looked at herself in the mirror and wondered why ever she had been twice carried off. If Paula Jones looked at herself in Penthouse she must wonder if any jury is ever going to believe that Clinton was sexually attracted to her. [125]
It was certainly this sort of savage public humiliation that prompted Paula Jones to get a make-over126and eventually a nose job. [127] In its Style section, The Washington Post called Paula Jones's revamped image "one of the most jaw-dropping public make-overs ever," and condescendingly observed, "The new Jones is sleeker, softer and sexier than she was in 1994." [128]
About the time that the Supreme Court was preparing to decide the immunity issue in Jones v. Clinton, (but after the November 1996 election), Paula Jones began receiving markedly more generous analysis in the mainstream media, even before her amazing makeover. There seemed to be some regret for portraying her so quickly and ruthlessly as white trash. There also appeared to be more hesitation in swallowing every denial the White House issued. The turning point might have been a well-researched article, part legal analysis, part investigative journalism, by a respected (and liberal) lawyer, Stuart Taylor. He wrote a 15,000 word article for American Lawyer magazine's November 1996 issue that made the rounds among the Washington press corps and found wide reception there.
Taylor's article examined all the evidence available about the case, and concluded that you had to believe one of three things: Paula Jones made everything up and lied convincingly to friends and family about it; Paula Jones and her friends and family conspired to make the whole story up; or Paula Jones was essentially telling the truth. Drawing many comparisons and contrasts with Anita Hill's accusations against Clarence Thomas, Taylor thought Paula Jones's story had as much or more credibility than Anita Hill's, and chastised the liberal press for "class bias" for discounting Paula because of her lack of education and big hair while crediting Anita with her Ivy League education, style, and poise. Taylor's article even prompted Newsweek journalist Evan Thomas to recant his cruel depiction of Paula Jones as "some sleazy woman with big hair corning out of the trailer parks" [129] and feature Paula Jones and a reassessment of her case on the January 13, 1997, cover of Newsweek. [130] Other liberals took note of Taylor's article and began commenting on the hypocrisy of Clinton's public image and private conduct. Andrew Sullivan mentioned Taylor's article when writing in November 1996:
Clinton has long been a public feminist, and constantly touts his concern and respect for women as his equals. Women, in general, have repaid the compliment by voting for him in disproportionate numbers. Indeed, women's groups have long been among his most vehement defenders. And yet Clinton is being sued for sexual harassment. [131]
Much of what was analyzed by Taylor remained the most telling evidence available throughout the remainder of the Jones lawsuit, since the case never actually went to trial; even the depositions ended up with more relevance for Kenneth Starr than Paula Jones.
***
It's important to remember that Jones's lawsuit was eventually dismissed not on the basis that she couldn't sufficiently prove what happened in the hotel room, but on the judge's determination that even if things happened like Jones alleged, she couldn't demonstrate all the legal requirements of sexual harassment. Most importantly, it would have been difficult for Jones to prove she'd suffered on the job because of her encounter with Clinton. Records showed she'd received cost of living and merit wage increases, so it would have been mostly her own testimony about feeling uncomfortable at her job knowing that her boss was a friend and appointee of Clinton. Whether or not she could prove her legal case of sexual harassment is a separate question from whether she had credible evidence of being sexually mistreated during her fifteen minutes alone with Bill Clinton. Even granting that no witnesses were present in that hotel room, there were a lot of good reasons to believe she was essentially truthful in her account of what happened. Of course it carne down to her word against his -- yet another case of he says, she says. She told her version under oath, and he denied it under oath.
For our purposes, it's enough that Paula Jones's story possesses plausibility. No one was ever able to discredit her story, though many efforts were made to discredit her as a person. Although I summarized the encounter earlier in the chapter, here is a more detailed version (in more detail than I wish was necessary!) of Paula Jones's account of what happened, gleaned from her legal complaint [132] and from journalist Michael Isikoff's interviews. [133] The picture they paint is vivid and hauntingly plausible.
By May 8, 1991, Jones had been working for the AIDC for about two months. Pamela Blackard, a friend and co-worker, was working with Jones at the registration desk in the Excelsior Hotel that day for the AIDC-sponsored Quality Management Conference.
