Michael Bérubé - American Airspace

Over the weekend

When I heard that a prominent conservative blogger had gone after a young feminist blogger because she had dared to have breasts in the vicinity of former President Clinton in the course of a meeting between Clinton and liberal bloggers (“she wears a tight knit top that draws attention to her breasts and stands right in front of him and positions herself to make her breasts as obvious as possible”), I thought, “well, what do you expect from these Dorito-flecked guys typing in their mothers’ basements—they literally have nothing better to do.”

But when I learned that the blogger in question was not a Dorito-flecked guy typing in his mother’s basement but a tenured law professor, I thought, “wow, that’s remarkably pathetic. That might be one of the most pathetic things I’ve ever seen on the Internets.”

And when I saw that the tenured law professor was a woman who was chastising the young liberal blogger in the name of feminism, while writing, “Jessica should have worn a beret. Blue dress would have been good too” and “Jessica looks like Paula Jones,” I thought, “good lord, that’s more disingenuous and gratuitously vile than I can say. I’m so sorry this professor was asked by the Chronicle of Higher Education to participate in the same forum on academic blogging in which I appeared back in July.”

And then when I discovered that the tenured law professor was replying to people who’d pointed out that there was nothing exceptional about Jessica’s clothing or the photo in which she appeared by telling them to face reality, and replying to Jessica directly (who’d pointed out that the professor was attacking her for her appearance) by telling her not to flatter herself, I thought, “heaven help us, that’s positively delusional.”

And then when I got word that the tenured law professor had upped the ante by insisting that the young feminist’s blog was “one of those blogs that are all about using breasts for extra attention,” I thought, “good grief, wait until the poor clueless dear hears about the talented young feminist writers who work at Bust magazine. She’s liable to blow a gasket, she is.”

And then when I realized that the tenured law professor had unleashed hundreds of nasty comments about interns and Monicarama on her own blog (none of which she bothered to check or moderate) as well as sparking far more disgusting attacks on the young feminist by truly unhinged right-wing bloggers, I thought, “my stars, what truly despicable aggression-by-proxy this tenured law professor is engaging in. I suppose some people don’t have anything else to blog about, though—it’s not as if they can write lovely things about all our successes in Iraq or all the wonderful work their leader has done in New Orleans. I suppose it makes sense, in a sad and twisted kind of way, that they wallow in their little fantasies about Monica, especially since that pusillanimous Senate refused to treat them to the spectacle of having Monica re-enact her “encounters” with Clinton on the Senate floor, which is what they really wanted all along. It’s their version of partying like it’s 1999, and for some of them, it’s all they have left.”

But then, finally, when I found out that the tenured law professor who’d started all this pettiness and viciousness was now complaining self-pityingly about her critics’ unpleasantness and partisanship and incivility, I knew what we were dealing with.

Because when I became the director of a humanities center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1997, I was required to attend an “administrator orientation.” To my surprise, “administrator orientation” consisted of two days’ worth of learning how to deal with unfair and/or unbalanced professors and staff, who, we were told, would make our lives hell at the very first opportunity. (And you know what? Even though my center had no permanent faculty and only two staff members, the orientation leaders were entirely right about this.) And one remark from that orientation has stayed with me for almost ten years.

A bully, we were told, is someone who knocks you down and takes your lunch money.

An academic bully is someone who runs into you, falls backward, claims injury, and sues you for your lunch money.

So, Jessica, I’m so sorry you’ve been run into by one of our academic bullies. We’ll do what we can on our end to shun them, and we hope it’ll help.

Note for commenters: this blog does not tolerate comments about anybody’s physical appearance, unless of course you want to point out in passing that U. No. looks a little bit like Zod.

Posted by on 09/18 at 09:35 AM

the whole incident is pretty amazing, but then, the tenured professor in question has to be one of the most fatuous creatures on the internets.

Posted by on 09/18 at 11:16 AM
So, it is incumbent upon women to minimize and hide and otherwise be ashamed of their secondary sexual characteristics because the menfolks might see them, and lord knows they can’t be expected to control themselves when a form-fitting sweater is in the room? Got it. Best to wear shapeless burlap, I suppose—but make sure it’s long enough not to show ankle, because that drives some men wild. Ah, hell, it’s too complicated. A woman just shouldn’t leave the house at all.

And what about those two guys in the picture, the ones whose hands draw the eye to the crotchal region? Will no one decry their patent homoerotic come-ons to Bill Clinton? It’s so obvious.

captcha: glass, as in Althouse thinks Jessica’s got her breasts pressed up against the glass

Posted by Orange on 09/18 at 11:29 AM
I love ya Michael. But I worry sometimes that your belief that those in academe, especially those with tenure, might somehow be more susceptible to the wiles of reason than the ordinary schlub is becoming an impediment to your quality of life. I mean, sure, we all want to believe that education might lead to some appreciation for reason and its application in life. But what are we supposed to take from Bush stealing not one but two elections to no disapprobation or the AAUP proposing to protect contingent faculty rights by codifying their contingency? I for one welcome our Orwellian overlords. The sooner you accept their take on the spectrum, the sooner you get the privilege of turning down the volume.

captcha: normal, as in SNAFU.

Posted by on 09/18 at 12:03 PM
I think the part that makes me equally sad and furious is the cluck-clucking injunction to civility by Althouse and some of her community in the comments. Her original post--unprovoked in any sense of the term--was over-the-top unpleasant and rude. I just don’t think there’s any other way to see it. It doesn’t even matter if her observation about the photograph had any accuracy to it (it does not), it was an unnecessary, nasty thing to say, especially said with the strong self-righteousness and utter seriousness that Althouse devoted to it. If, as you say, it was some callow 24-year old sitting in his basement, chortling with glee at his own sophmoric cleverness, well, ok, I don’t expect much. For it to be a tenured law professor at a respectable institution is a different matter entirely.

Posted by Timothy Burke on 09/18 at 12:05 PM
REGIS!
FITZ!

Posted by on 09/18 at 12:10 PM
I just read Glenn Greenwald’s How Would a Patriot Act? yesterday (a little late, so sue me), and all I got to say is that any tenured law professor with a blog who isn’t blogging 24/7 about the issues he raises is a disgrace to the profession and to the internets. Can you say “Constitutional crisis”? I can, and I just did.

