Hillary's story about Bill and Monica: "Bill was being attacked, in her view, for political motives, for his ministry of a troubled person.”

Ann Althouse writes a lot today about sacrifice, and the purposes people who are using that word might have in mind.

And we may very well be distracted, because there is social pressure to stop all other thinking and honor the war dead and empathize with their families. That's built into the power of the propaganda. We're getting some stern discipline this week — as Trump is pilloried for failing to perform the usual honor ritual. Never, ever, do anything but stop, honor, and empathize. Submit to the pressure or become a social outcast like Trump.

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Ann links to a 2014 piece by Maureen Dowd:

...David Gregory asked (Rand) Paul about the comment of his wife, Kelley, in a Jason Horowitz profile of the senator in Vogue, that Bill Clinton should not be First Spouse, given his “predatory” behavior with Monica Lewinsky.

Paul backed up his wife, telling Gregory that there “is no excuse” for preying on a young intern and that it should affect history’s view of the ex-president. While he said it was “not Hillary’s fault,” he added that with the Clintons, “sometimes it’s hard to separate one from the other.”

Senator Claire McCaskill told Andrea Mitchell that she found Paul’s comments “infuriating,” and that he was just “grasping,” trying to show he could be tough in a bid to win the presidential nomination.

But back when McCaskill, now on Team Clinton, was trying to crush Team Clinton and get Barack Obama elected, she said this about Bill: “He’s been a great leader, but I don’t want my daughter near him.”

Paul brought that up with me, suggesting that if McCaskill were being honest and not partisan, she would still be worried about having her daughter around Bill and that maybe there’s a double standard for the famous.

“In my small town, we would disassociate, we would in some ways socially shun somebody that had an inappropriate affair with someone’s daughter or with a babysitter or something like that,” he said, adding: “There’s no reason why we should give up on having some sort of belief in social standards” and on what’s “appropriate, inappropriate, right, wrong.”

...I agree that Paul’s aim was true. He distracted from the Republicans’ abysmal war on women by pointing at an abysmal moment in feminist history, when feminists betrayed their principles to defend a president who had behaved in a regressive way with women because he had progressive policies on women.

Instead of owning up, Bill Clinton forced his humiliated wife, a feminist icon, and women in his cabinet — Madeleine Albright and Donna Shalala — into the dreadful position of defending him when he was lying about his conduct.

It is not so simple to cast Hillary as a victim; she was also part of the damage-control team to vouch for her husband and undermine his mistress. White House aides and other Democrats spread the word that Monica was a troubled young woman with stalker tendencies. Sidney Blumenthal, a senior White House adviser, later testified that Hillary told him that “she was distressed that the president was being attacked, in her view, for political motives, for his ministry of a troubled person.”

Monica had to be sacrificed for the greater good of the Clintons and feminist ambitions. Hillary was furious at Bill — stories were leaked that he was sleeping on the couch — but she also had to protect her political investment. If he collapsed, she was done. And she was going up — to the Senate and eventually the Oval Office.

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