A man approached the registration desk and made small talk with Jones and Blackard, identifying himself as Danny Ferguson, Governor Clinton's bodyguard. He returned at about 2:30 p.m., told Paula the governor wanted to meet her and handed Jones a piece of paper with a room number written on it.
After talking it over with Blackard, Jones accompanied Trooper Ferguson upstairs. The bodyguard waited outside while Jones entered the room. Clinton shook her hand and they exchanged small talk for a few minutes. Clinton told Jones that her boss was a "good friend" of his. Jones asked him something about Hillary Clinton's work with children in the school system, and whether he was running for president.
After about five minutes, Clinton was standing near the window. He reached over and held her hand, pulling her close to him. Jones withdrew and tried to make conversation. Clinton was listening to her but his face was "beet red." He moved closer to her, leaning against the back of a chair, and put his hand under her culottes. She said "What are you doing?" and tried to retreat but he was now trying to kiss her neck.
She backed away and he said he'd been noticing her downstairs, how he loved her curves and the way her hair fell down her back. She sat down on a couch saying she really needed to be going. "Oh, you don't need to go right now," he said to her, and sat down beside her.
When she looked over, Clinton had his trousers and boxers down to his ankles and was sitting there, exposing himself. "1 was literally just scared, shocked," Jones said. Clinton was "holding it ... fiddling it or whatever." Jones told Isikoff, "And he asked me to -- I don't know his exact word -- give him a blowjob or -- I know you gotta know his exact words .... He asked me to do something, I know that. I'll tell you, I was so shocked. I think he wanted me to kiss it .... And he was saying it in a very disgusting way, just a horny-ass way that just scared me to death."
She jumped up and said she didn't want to, that she wasn't that kind of girl, and Clinton replied, "Well, I don't want to make you do something you don't want to do." As he pulled up his boxers he told her to call him if she got any trouble from her boss for being away from the registration desk. As she left, he told her, "You are smart. Let's keep this between ourselves."
A few weeks later, her job entailed delivering some documents to the governor's mansion. She ran into Clinton at the Capitol rotunda. He greeted her cheerfully, put his arms around her in a bear hug and said to his bodyguard, "Look at us, kind of like Beauty and the Beast, isn't it?"
For excellent analysis of evidence supporting these central allegations of Jones's story, there are two must-reads. First, Michael Isikoff's book Uncovering Clinton, and second, Stuart Taylor's article "Her Case Against Clinton" in the November 1996 issue of American Lawyer. Neither author appeared motivated by any political vendetta against Clinton; Taylor even wrote his article after writing two years earlier in the same publication that he thought Paula Jones was lying. The evidence, not politics, changed his mind. As someone who voted for Clinton, Taylor wrote, "1 don't want to believe that the president is a reckless sexual harasser, and I'll never know for sure exactly what happened when Clinton was alone with Jones. But Jones's evidence is highly persuasive," leaving Taylor" all but convinced that whatever Clinton did was worse than anything [Clarence] Thomas was even accused of doing." [134] Since our purpose isn't to prove Paula Jones's case in a strict legal sense, we'll let readers interested enough to get their hands on Isikoff's book and Taylor's article decide for themselves how convincing Jones's case was. Meanwhile, let's explore what her story means in terms of Clinton's recurring mistreatment of women and his liberal beliefs.
***
In the dry, stilted language of federal regulations, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission defines sexual harassment this way:
Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitutes sexual harassment when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual's employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual's work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment. [135]
This definition of sexual harassment violates federal law, specifically, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Clearly, people can experience "unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature" and feel violated, humiliated, embarrassed, and fearful in a variety of circumstances that would not meet this definition of sexual harassment because of a lack of impact on employment. For instance, how many creeps on the street or in clubs use obscene pick-up lines that make their targets feel uncomfortable, degraded, and even afraid for their safety? Legally, Paula Jones's sexual harassment claim hinged on her ability to connect what happened with Clinton in the hotel room to her job as a state employee. Personally, her encounter with Clinton amounted to real mistreatment regardless of whether it impacted her employment or whether her experience merited legal redress.