Posted by John Protevi on 09/18 at 12:12 PM
This disgusting pseudo-event caused by the tenured law professor shows the depravity of the right in its moment of crisis. Change the topic from the constitutional crisis and the failure and corruption of the Ceney/Rove administration and bring up a reaching out by a beloved former president to return them to their days of glory an extremely unpopular impeachment of the beloved former president. Insult people and accuse briiliant young women for their appearance to try to change the topic to their glory days and pretend that the attack on clinton an dnow Jessica has something to do with feminism. Forget about policy and their friend’s extremely misogynous attacks against the possibility of a woman becoming speaker of the house in January, create a pseudo event and bring back the halcyon days that the country was brought to a stop over a series of blow jobs.
Shame on them then and shame on them now as they try to turn the country from their scandals and failed policies.

Posted by on 09/18 at 12:37 PM
The Left’s hypocrisy knows no bounds. Note the Coca-Cola products conveniently located in the picture’s foreground.

Posted by J— on 09/18 at 12:40 PM
BTW, re: Zod. In “Superman II”, the character calmly utters what you might call the Blogger’s Credo, in response to an insult from Lex Luthor:

“Why do you say these things to me when you know I will kill you for it?”

Posted by Timothy Burke on 09/18 at 12:48 PM
The last two sentences of the tenured law professors contribution to the Chronicle forum referenced above in the post:

Those who are making a judgment about whether to offer a blogger a new career opportunity ought to have the sense to recognize satire and hyperbole and to understand that blog writing is done quickly, instinctively, and without an editor. But surely they are entitled to look at it as evidence of the quality of the blogger’s mind.

Heh. Indeed.

Posted by John Protevi on 09/18 at 12:58 PM
But not of the blog commenter’s command of the apostrophe marking possession.

Posted by John Protevi on 09/18 at 01:00 PM
I recall that people assamble “dream teams” for various sports. I was thinking about National Troglodite University, with Alan Deschowitz having an endowed chair for Human Rights. Nominations for Attilla the Hun Chair of Foreign Relations, Mullah Omar Chair of Women Studies, Strom Thurmond Chair of Race Studies etc. would be awarded in a nationwide competion (web polls?)

The tenured professor that is discussed here seemed to me more peevish than vicious. Snide and trite.

By the way, one girl associated by Jessica’s blog is also associated with BUST magazine, another adorns her bio with a pick licking cardboard Bush etc. Clearly, the girls are not full-time serious (meaning, they clearly make some interruptions in the fight for social justice). Yes, our tenured professor had seen all that and her gasket still cannot be found.

Posted by on 09/18 at 01:01 PM
See, we should really be focusing on the important issues raised by this meeting, to wit, how on earth did they manage to have a meeting in Harlem with no black people in it? This breast thing is more of a sideline. How dare a woman be aware of and pleased by her own attractiveness, boo, hiss, liberal strumpet—all a convenient distraction from both the problems suffered by neocons and those caused by Clinton’s event booker who somehow couldn’t convince a single person of a shade darker than manila envelope to show up. Very strange.

Posted by on 09/18 at 01:13 PM
Thanks for posting on this Michael...it’s been quite a couple of days. But all the bloggy support has made it bearable.

Posted by Jessica on 09/18 at 01:13 PM
I suppose it’s an old disagreement: is the wilful exaggeration of gender specific attributes an expression of empowerment, or an exploitation of your gender?

I favour the former which expands the scope of acceptable communication while leaving the acceptability of external reactions open for debate, instead of the later which limits the scope of exceptable communication while robbing everyone of the opportunity to react responsibly to physical communication.

In other words; thank you young feminist blogger for showing us what a knob some feminists can be, and that Clinton isn’t a lecherous freak (I’m assuming he didn’t do, you know, anything...).

(Orange: I twiddle my thumbs when my hands are clasped crotchally. It adds suspence.)

Posted by Central Content Publisher on 09/18 at 01:19 PM
Sibyl, that was my thought exactly.

Who cares about breasts when the picture points up a more serious problem, possibly an indication that the “digital divide” is wider than we think.

No blacks, no latinos… what’s up with that?

If you want to argue about something, at least pick a topic about which something can and should be done.

(It’s worse: apparently someone on Clinton’s staff said they had invited a person of color… how lame!)

Posted by Aaron Barlow on 09/18 at 01:33 PM
Dunno, Michael. Althouse is intellectually bankrupt. She tried to spin her ad hominem attack on Jessica into a lesson about feminism’s double standards: deplore men who objectify women while exploiting sexual images for personal and political gain, deplore men who sexually harass women while posing for pictures with sexually harassing bosses.

Problem is, even if Althouse’s comments started off moronic, her objection to these double standards is a valid claim. It’s also ad hominem logic to use Althouse’s earlier stupidity against her more interesting claims about hypocrisy.

Acephalous, guest blogging at protein wisdom, defends feminists who hobnob with Clinton by pointing out the need for political compromise: politics is all about getting your hands dirty, strange bedfellows, and so on. And while I accept that (Pynchon’s *Vineland* makes this point excellently), I also wonder why we don’t hear more comments on the Left about why Clinton *should * have been removed from his position as President. He admitted to sexually harassing an employee, he admitted to lying about it under oath.

Posted by on 09/18 at 01:47 PM
Clinton did lie under oath. Did he admit to sexually harassing an employee? No, not under either the legal or the common sense definition of harassment. It should be noted that Paula Jones’ case was eventually dismissed (because she had no claim to start with) and, of course, Monica Lewinsky never filed any lawsuit.

But what does Clinton’s improper conduct with Ms. Lewinsky have to do with Jessica the blogger? People—including you—say she “posed” for the picture. God, Jessica isn’t some Playmate. She was with a roup of people, someone asked for a group picture, and she was in the picture.

Anything Althouse came up to justify her leering, envious obssession with a younger woman’s body is just after-the-fact justification.

Posted by on 09/18 at 02:07 PM
Apparently now, to pass muster as a feminist with Althouse and the Rutherford Institute, one is required to believe that Bill Clinton raped Juanita Broaddrick.

I agree that appearing at meet-and-greet would be a problem if you did believe that Clinton is a sex offender. But there’s nothing un-feminist about not believing Clinton’s accusers, or considering Clinton innocent until prove guilty, unless you’d previously committed yourself to a strident “women never lie about rape, even when backed by well-funded, ruthless, and extremist factions” stance. AFAIK, neither Jessica nor anyone else at the luncheon, ever adopted such a stance.

Posted by on 09/18 at 02:20 PM
Shorter Luther: how dare you not share my obsession with The Clenis?

