A Right to be Believed?

I want to send a message to every survivor of sexual assault.  Don’t let anyone silence your voice. You have a right to be heard. You have a right to be believed. We’re with you.

Hillary Clinton

Taking her at her word, I have a couple of instances I would like to address during her next press conference?

1. Juanita Broaddrick alleged that Attorney General Bill Clinton raped her in 1978, leaving her with a swollen lip and torn pantyhose.  Should her voice have been silenced?  Did you believe her?
2. Paula Jones revealed that, in 1991, then Governor Bill Clinton had arranged for her to meet him at a Little Rock hotel where he exposed himself and suggested she 'kiss it.'  Did she have a right to be believed?
3. Kathleen Willey said that President Bill Clinton sexually assaulted her in 1993; did she have a right to be believed?

During your husband's political career, you referred to such incidents at 'bimbo eruptions' and set about denying them.  It was all part of a 'vast rightwing conspiracy,' you said.  Republicans must have sneaked Monica Lewinsky into the Oval Office and thus entrapped President Clinton.  He sat beside you during a 60 Minutes interview and denied any relationship with Gennifer Flowers only to be exposed as a liar soon thereafter when Flowers offered an incriminating audio cassette.  Monica Lewinsky likewise was able to provide irrefutable evidence of an adulterous relationship with President Clinton; should you have believed her?

 

With her history, this is a subject that Hillary shouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole.  She spent much too long trying to silence and discredit women who offered tales of sexual assault to now switch sides.

 

On the other hand, even a person with a problematic history on a subject could come to the truth.  Witness Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus.  But that is not the case here.  We have had too many false accusations of late (Duke Lacrosse Team, Rolling Stone UVA gang rape story, Mattress Girl at Columbia, Lena Dunham's Oberlin College rape story, etc.) to offer a blanket right to be believed.  Rape and sexual assault are crimes.  The accused needs to be tried in a court of law, not a court of public opinion.  Even as heinous as the crime is, the accused is still presumed innocent.  Representative Jared Polis (D-CO) should be censured by his colleagues for his suggestion that the innocent should be expelled along with the guilty, just to make sure.