Because the phenomenon of legal bans on sexual harassment evolved in the context of workplace discrimination, sexual harassment has become a politicized issue polarizing the left and right on the ideological spectrum. The left pushed for legal prohibitions, while the right called attention to some of the excesses caused by such laws. Feminists and scholars in fields like sociology and psychology have theorized about the causes and impact of sexual harassment, but in political discourse the topic is usually reduced to generalizations thrown around by both sides. The left condemns any reluctance to enact or enforce anti-sexual harassment laws as attempts to stifle women's rights, while the right tends to view stronger anti-sexual harassment measures as attacks on free speech by man-hating feminists. What gets lost in this reductionist approach to the topic is the seriousness of the behavior that forms the crux of sexual harassment, and its impact on women who endure it. That behavior consists of unwanted sexual advances.
Whether inside or outside a workplace, unwanted sexual advances are almost always premised on a view of women as mere objects, and are usually more about power than sexual gratification. While both women and men can, and do, impose unwanted sexual advances on each other, women generally experience such advances in a different context than men do. One of the key reasons women are more sensitive about unwanted sexual advances than men are is that men are generally stronger than women. This means that in a situation where a man is verbally (let alone physically) pressing a woman for sex, a woman is more inclined to sense a threat behind suggestive requests. Even a one-time incident of unwanted sexual advances can leave a woman feeling afraid for her safety, fearing that her rejection of the man's advances will leave him frustrated enough to just take what he wanted.
This aspect of mistreatment through unwanted sexual advances is buttressed by realizing that such advances demonstrate a view of women as objects rather than whole, individual people. Having a man make uninvited -- and, in Jones's case, completely unprovoked -- sexual overtures toward a woman leaves her in serious doubt that he sees her as anything more than a useful device to fulfill some sexual desire. That impression can further a sense of fear that, when rejected, the man may not hesitate to use force to fulfill his desire, since it appears that he doesn't know her or care to know her except in a debased sexual way.
If this topic of discussion is leaving men a bit frustrated, I can't blame them. The line between unwanted sexual advances and flirtation based on mutual attraction is often fuzzy, complicated by basic differences in men's and women's perceptions and use of verbal and body language. Some men accused of sexual harassment no doubt feel greatly misunderstood, believing they were actually complimenting a woman or simply expressing a romantic interest in her. One of the contextual keys to identifying unwanted sexual advances, however, is whether a man's advances address themselves to a person, or just an object. Verbal communication and body language that bypass all aspects of a woman except her body, for instance, are likely to be perceived as objectification, triggering the sense of fear or intimidation that makes unwanted sexual advances disturbing rather than innocuous.
The difference between unwanted sexual advances that objectify and degrade women, leaving them humiliated, debased, and even frightened, on the one hand, and harmless flirtation and natural romantic interest, on the other hand, may not always be readily identifiable. However, some interactions fall clearly within the realm of unwanted sexual advances. Paula Jones's experience with Bill Clinton in that hotel room is one of the clear cases. The first aspect of her story that places her encounter with Clinton in the realm of unwanted sexual advances that left her feeling objectified and humiliated was the power differential between them. He was governor, she was a bottom-rung state worker. That dynamic factored into her ability to stand up for herself, since fending off the governor is likely to be mentally and psychologically much more difficult than fending off, say, an obnoxious bartender at the local pub. Using the police to arrange his meeting with her reinforced this power, enhancing her trepidation when he made sexual advances toward her.
The second aspect of Paula Jones's story that helps identify her interaction with Clinton as unwanted sexual advances is Clinton's physical overtures toward her after only a few minutes of small talk. That behavior sent a message that he had little or no interest in anything about Paula Jones except her body and its ability to please him. He held her hand, and when she protested, he slid his hand under her culottes. Stop right there. After she expressed reluctance, he made a physical grab for sex. At that point, he made two things clear to her: one, she existed to gratify his urges, and two, he might not take no for an answer.
She refused and backed away again. Partly because of the aforementioned power differential, she didn't leave the room at that point, not wanting to offend him too badly. She continued making small talk, and sat down on a couch away from him. He sat down beside her, sort of listening to her, and paid her what he perhaps thought were compliments about how he loved her curves and the way her hair fell down her back. Between lovers, these comments are complimentary, but between strangers, these comments only intensify the recipient's impression that this man knows what he wants and it's all about physical gratification.