Posted by John Protevi on 09/18 at 02:35 PM
Bullies are exactly what’s wrong with academia.

If only there were a clear definition of a bully, or if one could do an x-ray test and never allow them into academia, or if it was clear that they were a bully because their butt always showed,

or something,

I think all our problems would be solved.

But I worry that the problem might amount to the freedom fighter/terrorist distinction.

Not everyone would agree that such and such a person is a bully.

Though I would tend to side with you on this matter, I have also run into straightforward bullies in academia (those that didn’t use the sexual harassment policy, or some other policy to damage someone unfairly) but those that actually sexually harassed, or those that simply would threaten to punch you in the face unless you agreed to some issue or another.

bully—to use browbeating language or behavior (Webster’s)

I think that makes John Protevi a bully! Ha ha.

Posted by Kirby Olson on 09/18 at 02:43 PM
Shorter Kirby: how dare you not share my obsession with John Protevi!

Posted by John Protevi on 09/18 at 02:48 PM
I sometimes wonder if the rabid wing-nuts stopped projecting their own motivations and fantasies onto everyone else whether they’d be able to analyze a situation at all. I think they might just stand around dazed and slack jawed. Not that there’s anything wrong with standing around dazed and slack jawed—in most cases that would be a marked improvement of the wing-nut disposition.

Posted by on 09/18 at 02:52 PM
He admitted to sexually harassing an employee

Where and when did he do this?

I also wonder why we don’t hear more comments on the Left about why Clinton *should * have been removed from his position as President.

Most likely because the Left, like the majority of Americans, did not believe he should have been removed from office.

Posted by on 09/18 at 03:09 PM
Charles, I didn’t mean anything untoward in yoking the verb “to pose” with the noun “photo.” I assume everyone poses when getting his or her picture taken. Even if your pose is to look natural. Boys pose, girls pose, birds pose, bees pose.

For me it’s less about “posing” and more about agreeing to hang out with a “sex offender,” as someone put it above. I personally don’t think Clinton *is* a sex offender, but that’s because I think we need an extremely narrow definition of sexual harassment that takes into account emotions that can develop between people in employee/employer relationships.

Yet, if GWB was caught having sex with an intern, I bet we’d hear many more feminists labelling *that* harassment.

Kth: Clinton admitted he had some sexual contact with Lewinsky. She was an employee. That’s sexual harassment, whether or not Lewinsky files a charge. Plenty of people are conned out of money and refuse to file charges because they refuse to believe the con-artist is a con-artist. It doesn’t change the fact that a crime went down.

John Protevi: I’m tired of hearing that people who criticize Clinton’s behavior are somehow obsessed with genitalia. We’re told that the Right made a public shaming out of a private matter. (Anyone remember Clarence Thomas?) But it was certain strains of feminism that *made* certain private matters public matters. For the most part, I think feminist activists did us all a service (for example, the way they transformed spousal abuse into a crime rather than a family matter). But by insisting that any sexual advance made by a man in power to a woman in his service is necessarily harassment, they didn’t take into account—I hate to say it, I feel all dirty and conservative—human nature.

Which isn’t to say the Right wasn’t opportunistic in using feminist ideas about harassment against Clinton. But if we’ve learned anything over the past three decades it’s that the Right is far more effective in using New Left and postmodern thought than the Left has been. The Right’s been effective with reverse discrimination, with relativism, with identity politics, and with making the private public.

But as Scott wrote on Protein Wisdom, politics *is* opportunism. Let’s just not defend “our” people’s opportunism while attacking “their” opportunism.

Posted by on 09/18 at 03:23 PM
Shorter Luther II: I am so not obsessing about The Clenis! What makes you think I am?

Posted by John Protevi on 09/18 at 03:39 PM
Clinton admitted he had some sexual contact with Lewinsky. She was an employee. That’s sexual harassment, whether or not Lewinsky files a charge.

No it’s not - not under the law or under common usage.

Posted by on 09/18 at 03:43 PM
slightly off topic, but not in the sense of the extravagance of the wingnuttery’s movement towards outright craziness; or as Steve Elworth describes it above: the depravity of the right in its moment of crisis.
One of your Senator’s lost it today; he was unable to control his mouth when speaking to the press. I can only assume he was thinking that the press was just another term for liberals. But i would certainly suppose that the “tenured law professor” sees him as a hottie when he gets all pissy like that.

Posted by on 09/18 at 03:43 PM
Little Ricky’s attack on the press while his numbers keep falling is, as Spyder mentioned,connected to the tenured law Professor’s attack on Jessica. Change the topic, let’s create another pseudo-event and forget about the three branches of government being run by the GOP and run into the ground.

Posted by on 09/18 at 03:55 PM
John, I think LB has a point. Granted, it’s the one I’ve been making in incredibly hostile waters--that’s a link to a link to my post, since my liberal posts on protein wisdom have rendered its server unreliable--and, I think, a sound one. There is a complaint to made about feminists hobnobbing with Clinton (who, whatever else, had a track record we can’t easily dismiss); the thing is, I don’t think it’s an atypical complaint, as I’ve been arguing on PW. It’s a complaint about politics as usual, the peddling of influence in Washington, and it can always be made about anyone who tries to work within the system as it currently exists. Thus, it’s not a very significant complaint. PW’s readers don’t seem to understand this (Surprise!).

Oh, and is this a good place to tell Michael that I’ll be discussing his book over there, in the belly of the beast, as it were?*

*The hostile waters? They’re in the belly of the beast. I’m an English teacher. I don’t mix metaphors.

Posted by Scott Eric Kaufman on 09/18 at 04:00 PM
It doesn’t change the fact that a crime went down - Luther

Sexual harrassment must be “unwelcome”. It’s sort of hard to show this when the victim claims otherwise. It’s possible that Lewinsky was unfit to give consent, but to the best of my knowledge that’s not the case. So, no crime… or at least, not that crime.

Posted by Central Content Publisher on 09/18 at 04:10 PM
I was at a Clinton deal a couple of months ago and many of the men at the gathering wore fringy cut-offs. The only complaint I heard was that some of the jeans were Levis.

Posted by Roxanne on 09/18 at 04:32 PM
CCP:

Sexual harrassment must be “unwelcome”. It’s sort of hard to show this when the victim claims otherwise. It’s possible that Lewinsky was unfit to give consent, but to the best of my knowledge that’s not the case.

