I was a teenager when the Starr Report came out, detailing Bill Clinton’s sexual activity in the Oval Office and beyond, and I must admit that like many people my age, I figured out a way to sneak and read it. I fully understood that Bill Clinton, a man older than my father, had an affair with a woman barely older than me, in the White House. I got why people didn’t approve of it, and also why people didn’t want him removed from office at that time. I have to admit that it took me several years to fully process all of it, but even in 1998, I basically got it.
I can imagine that UCLA Law Grad and Philip Morris Counsel Kirsten Gillibrand had a more sophisticated understanding of the issue than I did at the time. Ivy League educated, no one can say she isn’t smart- she is. She was about 30 at that time, so she was certainly old enough to understand the content of the report. She was old enough to defend “big tobacco” at a time when the government was accusing it of spending decades trying to sell it’s product to children, and old enough to make a rational choice- defending this somewhat “dirty” client allowed her to make a great living, and as she defended it, do pro bono work for abused women and tenants seeking safe housing after being exposed to dangerous lead paint. No one can accuse Kirsten Gillibrand of being naive, stupid, or uninformed.
It goes without saying then that I assume Kirsten Gillibrand fully understood the morality of Bill Clinton when she took a job as the Special Counsel to then-HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo for the final year of the Clinton Administration. Gillibrand clearly comprehended the behavior of President Clinton, and happily took a job in his Administration. I can’t fault her a bit for that.
When Gillibrand left the Clinton Administration, she needed to make more money. She took a job at Boies, Schiller & Flexner, who represented Philip Morris’ parent company. One can presume she used her considerable connections at that point to get into the well-connected law firm. Obviously she had her Philip Morris days, and she had been a donor to Hillary Clinton’s U.S. Senate campaign in 2000- to the tune of $12,000. I bet some phone calls were made on her behalf. Again, I can’t blame her a bit.
Gillibrand wanted to run for public office though, and in 2005 she launched a bid for Congress in the Hudson Valley. Bill Clinton came and campaigned for her twice. Hillary Clinton was a big influence on talking her into the race. I presume that she had not yet forgotten the details of the accusations against President Clinton. She took their help all the way to her 2006 Congressional victory, again in her 2008 victory, and in the process of receiving the Senate appointment to replace Hillary Clinton in 2009. The Clintons were there every step of the way for Gillibrand, and to her credit, she was a supporter of Hillary for President in both 2008 and 2016. No one can blame her for taking the help and support from such a prominent Democratic family in her home state. That’s just smart politics.
Of course, this is where the story gets messy, and Gillibrand is proven to be as craven and opportunistic as any politician we have seen. Hillary Clinton lost in 2016, and the stock of the Clintons is pretty far down right now. One might argue that a popular Senator like Gillibrand might have more actual political power and pull right now than the Clintons after a bruising defeat in the 2016 Presidential Election, especially with the rise of the “Me Too” movement against sex crimes- something she was fighting about for years. One might also guess that Gillibrand could have some compassion for her former mentors, and not want to pile on them with everyone else, now that they aren’t as useful to her. That’s not the case though.
Now again, no one can claim Kirsten Gillibrand did not know the details of the accusations made against Bill Clinton. She knew when she worked for his Administration, and when she took the aide of the Clintons on her campaigns. Of course she still knew when she said Bill Clinton should have stepped down over the Lewinsky affair last month. None of the facts have changed during the 20 years that have passed since the affair ended in 1997. Gillibrand did not suddenly find the importance of protecting victims of sexual assault- it’s been a leading cause of her career. Presumably though for Gillibrand, she has simply changed her mind on President Clinton since she took a job in his Administration in 2000, or had him come campaign for her in 2006, or campaigned for his wife in 2016. People do change their mind. They usually do so for a reason though- changing facts, for instance- not just because they change their mind, especially on a subject they have always been outspoken though. Her behavior is particularly interesting on this subject, to say the least.
It can be pretty hard to criticize Gillibrand for her calls for Al Franken to resign too. Franken has apologized and admitted wrong-doing, which would seem to make things rather simple. Gillibrand returned the campaign contributions she took from the previously popular Franken right after the accusations against him came out. Gillibrand then became the first Senator to call on Franken to resign. One might say she changed her mind on Franken too, particularly in the several weeks between the first accusation that came out, and her decision to call for his head.
Indeed, Gillibrand seems to change her mind a lot. She worked for Philip Morris, presumably with at least her own tacit approval, but then liked to talk about how she voted against “big tobacco” every time in the U.S. Congress. She was pro-gun when she ran in the Upstate of New York, but now is a champion of gun sense legislation, while still being a member of the “Sportsmen’s Caucus” in the Congress. She was fine with Bill Clinton, until he wasn’t helpful anymore, and she wasn’t fine with him. She was fine with Al Franken’s donations, until she wasn’t fine with him anymore. Gillibrand, like any skilled politician, seems to figure out how the winds are blowing, politically, and move with them. One really shouldn’t fault her for that any more than the other 99 members of the Senate. One also shouldn’t buy her line of bullcrap about morality and doing the right thing though either. Gillibrand went after both Bill Clinton and Al Franken in the past month because she could get positive coverage for doing so, and both are considerably weakened. That’s not exactly some profile in courage.
I could take Kirsten Gillibrand’s moral leadership seriously if it wasn’t so transparently political- I think we all know that most of these types of crusades are political, but at least they don’t seem so nakedly opportunistic, usually. She’s not the first, she certainly won’t be the last, but can we at least stop pretending there’s honor in her current actions? Just over a year ago, in writing about why she supported Hillary Clinton, Gillibrand wrote:
“It was just a few years later that my husband Jonathan and I moved back to the Albany area, where I grew up, to prepare for my own run for office. I was lucky enough to receive guidance and mentorship from Hillary during that run, and was truly honored that President Bill Clinton campaigned for me in my first run for Congress in 2006.”
I get it, that’s supporting Hillary, not Bill. All I want to know from Senator Gillibrand is this though: is she still truly honored that President Bill Clinton, who she apparently feels disgraced the White House enough that he should have resigned, campaigned for her in her first run for Congress in 2006?
I would love to hear the verbal gymnastics she’d engage in to spin that one now.
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