Nina Burleigh, the journalist who at the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal volunteered to perform a certain sex act on then-President Bill Clinton in gratitude for his keeping abortion legal, has penned an X-rated essay on the current sexual environment for Newsweek.
In her Newsweek article, Burleigh outdoes herself in the vulgarity department (no mean feat), by proposing that American men have a "Garden of D–ks" in their imaginations and that President Donald Trump "rules" that Garden of D–ks:
Powerful men in Hollywood, politics, journalism and many other fields are being pilloried, sacked or jailed for piggish or even criminal behavior toward women.
To understand how this bonfire started, we must speak frankly about the Garden of D–s, a mythical place in the caveman lobe of the male brain. Like that other primeval paradise, the Garden of Eden, men have tried for millennia to create it here on Earth.
The Garden of D–ks is a Hooters. It’s an NFL locker room. It’s the Vatican. It’s the Rolling Stones’ private jet. It’s Harvey Weinstein’s suite at the Tribeca Grand Hotel.
It’s a top modeling agency in New York City run by a man who, after years of preying on his models, was disgraced for having sex with underage girls. He excused himself by saying, “I’m a man, and I have urges.”
Burleigh proposes that Trump's election was "a nightmare made flesh" for so many women that it created the current surge of women coming forward to say they have been abused:
Trump’s victory in November was an insult to all the women who had accused him of sexual assault or harassment and been called liars. It was also a nightmare made flesh for the millions of women who heard echoes in Trump’s degrading remarks about women of the harassment or assaults they’ve endured.
Many called his triumph a repudiation of feminism. And yet, a year after his ascension, his pungent brand of misogyny is besieged. For the first time in history, powerful men in a multitude of fields are being smacked off their perches because of their rapacity, while women all over the world are finally speaking out.
This is all very confused. Note to Nina, women are not speaking out against Harvey Weinstein because Donald Trump is president. They are speaking out against Harvey Weinstein for acts Weinstein committed. Also, Nina, lay off the Myth and Symbol classes.
But more than confused and distasteful, Burley's article is dishonest. She plays down one very important figure in the history of sexual misconduct in high places. Hot Air notes:
You know who we don’t hear much about in this Garden of Dicks? Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton won office twice while facing complaints about his own behavior, including some women (Juanita Broaddrick and Kathleen Willey) who claimed he’d assaulted them, and another (Paula Jones) who claimed he’d come close to doing so. The only mention Burleigh makes of Clinton is that he was caught “seducing an intern in 1996,” but then only to juxtapose it with another allegation against Trump. Burleigh doesn’t even note that Clinton committed perjury in a deposition in the Jones case and ended up losing his law license over it in an attempt to get out from under Jones’ lawsuit for harassment and defamation. We also never hear about Clinton’s escapades with Jeffrey Epstein, who was later prosecuted for underage prostitution.
Hillary Clinton, whose treatment of her husband's accusers is legendary, is also not blamed in Burleigh's Newsweek opus. Just for the record: This is not to defend lewd behavior of anybody. I was appalled by the Access Hollywood tape that featured President Trump making disgusting remarks.
Newsweek's cover almost outdoes Burleigh's personal vulgarity (again, no mean feat). Hot Air describes it as "castration-themed," and let's leave it at that.