What Luther’s saying--and what, as a fellow teacher, I understand to be his central point--is that if there’s an inherent power differential between a student and a teacher, such that any sexual relationship is immediately suspect, how can we say that a relationship between a sitting President and an his intern isn’t? If the teachers I know who sleep with their students abuse their authority in a way most would describe as “creepy,” surely what Clinton did qualifies too.

Posted by Scott Eric Kaufman on 09/18 at 04:35 PM
Since a couple of people clicked over to my site to see what Luther and I were talking about only to find that PW’s not up, I’ve slapped up the text of my PW post on Acephalous. Enjoy! (Or not, as the case may be.)

P.S. John, that grade on my Honors Thesis. It is final, right?

Posted by Scott Eric Kaufman on 09/18 at 04:56 PM
As a couple of others pointed out, the legal definition of sexual harassment includes a requirement that the conduct be “unwelcome.” The mere fact that Clinton and Lewinsky had sexual conduct is—well, it is what it is (pun intended) but the conduct wasn’t unwelcome. And creepy as it I don’t think their relationship could be analogized to a professor / student dynamic.

This idea that an adult woman can be called into question because she allowed herself to be associated with Clinton is just—splutter, splutter. But I think I can see, and agree with, Scott’s larger point about influence peddling. That leads to the race discussion that I know is/was going on above and elsewhere.

captcha: “values”

Posted by on 09/18 at 05:01 PM
The tenured law professor is just so wrong on this in so many ways. But as a species we certainly do have this female body image (and breasts in particular) thing worked out well don’t we. Two related snippets from today’s “news” - Skinny models banned from catwalk in Madrid. (And CNN.com helpfully adds a picture in case your imagination is wanting.) and Janet Jackson’s breasts are back - with a novel “it’s all Michael’s fault” spin ... Michael Jackson that is.

The Kristin Lems song Mammary Glands provides the best commentary I’ve heard on the subject.

Luther and Scott, yes there is a possible complaint/discussion on the Clinton/feminists front, but the whole thing has been so coopted and “consumed” by exactly the kind of crap that Althouse is pulling here, that I fear there is really nothing meaningful that can be discussed to any profit about it.

And actually, if I did not know better from prior comment threads, I might suspect that this particular instantiation of Luther Blissett is actually a group identity used by David Broder, Sally Quinn and just about the whole staff at the Times as an alternate channel to act out their ongoing “Clinton-envy denial psychodrama”.

Posted by on 09/18 at 05:02 PM
Hang on here—wasn’t Monica Lewinsky a 21-year-old college grad when she began her internship? At what point does a woman become mature enough to consent to a sexual relationship with a man? Is her consent invalid if he happens to be her boss?

Some of these comments strike me as infantilizing women, or passing judgment on their sexual choices.

Posted by Orange on 09/18 at 05:03 PM
While power differentials are real factors in sexual relationships, and yes, as SEK says, they can make things “creepy”, that’s not the same thing as illegal harrassment or assault. The Clinton-Lewinsky relationship was a consensual thing between two adults, and while one can easily find it distasteful and foolish (I sure did) that’s not the same thing as criminal or legally actionable. (LB brings up the Clarence Thomas case, but there you see a series of unwelcome sexual advances within a professional setting, in other words, a clear-cut case of harrassment.) Right wingers like Althouse (no feminist by any reasonable standard) tend to not see any distinction between things they dislike and things that are illegal or morally repugnant, which explains a lot about the things they get worked up about.

And let’s remember how this whole thing actually started (Mjikthise has a good roundup of the whole mess). Althouse opened not by making some point about why feminists shouldn’t hang out with Clinton, but rather with a crass and stupid in-joke about the pretty girl standing in front of bill, prompting a slew of “intern” cracks in the comments. She didn’t even know who Jessica was when she started slagging off on her. When she got called on her childish taunts, she didn’t apologize or just shut up like a reasonable person, but instead dug a deeper hole with post facto rationalizations and ridiculous claims.

Posted by on 09/18 at 05:09 PM
Hang on here—wasn’t Monica Lewinsky a 21-year-old college grad when she began her internship? At what point does a woman become mature enough to consent to a sexual relationship with a man? Is her consent invalid if he happens to be her boss?

I didn’t mean to imply that her consent was invalid, merely that it was given in a situation which the power dynamics make that consent suspect. I’d say the exact same thing about a 21-year-old graduate student who sleeps with her advisor; or a 24-year-old graduate student who sleeps with his advisor. (Those advisors aren’t gendered for a reason: it’s not about males and females so much as taking advantage of one’s place in the professional hierarchy. It’s creepy, no matter what Jane Gallop says.)

Posted by Scott Eric Kaufman on 09/18 at 05:12 PM
I see what you’re saying here SEK, but I can also see you walking back you claims. If consent is dubious, then we’re in the grounds of legal liability, but all you can really say about the Clinton/Lewinsky thing (by association with professor/student affairs) is that it’s “creepy,” which is not the same thing at all. I see no reason to doubt Lewinsky’s consent here. She was an adult and there does not seem to have been compulsion or an overt quid pro quo tied to the act. Creepy? Sure, but not sexual harrassment or a crime by a long shot.

So what are saying Scott, Clinton should have been impeached for doing something that make you feel ooky?

Posted by on 09/18 at 05:19 PM
That said, I find this to be an excellent point:

Luther and Scott, yes there is a possible complaint/discussion on the Clinton/feminists front, but the whole thing has been so coopted and “consumed” by exactly the kind of crap that Althouse is pulling here, that I fear there is really nothing meaningful that can be discussed to any profit about it.

It has been coopted, certainly; but the solution, I don’t think, is to dismiss the issue altogether. It speaks to the ideological impurity of liberal proceduralism ... which isn’t, as I argue, a bad thing. We need to be more, not less aware of the compromises any investment in the current system necessarily entails. (Michael’s discussion of Chomsky and the students who adore him in What’s Liberal... is apropos here.)

Posted by Scott Eric Kaufman on 09/18 at 05:21 PM
So what are saying Scott, Clinton should have been impeached for doing something that make you feel ooky?

Certainly not. More to the point, because she connsented, I don’t think “harassment” is the correct term. That said, I do Clinton’s creepiness reason enough for feminists to distrust him, or condemn him, even. Just because it’s not illegal doesn’t mean it jibes with feminist principles. (Yes, I’m using that term in the broadest possible sense here.) Pornographers recruiting drug addicted 18-year-old runaways to star in their latest film also isn’t illegal ... but I don’t like this analogy, because there’s no investment in the pornographer the way there is with someone higher up in an established hierarchy.

