Donald Trump and the Really Terrible, Horrible Horribly Bad Word

Before we delve into the politics of Trump's potty mouth, a kind word about Bill Clinton. I say kind, because I want to reassure you that this is not the typical attempt at equivalence between Donald and Bill. Bill is not the candidate. Hillary is.

Bill Clinton is the Democrats' favorite president. You might get a "ho-hum" about Jimmy Carter. Barack Obama can fill a room, but no one excites the hearts and minds of Democrats like Bill Clinton, even if most of what they remember of his presidency is obscured by too many bong hits and not enough sleep. Whatever.

I heard one commentator on the scandalous Trump 'hot mic' tape say, that it wasn't the locker room talk so much as the idea that Trump was projecting, that someone famous enough, rich enough, powerful enough could commit a sexual assault on a woman and get away with it. Much like, say, a former President. But, then, this isn't about Bill!

Instead, imagine if you will, that Trump had gone a little farther than what he said on the hot mic, and been even more disgusting. What if he'd told Billy Bush that he'd actually raped a 12 year old girl. That he "raped her so hard, he put her in a coma!" Billy Bush would no doubt stop laughing. As would we all.

But let's say Trump hires an attorney to get him off. Specifically a female attorney, who might be able to attack his accuser with more impunity. One who believed he was guilty, and said that when her client passed a lie detector test, she "stopped believing in lie detectors after that." In Trump's defense, she attacks the teenage rape victim as a slut who pursued older men. That's right! She wanted it! And after managing to get the physical evidence thrown out, her client goes free after only time served.

Now, before you get your habeas corpus in a uproar, yes, I believe that every person, even the guilty ones are entitled to a defense under the law. That's not the problem here. It's that in an interview years later, the attorney laughed about it.

Can you please tell me what could possibly be funny about the brutal rape of a twelve year old girl, browbeating her over supposed prior sexual activity, blaming the victim, and getting a child rapist set free, perhaps to rape again? Are any of you laughing now?

Now tell me how that attorney, Hillary Rodham Clinton, is supposed to be more respectful to women than a man who made a crude and childish remark not to a woman, but about a woman, over ten years ago? We'll wait.

"Goes to character?" Yes. Doesn't it?