By Rebecca Traister
Bright and early Monday morning, Bill Clinton launched a book tour in support of a political thriller he wrote with the best-selling author James Patterson, called The President Is Missing. And sometime before 8 a.m., it had become clear that it had not occurred to our ex-president that hawking his book would also entail answering questions about Monica Lewinsky, and about how his affair with the White House intern had shaped — and slowed — the feminist conversation around sexual harassment.
Clinton’s feckless replies to questions about #MeToo revealed an unpreparedness that spoke volumes about why men have been able to abuse their power with relative impunity for generations, while the women around them have been asked to pay the price for them over and over and over again.
The interaction happened during an interview Clinton did, alongside Patterson, with the Today show’s Craig Melvin. Melvin kicked things off by asking Clinton about how his relationship with Lewinsky — consensual but nonetheless a clear abuse of professional and sexual power — had sullied recent reassessments of his presidency.