I suppose what I’m saying is that I’m incredibly sensitive to the possibility of abusing the student/teacher relation, even though college students are, legally, adults. I can’t see past that when I look at a sitting President and an intern with hopes for a Washington career. The situations seem at least equally foul, with the latter possibly being moreso.

But, I repeat, I certainly see why people fear this argument can be coopted ...

Posted by Scott Eric Kaufman on 09/18 at 05:31 PM
Fair enough Scott (and apologies for the shabby proofreading in that last post). But while I agree that there is much in the Clinton-Lewinsky affair to make one uneasy, and it’s obviously not an exemplar of egalitarian gender relations, I’m still not sure I see why it should automatically lead to wariness on the part of feminists.

First, feminists, like any other social/political movement, can’t insist on total purity on the part of every person they work with, you’d never get anything done. You don’t have to lable this opportunism (or even understandable opportunism as said above) it’s just simple pragmatism. If Clinton actually was a sexual harrasser, rapist, or the other such things the Right accused him of being, feminists should avoid him, but the Lewinsky affair, as discussed above, makes him none of those things, and all the other accusations against him have proved baseless or unsubstantiated. He is a man who has repeatedly cheated on his wife, which many people dislike, but infidelity is not an automatically anti-feminist or anti-woman act (feminists being decidedly less fetishistic about marriage than conservatives).

Second, it’s about policy, not personality. George W. Bush seems to have been faithful to his wife, we don’t have any sexual harrassment charges floating around him and he seems to generally be quite professional around the women he works with (Angela Merkel excepted). Does that mean feminists should flock to him? Of course not. Policy-wise, Clinton was generally on the right side of women’s issues, and Hillary continues to be. That’s why feminists associate with him, and why they should continue to do so.

Posted by on 09/18 at 05:48 PM
But there’s the bullying part: back to that.

Often in feminism it just amounts to older women telling younger women what to do.

Which again, amounts to trying to take advantage of the one advantage that they have: authority.

Whereas the younger women will take advantage of what they have: bodies, which is something that older women often don’t still have.

I find it funny that the natural jockeying for power within the group of women so far hasn’t been addressed.

Younger women can easily outflank older women when they use their bodies to do so.

The older women can’t do it, so they cry foul.

Isn’t this what is really going on?

A Nietzschean should say yes!

Posted by Kirby Olson on 09/18 at 05:51 PM
Hi Scott, I was snarking at Luther for (successfully, alas) hijacking a thread on a post that was about offering solidarity to Jessica Valenti and critiquing the behavior of the tenured law professor and turning it into a learned disquisition, for the 11-infinity times 3 to the tenth power, on The Clenis. Context, brother, context!

As far as people judging JV’s behavior in meeting with Clinton as insufficiently feminist, well, I’d say I’ll trust her judgment on that matter. pour en finir avec le jugement des autres is not a bad motto in this case at least.

Posted by John Protevi on 09/18 at 05:53 PM
I should have put in an adjective “attractive” before bodies.

Younger women have “attractive” bodies.

And can use them to their advantage.

Should they?

If power is the only thing that’s on the table, and I think everybody on either side of the aisle has now come to the unfortunate conclusion that everything is just about power (there is no love possible any longer, which is why sexual harassment laws exist), then of course should or ought doesn’t even matter.

If you have a natural advantage you naturally take advantage of it.

And so the baring of the cannons.

Hee hee.

At least for some.

But we don’t encourage this at Lutheran picnics.

Posted by Kirby Olson on 09/18 at 05:55 PM
Kirby, you might have a point if there was any evidence that Jessica was actually using her body to get ahead in some kind of competition with Althouse, or to achieve some sort of goal. But nothing like that happened.
Jessica’s blog got her invited to an event, showed up in a flattering and appropriate business casual ensemble, and stood up straight and looked at the camera when a group photo was taken. That’s it. How was she taking advantage of her body? If there was any jockeying for power going on here it was all in Althouse’s head.

Posted by on 09/18 at 06:00 PM
Oh, and Kirby, have you actually seen this picture? Where does this “baring of the cannons” occur?

Posted by on 09/18 at 06:03 PM
Little Ricky’s attack on the press while his numbers keep falling is, as Spyder mentioned,connected to the tenured law Professor’s attack on Jessica. Change the topic, let’s create another pseudo-event and forget about the three branches of government being run by the GOP and run into the ground.

Oh, we’re getting around to blogging about little Ricky and his stunningly dishonest campaign ("stunningly" even by contemporary standards). Just you wait!

In the meantime, would those of you who are debating whether Clinton’s consensual, repulsive, and profoundly stupid affair with Monica Lewinsky (remember, at the time she snapped her thong at him he was already under investigation by Inspector Javert for whether the Whitewater deal had stolen a loaf of bread from someone somewhere in Arkansas, and Javert had replaced Robert Fiske who just wasn’t mean or unprincipled enough for the wingnuts, so the Big Dog should absolutely have kept his damn thing in his pants rather than give his most feral enemies an excuse to impeach him and then install Dubya in the White House two years later) amounts to sexual harassment or even high crimes and misdemeanors kindly do us all the favor of remembering that Jessica Valenti, whose appearance with Clinton provided the tenured law professor with the occasion for her inexcusable outburst, is in fact completely blameless here?

Thank you. We now return you to the shorter, punchier sentences for which this blog is famous.

Posted by on 09/18 at 06:04 PM
Policy-wise, Clinton was generally on the right side of women’s issues, and Hillary continues to be. That’s why feminists associate with him, and why they should continue to do so.

I beg to differ. Ending “welfare as we know it” was a disaster for women with families living in poverty, as was his complete mishandling of the healthcare reform debate. Free trade absolutism is also not good for women around the world. And the wars endorsed by Sen. Clinton, including Iraq, aren’t good for women either.

That being said, I don’t think that any of us should be made to take some sort of purity test when it comes to judging whom we ought to be working with politically. You should work with folks who can get something out of working with, nor merely with folks who entirely agree with you. So while I think that both Clintons’ feminist credentials are a lot dodgier than a lot of folks here seem to think, I don’t think that means that feminists should refuse to meet with them.

(And of course, whatever your feelings about Clinton, they do not in any way justify the incredibly ridiculous allegations about Valenti’s—actually quite conservative—outfit or “pose.")

On a related note, the incredible whiteness of the people in the Clinton says more about the power structure of the Democratic blogosphere than it does, more broadly, about the digital divide (though that’s also a problem).