The remainder of their interaction reinforces these two aspects: the power differential and his objectification of her. He sat on the couch next to her and pulled down his pants, exposing himself to her, asking her to perform oral sex on him. The unspoken thought that might zoom through a woman's mind in a moment like that may be, Or what? If she refuses, what happens then? His behavior has indicated a strong desire for her to service him; will he force her to do it? Jones refused and quickly got up to leave the room. His response? "Well, I don't want to make you do something you don't want to do." Reporter Michael Isikoff believed Jones's memory of that statement boosted her credibility. It's a "well, at least" kind of statement that a woman probably wouldn't include in her story if she were making it all up. Well, at least he wasn't going to force her to service him. Jones's reaction when Michael Isikoff pointed this out to her was: "Oh, wasn't that sweet of him? Asshole. That one little sayin' in there I guess will get him off the hook." [136] She's right. What a great guy, letting her know that he wasn't going to rape her. It doesn't get him off the hook, though.
Regardless of whether his actions fell short of sexual assault, Clinton's behavior falls squarely in the realm of degrading, humiliating, objectifying unwanted sexual advances. His behavior should be completely unacceptable from any man, particularly one who holds himself out to be a champion of women's rights. Women have fought for centuries to be treated with respect as individuals with souls and minds, who exist for their own purposes rather than as sexual toys for men. That kind of basic respect and appreciation for female autonomy is far more important than a slew of legal protections Clinton supported. Blatant refusal to accord this kind of respect and autonomy to women with whom he comes in personal contact amounts to a type of misogyny, as it demonstrates through action an assumption that women exist chiefly to fulfill his own whims and are not worthy of full personhood. One journalist queried during the Paula Jones lawsuit in 1995:
How does a man who claims to hold women in high regard explain away what seem to be chauvinistic exploitations of women? Simple: Make the accusers out to be pitiable "bimbos" who, for reasons of politics or money, lie about their relations with the former governor of Arkansas. According to this strategy, conceived by [Betsey] Wright before the inner circle did her in, Clinton maintains his image among professional women by separating off the "bimbos" as spindle-heeled opportunists with big hair. [137]
Even before the 1996election it was something of a problem for Clinton to maintain his grip on the women's vote while stories of his "private" mistreatment of women abounded.
The discrepancy between Clinton's public, official, political "treatment" of women and his personal mistreatment of them is more than "just" his personal weakness. Part of the discrepancy is due to his liberal political beliefs. Liberalism won't produce Clintonian misogyny in every adherent; it takes certain emotional, psychological predispositions to treat women the way Clinton does. But his politics does influence his behavior, and Paula Jones's experience helps illustrate a fourth aspect of liberal ideology that can breed misogyny.
Liberalism champions "groupism" rather than individualism. That is, liberalism classifies people into groups and focuses on policies to promote group welfare rather than individual welfare. People are only as important as their group membership makes them. Individuals' rights have little importance compared with so-called group rights. Thus, most policies and proposals from leftists concentrate on promoting the interests of certain groups rather than making rules that apply to all individuals as evenly as possible. Most of the groups liberals champion tend to consist of people who have historically been dominated by the powers that be. For example, liberals place much emphasis on helping minority racial groups and women. Under the guise of "equal rights for all," leftist policies usually end up calling for measures that in reality go far beyond removing actual barriers that have subjugated members of these groups and attempt to provide extra assistance or protection for such groups.
There are many problems with this core aspect of left-wing ideology. A glaring one is that human beings are much more than their physical, biological, or even sociological characteristics. Classifying people into groups according to those characteristics and then advocating policies with sole regard to those groups fails to account for people's individual interests. Not all people who belong to a group based on those kinds of characteristics possess identical interests or needs. Likewise, some people who do not belong to those groups have desires perfectly aligned with people in those groups. Giving pride of place to the welfare of groups overshadows the welfare of individuals who either do not belong to those groups, or belong to those groups but have their own individual needs or interests.
Leftism's elevation of group identity to center stage in policymaking necessarily pushes aside the value of each person's individuality. Group politics is a kind of short cut for trying to accomplish some good goals (like nondiscrimination) but like most short cuts it skips some important steps. One of those key steps is factoring in people's individual needs and interests. Black or white, people have an interest in acquiring employment when they want to work. Male or female, people often struggle paycheck to paycheck to support children. Gay or straight, people have an interest in an efficient, non-corrupt justice system. Instead of focusing the debate on solutions to common problems faced by individuals, liberal ideology centers the debate on promoting the welfare of certain groups, presuming to know the interests and needs of all members of those groups and discounting the needs and interests of those who don't belong.