Posted by on 09/18 at 06:04 PM
In response to #45, above, I fear I contributed to the successful thread-hijacking by immediately responding to the initial misstatement of law and common sense by LB.

Posted by on 09/18 at 06:07 PM
Note for commenters: this blog does not tolerate comments about anybody’s physical appearance

Then please, Michael, never, ever, ever again post this on your site!

Posted by on 09/18 at 06:08 PM
Good points Ben. I think I was considering “women’s issues” far too narrowly (reproductive rights, pay equity, etc.) Agreed, Clinton backed some bad ideas which hurt women and not-women alike, but you still gotta try to get something out of working with him.

As for the tangents this discussion has taken, Jessica is so obviously blameless and Althouse’s idiocy has been so thoroughly dissected here and elsewhere that I guess there wasn’t much more to say on this topic.

Posted by on 09/18 at 06:14 PM
I understand Scott, and agree with the point. I just like to retain the word crime for situations where there’s a law to refer to.

I agree with Orange too who sees the potential for an infantalization problem. Lewinsky obviously had the right to consent. It would be absurd to suggest otherwise. Likewise, Clinton had the right to consent.

I think this indiscretion lives in the land of unprofessionalism on both their parts. They were both fully aware that their behaviour could be interpreted as an abuse of power (I hope), and could introduce counter-productive personal politics into their work environment (much as teachers dating students does), but continued anyway. I’m satisfied that they’ve both shown the appropriate remorse - but that’s for each of us to judge on our own - or not.

As for feminist purity: I don’t think there is such a thing as a pure feminist mold – makes it hard to fit into.

Posted by Central Content Publisher on 09/18 at 06:18 PM
Can’t we all just agree that Althouse is a creep, and that it’s rather scary people like Althouse, Instapundit, et al. are teaching the law in public universities??

Ew.

Posted by Alex Von Waldenberg on 09/18 at 06:21 PM
...turning it into a learned disquisition…

John, in all seriousness, something clicked when you came in the seminar the day of Columbine and proceeded to apply our texts to tragedy at hand, so sometimes I can’t divorce what I see from learned disquisitions. That’s your fault.

And for that, I thank you.

Michael, I’ll also apologize for the hijacking, but I’m with Justin K. on this one:

As for the tangents this discussion has taken, Jessica is so obviously blameless and Althouse’s idiocy has been so thoroughly dissected here and elsewhere that I guess there wasn’t much more to say on this topic.

Posted by Scott Eric Kaufman on 09/18 at 06:21 PM
I’ve been thinking about that myself Alex. Althouse’s and Reynold’s sites are alternately vile and inane (and Althouse’s latest embarrassment is just spiteful and weird), but I’m not sure that necessarily means their unqualified for their jobs. Reynolds published a lot on technology and patent law and while I don’t know much about Althouse’s specialty, I know a lot of instructors and students at the UW law school, and it seems unlikely they’d let a totally malicious or incompetant person in. It seems to me that folks like Reynolds and Althouse were early adopters of this blogging technology who suddenly found themselves opining to audiences about matters far afield from their areas expertise. Suddenly other bloggers are linking to them and readers are writing emails, giving them attention and praise. Swelled heads and an increasingly desire to please cretinous commenters and reactionary nuts on the blogroll result, making the blogs what they are today. Glenn and Ann may very well be qualified in their narrow academic specialities, but they have long been working way out of their depths on their blogs, and it shows.

Posted by on 09/18 at 06:33 PM
Excuse me, this is the Jessica’s-boobs room. The Monica-blow-job room is down the hall.

Please wash your hands before touching the doorknob. Thank you.

Posted by John Emerson on 09/18 at 06:43 PM
You preempted discussion with your final rule on intolerance for comments on physical appearance: the use of a comb, the ironing of a shirt, etc. Nevertheless, I really think it is wretched to attack Ms. Jones for this photo. Smacks of the enjoyment police whether right or left-thinking.

Posted by on 09/18 at 06:54 PM
What’s with law professors anyway? Althouse, Reynolds, Posner, Yoo.... the myth is that they’re wise and learned, and the law is supposed to make us feel confident about justice and so on, but those guys scare me.

Shit, I mostly agree with Leiter about politics, and I don’t like him either. It’s a damn good thing that I was already a nihilist Schveikian, because those guys would turn me if I wasn’t.

Posted by John Emerson on 09/18 at 07:17 PM
My bad.

I didn’t see the picture. I was interpellating.

Or rather, abstracting from past experience.

I never heard of any of these people.

Sorry.

Posted by Kirby Olson on 09/18 at 07:24 PM
I agree with Timothy Burke that it’s the double standard practiced by Althouse and her followers—rip apart the woman in their own words and then jump on any criticism redounding back on Althouse as sexist and unfair—that’s disturbing and disheartening.

I know nothing of Althouse’s appearance, nor do I care about her appearance. But I have learned, from her linked post and poking around her site, that she is prone to mean-spirited and over-the-top criticisms of people whose main offense in life seems to be appearing in proximity to Bill Clinton while not donning sackcloth and ashes.

This was an excellent dissection of the disturbing reveals you came across in your reading, Michael, thank you.

Posted by Ancarett on 09/18 at 07:29 PM
Clinton admitted he had some sexual contact with Lewinsky. She was an employee. That’s sexual harassment, whether or not Lewinsky files a charge. Plenty of people are conned out of money and refuse to file charges because they refuse to believe the con-artist is a con-artist. It doesn’t change the fact that a crime went down.

The big difference between Clarence Thomas and Bill Clinton is that Thomas made uninvited lewd comments to at least one co-worker who reported directly to him, and who he had the capacity to fire, while he was in charge of a federal agency. Clinton was “invited to partake” by a worker whom he did not hire, who did not ordinarily work with him, who he could not fire, and who reported to someone else. (In the grand scheme of politics, Presidents have less functional utility than one might imagine.) Neither action should be condoned.

However, only the former is sexual harassment. Because while federal agencies are required to abide by regulations that prohibit sexual harassment of employees, for reasons known only to Congress, these regulations do NOT apply to the legislative, judicial, or executive branch officials.

Guilt and anxiety regarding this oversight no doubt were a contributing factor in at least a dozen retirements of our honorable elected officials.

Captcha: Jurisdiction. It’s what “is” is.

Posted by on 09/18 at 07:40 PM
Listen, I actually agree that there is an interesting problem in feminism regarding the free pass (in relative terms) given Clinton for his conduct.

But.

I can’t say this strongly enough. If Ann Althouse wanted to talk about that, then she should have TALKED ABOUT IT.

From the beginning.

For anyone to dignify her absolutely absurd and offensive attempt to change the subject by agreeing to change the subject is complicity in a small, mean, stupid form of pure malevolence. If I kick a puppy and then say, “You know, I have a real problem with unregulated ownership of pit bulls trained to hurt people”, anybody who says, “You’re right! Pit bulls are a problem! Thanks, Tim!” is a FUCKING TOOL. Pardon my French, I don’t do it often here on the internets. But this is an occasion that warrants it.

Posted by Timothy Burke on 09/18 at 07:53 PM
What’s with law professors anyway? Althouse, Reynolds, Posner, Yoo.... the myth is that they’re wise and learned, and the law is supposed to make us feel confident about justice and so on, but those guys scare me.

John, they scare attorneys who have been trained to deflate crotchal bulges with withering stares delivered from 20 paces.

My theory? The further up the legal food chain an attorney progresses--be it academia, judgeships or the partnership ladder at a firm, the more detached from reality they become. This would probably explain why Althouse et al never considered the possibility that Jessica and some of the others in the picture had been posed in 3/4 profile to fit them into the shot without crowding.

Posted by on 09/18 at 08:12 PM
I should note, since the last thing I want is for Timothy to think me a tool, that my original ~~hijack~~ point was that even her justification--that feminists shouldn’t commingle with Clinton--was lame, in that it shifted the focus from her stupidity to an idiotic denial of the reality of American politics (and the compromise participation in it entails). The Clinton discussion over was a sideshow to a main event which sparkled so shiny, that to even speak of it would be to tarnish its memory.

Posted by Scott Eric Kaufman on 09/18 at 08:17 PM
Oof:

The Clinton discussion ~~over~~ was a sideshow to a main event which sparkled so shiny, that even to ~~even~~ speak of it would be to tarnish its memory.

Posted by Scott Eric Kaufman on 09/18 at 09:08 PM
I didn’t mean to “hijack” the conversation. Althouse’s comments, as I wrote before, are moronic. But I do think they were her very sad attempt at showing up what she saw as hypocritical feminists. Tim Burke says that if that’s what she wanted to do then she should have said that in the first place. But that’s what Althouse’s assholish comments about breasts *were* about: feminist double-standards. Personally, I don’t think a photo op *is* a double standard. I’d give GWB a massage with a happy ending if it would raise the federal minimum wage. (’Tho I wonder whether a photo op with Clinton *is* smart symbolic politics—the Right hates him, the Far Left hates him, and the middle Left’s nostalgia for him is waning.)

So I apologize if this comments section went in a direction Michael wanted to avoid.

Posted by on 09/18 at 10:46 PM
Ann Althouse wrote one time: Jenna and Barbara Bush: They have nice comic delivery. They are fun and self-effacing. They razz their parents. I gather Ann, who herself looks strangely like the mother of another nutty Ann, probably never really chose to write about this photo?

that must be a “private” matter(captcha), not something to dredge up in a public forum about proper feminist behavior.

Posted by on 09/18 at 11:53 PM
Would it be bad manners to call her Ann Outhouse from this day forward? She sure is full of the stuff that fills up outhouses…

Posted by mitchell freedman on 09/19 at 12:40 AM
Javert had replaced Robert Fiske

Aarrgh, painful memories of one of the signal events of the ~~bad old days~~ ongoing collective madness. If you want to see what a tenured law professor - who also cares deeply about the role of women in society - might write about the Clinton “troubles”, check out Conflicts of commitment: legal ethics in the impeachment context by Deborah Rhode of Stanford.

This may be somewhat unfair, as this is a “technical” examination focused on the professional ethics element. (Although it really is a compelling read if you’re blood pressure can stand it, and I highly recommend it.)

But then again, you might expect that a “formidable law blogger” with “a scholarly interest in constitutional law, federalism, and the jurisdiction of courts” might have something just a wee bit more germane to add to the discussion herself - and avoid playing the total ass in the process.

Posted by on 09/19 at 01:12 AM
Oops, meant to add - And as Michael gently reminds us there is no fricking at all for the subject to come up at all in the context of the photograph in question.

Posted by on 09/19 at 01:17 AM
Gawd! no fricking reason for the subject to come up ...

Posted by on 09/19 at 01:21 AM
Michael --
Have you seen What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts, The Graphic Novel?

Posted by on 09/19 at 02:13 AM
Michael, at the risk of being banned: you and Jamie do look pretty pastie in that seaside photo.

Academic bullies are classic floppers? Ahh, working the references again…

Posted by on 09/19 at 02:46 AM
Romy: comments about my sorry-ass appearance are perfectly all right. And of course we look pasty! We’re in the drizzly Celtic twilight!

joe bourgeois: Oh. My. God. That thing made me shriek with demonic delight ten or twenty times. Is it possible to reproduce a page or two on a humble blog?

Posted by Michael on 09/19 at 08:13 AM
Oh, I see. The graphic novel is the work of that mischievous Chris Clarke. I might have known.

Posted by Michael on 09/19 at 08:17 AM
What’s with the piling on about Clinton’s sex life? Why is it “creepy” that women apparently find Clinton attractive? Except for Juanita Broderick, his partners have all been consenting adults. In her case, didn’t she retract the claim of rape when she had the chance to testify? (Someone will correct me if my memory is faulty.) Hillary puts up with his infidelity; does anyone else have any right to take offense at it? I understand the panty-sniffers on the right being offended - they’re offended by sex in general. But the left should just chill out unless they agree that everyone’s private lives are public business.

question - as in, I sure put a lot of questions in this post.

Posted by on 09/19 at 08:40 AM
The real complaint is obvious, if unstated.

The blogger was offended to see a liberal woman who was not a fireplug-shaped dyke with excessive body hair and insufficient scalp hair. The cognitive dissonance caused her single brain cell to carom around her skull, frantically seeking another cell to bang against.

Posted by on 09/19 at 09:04 AM
I’ve always thought of Clinton, the master multi-tasker, yappin on the phone with Strom and Orrin about the Family Medical Leave Act during the cigar session.

Posted by on 09/19 at 09:22 AM
Yes to everything Michael writes in his post.

I’m certainly suprised that if I wear black dress slacks with a short sleaved silk shirt)—I’d better my suit jacket well-buttoned—or else people might accuse me of “making a sexual display.”