Liberalism's focus on group politics also perpetuates the use of stereotypes that further degrade and undervalue people's individuality. When policies and proposals are constantly centered on so-called "minority rights" or "women's rights" it's inevitable that statements lumping all members of those groups together emerge in the debate. "Women want such-and-such," or "African-Americans need this-or-that," become part of the argument, as if the proponent actually believes herself competent to speak on behalf of every single member of those groups.
This perpetuation of group identity stunts the prospect of shaping laws and regulations that apply as generally and equally as possible to us all. Part of the value of law is to set up rules that people know to follow. Law tells each of us what society expects from us. Within the proscriptions and requirements of the law, our behavior is up to us; laws set a kind of boundary, warning us in advance what behaviors are unacceptable. If individual freedom of choice is truly valued, society will enact as few laws as possible and apply them as generally and fairly as possible. If values other than individual freedom of choice are paramount, laws and regulations quickly become complicated, nearly impossible to predict or follow to the letter, with some laws applying only to certain groups, other laws applying to everyone. Liberalism values group welfare much more than individual freedom of choice, so laws and regulations abound in their efforts to force "good" results for their target groups, at the expense of personal autonomy.
Let's return to the topic of sexual harassment to see this dynamic in action. It wasn't enough that women are not legally forbidden anymore from getting an education and entering the workforce. Feminists and other leftists thought the problem of workplace sexual harassment needed a legal remedy. Since sexual harassment is such a nebulous experience, defined so subjectively and turning on the perceptions of the people involved, laws banning it are difficult to articulate. But they have tried anyway, with the side result that many men self-censor themselves to avoid being accused of sexual harassment, and institutions remove valid expressions of art and learning to avoid even the appearance of sexual harassment. It's a classic example of leftism's emphasis on group identity over individualism. "Women need protection from sexual harassment in the workplace." This generalization pushes aside the fact that sexual assaults of all varieties were already punishable by law, and glosses over the reality that unwanted sexual advances are difficult to define and tend to be subjectively interpreted. Moreover, it's another political argument injecting stereotypes into the debate: "Women need ...." If you're a woman, you need this. By implication, if you're a man, you tend to engage in this negative behavior. Using those generalizations to shape law (which is always, fundamentally, the use of political force) discounts the individuality of many men and women whose needs and interests don't fit neatly into what liberals have deemed their respective gender groups' needs and interests and perpetuates the idea that conclusions about people can be drawn based on gender rather than individual behaviors.
Attached to a leftist ideology that treats people according to membership in groups, perhaps Clinton found it easier to rationalize treating Paula Jones with such disrespect and objectification. Liberalism calls for gender equality, but treats it strictly as a politicized group issue. Women's rights are equated solely with political initiatives like reproductive rights and tougher anti-sexual harassment measures. A person's individualism gets lost in this focus on groupism. Paula Jones is a member of the biologically-defined, politically important group "women." As such, Clinton took good care of her by the standards of liberal ideology: he advocated protecting her right to choose an abortion and her right to equal pay for equal work.
But Paula Jones standing alone as an individual person, unconnected to a political agenda for "women's rights," meant very little to BillClinton. In fact, as an individual he helped paint her as a member of yet another group, to be toyed with and mocked at will: white trash. That "group" gets scant attention from liberal activists, and her presumed membership in it far outweighed the importance of her membership in the group "women." Perhaps applying his ideological focus on group ism over individualism helped Clinton interact personally with individual women like Jones in a manner that demonstrated contempt, disrespect, and objectification, while maintaining his self-image as a promoter of women's rights; on balance, he was doing good things for women, and those women whose needs or interests weren't met by his policies didn't really "count."
Did Paula Jones's mistreatment by Clinton warrant the court battle she initiated? Probably not. Her case was weak by legal standards, mostly due to having to prove the unwanted sexual advances negatively impacted her work environment. Did Clinton's mistreatment of her justify doing all she could to call public attention to his behavior? Absolutely. There is no constitutional requirement that presidents treat women with respect. The public should, however, have information about their leaders' unofficial behavior when such information is available. Her efforts to embarrass him and wrangle an apology from him were, on a personal level, perfectly justifiable. While he racked up good marks for championing women's causes, she tried to point out that his personal behavior spelled misogynistic mistreatment of women. In that effort, she succeeded.