Somebody better alert American women of these new sartorial standards.

Imagine if a male professor had written a post titled “Let’s take a closer look at those breasts.”

Posted by on 09/19 at 12:14 PM
RE: Creepy Sexual Stuff

Of course it’s creepy that a older man w/ significant power slept with a 21 year old employee.

And of course it’s creepy with a law professor criticizes and calls attention to a young woman and her breasts whilst dressed in buisness casual.

Creepy, creepy, creepy.

Posted by on 09/19 at 12:35 PM
When I heard that just about every liberal blogger on my blogroll had gone after a law professor because her remarks about a young feminist blogger were so silly and any discussion about SEX SEX SEX raises hit counts, meanwhile almost totally ignoring the log in their own eyes regarding the photo in question being pretty much all white, I thought, “well, what do you expect from these otherwise-erudite bloggers - mockery is much easier and less painful than self-examination.”

Posted by Elayne Riggs on 09/19 at 01:45 PM
Dear Elayne, I’ve seen you post this same comment on many blogs now, and I still fail to see how Michael or the other bloggers blogging in support of Jessica Valenti were supposed to conduct a “self-examination” about other people’s conduct (namely, Clinton’s booker and those bloggers who, apparently, should not have accepted an ex-president’s invitation without having been previously assured that the racial makeup of the session would meet your standards).

Posted by John Protevi on 09/19 at 01:55 PM
Well, Elayne, I do self-examination every day, and I do love your work, as you know. But in this case, since (a) I’m responding to a tenured law professor’s vicious personal attack on a young feminist blogger and (b) I did not invite anyone to have lunch with Bill Clinton, I don’t see that I have to add the racial composition of that room to my self-examination agenda. Wherever that log may be, it ain’t in my eye, or on my “web” “log.”

Posted by Michael on 09/19 at 02:47 PM
What’s with law professors anyway? Althouse, Reynolds, Posner, Yoo.... the myth is that they’re wise and learned, and the law is supposed to make us feel confident about justice and so on, but those guys scare me.

Eric Muller, a law prof blogger, had some thoughts on this a while ago. It may be a phenomenon of interest that while right lawprofs may have an edge over left lawprofs in the blogosphere, that doesn’t hold for lawyers who blog (Glenn Greenwald, etc.). Or, it may not be a phenomenon of interest, of course. I’m open minded.

Posted by Thers on 09/19 at 02:52 PM
Ah, an academic bully—not quite as bad as an MBA President bully, but bad enough.

Good post Michael! And a belated congratulations on your new book!

Posted by Mad Kane on 09/19 at 05:53 PM
She got 500 + hits on her blog. I’ll have to try and poach over there a bit! Hee hee.

Posted by Kirby Olson on 09/19 at 06:07 PM
Well, for one, I hate myself for missing this business over the weekend, but love myself for pre-emptively attacking Herr Zod with an auto-post assuming she’d say or do something inane while I was away. Neither of these things are here nor there. Most importantly, sadly, is the fact that we have been advocating for sometime that you know who looks a lot like a hoary albino guitar legend known for kicking out 20-minute freedom rock jams!

My bloggo is down so we can’t provide the linkydink, but here is Parrotline “Ann Althouse is so non-partisan...”

Posted by Pinko Punko on 09/19 at 06:28 PM
Oh well, here we provide a scandalous look at Ann Althouse, famous non-partisan libertarian feminist Insty guest poster.

Posted by Pinko Punko on 09/19 at 06:53 PM
Monica Lewinsky was NOT a twenty-one year old employee. She was a TWENTY-TWO year old employee. But 21 is so much more lascivious than 22 that the press couldn’t be bothered with the truth.

Oh- and she wasn’t an employee, either. She was an intern- ie unpaid. She wasn’t dependent on her position for her livelihood.

Posted by on 09/19 at 09:47 PM
Michael, that was pastie, not pasty. Bit of a stretch as a topical mammary reference pun, but what the hey.

I’m mostly Irish by DNA-- indeed, my hiphop handle is “Puff Pasty.” And we who live in translucent hides shouldn’t cast melanin-based aspersions.

Posted by on 09/20 at 01:23 AM
Althouse was the one who cried for feminists to help her nearly a year ago when she was under attack for her appearance. Her claim to not understand third wave feminism, sex positive feminism is disingenous at best. (see the Madonna comment)

I was too busy reading and debating Janet Halley’s work this weekend to pay attention to what was going on—uh, speaking of queer/sex positive theory, which is a branch of feminist thought which seems to shape some of Jessica’s writing.
But I wish I’d known. I distinctly remember all the brouhahas over Pajamas Media because of Maxspeak’s decision to join. The Althouse incident was memorable!

Not that any of this would have mattered, but it would have been entertaining.

Posted by Bitch | Lab on 09/20 at 02:56 AM
About Clinton-Lewinski bussiness: one aspect should give a pause to sane people who may be creeped out. The reason we know all the details, to an excruciating degree, is the most monumental act of peeping-tomery in the annals of history. To wit, the young women was forced to testify by being threatened with contempt in secret proceedings of the grand jury that as a rule are never disclosed to the world at large if there is no indictment.

So we do not know any details of premarital and extramarital adventures of, say, Newt and Callista, but we know all details about Bill and Monica. Does it imply that Bill and Monica were special, or the source of information is special?

Just imagine a mad prosecutor trying to nail you on the basis of an anonymous tip that you pilfered paper clips from the stock room and iterrogating all females that were ever in contact with you (and managing to put some for years in jail for contempt).

Posted by on 09/20 at 06:41 AM
Michael, that was pastie, not pasty.

Oh! Right you are, Romy. Sorry about that.

Now you’re banned.

. . .

Only kidding!

Posted by Michael on 09/20 at 08:18 AM
To wit, the young women was forced to testify by being threatened with contempt in secret proceedings of the grand jury that as a rule are never disclosed to the world at large if there is no indictment.

Piotr -

I agree. This is an excellent point—Monica must have gone through hell being exploitated by the press, politicos, the populace curious about her sexual life. It’s far more creepy that masses of people were salivating over her private experiences and that those people then published those experiences in a “report”. Ugh.

And as long as we’re talking about hierarchies of creepy—the harassment of Jessica happened this weekend. Right in front of us. And as Michael noted—not by a 20 year old frat boy with whom we could have a teaching moment about appropriate behavior.

As Michael wrote—it was classic bully behavior.

Posted by on 09/20 at 11:00 AM

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