August 2, 2016

"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."

Wrote Maureen Dowd in 2014, quoted by me in this blog post, which I'm reading today because I created the tag "sacrifice" yesterday and added it to 200+ old posts so I could see how the word — so important in American presidential politics right now — has been used over the past dozen years.

Here's a more recent example of the use of the word "sacrifice," from June 8th of this yea:
"The first time in our nation's history that a woman will be a major party's nominee."

Said Hillary Clinton, last night, proclaiming her individual historicity and immediately including everyone else:
Tonight's victory is not about one person.

It belongs to generations of women and men who struggled and sacrificed and made this moment possible....
"Sacrifice," as I was saying yesterday, simply means giving up something of value to obtain something of higher value. You sacrifice because you think you'll be better off in the long run. In ancient times, a lamb might be burnt up instead of eaten out of a hope of winning blessings from God. In common modern parlance, parents sacrifice so that their offspring will have a good start in life, conceptualized as a benefit for the family the parents would like to see prosper.

It's one thing for a person to decide to sacrifice, to give up X for Y, but quite another for someone in the political arena to call what somebody else did a sacrifice. That's rhetoric, propaganda, and we need to analyze not what the person doing the sacrificing hoped to gain, but what the person using the word is trying to do to the minds of those who are listening. If a political orator says that the war dead sacrificed their lives, we should contemplate what the speaker hopes to gain. It's no sacrifice to say "sacrifice"! It's a way to elevate the loss and ease the pain, perhaps, or, ignobly, to distract us from the line of responsibility that traces back to our political and military leaders.

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.

Now, back to my 2 examples above. The word "sacrifice" is used as other people take losses so that Hillary Clinton may gain. The Dowd quote is sarcastic, and the person who loses — Monica — is not choosing to take a loss. She's more in the position of the lamb in the old burnt-offerings scenario. In the June quote, Hillary is pointing at hordes of people and declaring them to have sacrificed for "for the greater good of the Clintons and feminist ambitions." Funny how the sarcastic Dowd language slots right into Hillary's own rhetoric.

82 comments:

MadisonMan said...

But Trump was mean to Khan! That's all we should be talking about!

MadisonMan said...

It's really interesting to me how this election is all about Trump. NOTHING about Hillary is mentioned in the press at all. Her trip through Pennsylvania -- is that still happening?

rhhardin said...

A cow sacrifice gives you a sacred cow.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

The human sacrifices committed by the Mesoamericans was cannibalism, so they say.

That's easy enough to believe.

That lambs and goats and other valuable sources of protein were wasted, utterly . . . that's not so easy to believe.

rhhardin said...

The cow sacrifice comes up in cattle chess.

Brando said...

"Sacrifice" implies that you are losing something for a purpose--how was turning on Monica Lewinsky a "sacrifice" for the Clintons? Sounds more like an "under the bus throwing".

Castrating Bill--now that would have been a sacrifice! Might have kept him out of trouble for a while, too.

Brando said...

"It's really interesting to me how this election is all about Trump. NOTHING about Hillary is mentioned in the press at all. Her trip through Pennsylvania -- is that still happening?"

I thought that was Trump's strategy, according to Scott Adams? Keep it on you the whole time, and somehow you hypnotize the voters into deciding they can't get enough of you?

We'll see how well it works. But so far it certainly seems to have kept a lot of heat off Clinton.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I like the expression "take one for the team."

Sebastian said...

"If a political orator says that the war dead sacrificed their lives, we should contemplate what the speaker hopes to gain." If the orator is on the right, yes; if on the left, no. Get your situational facts straight before making gross generalizations about what "we" "should" do. Example: if someone on the right laments rising gun violence, he's engaging in "dark" rhetoric; if on the left, she's revealing racist inequity.

Bruce Hayden said...

What she was really sacrificing was the dignity, and probably even bodies, of all the women her husband sexually assaulted and probably even raped. An easy sacrifice for her, of course. Hard to understand how anyone who considers their self a feminist could ever vote for this horribly corrupt woman.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I think maybe it was in King of the Gypsies where some gypsy big shot is being buried and people are throwing cash into the open coffin before it goes down and there's a ruckus when someone tries to write a check.

Somebody thought of that.

Bruce Hayden said...

What is interesting these days is that there seem to be a bunch of people just waiting for Ann to post anything remotely political in the morning. And when she does, we are off to the races for a couple of hours.

n.n said...

The babies were sacrificed in abortion chambers for the greater... female chauvinist good.

"Monica" has been elevated to a rallying cry for human and civil rights.

cubanbob said...

@Brando it would appear that Trump might be the only candidate capable of sucking up so much attention that Hillary can escape notice. I suppose even a cockroach has her day.

Graham Powell said...

I think that we should distinguish between sacrificing for your future self and sacrificing for others. A solder who gives up their life to save a comrade is sacrificing everything he'll ever have so that someone else may live. The fact that many are willing to make this sacrifice says something.

In a much less dramatic way, parents sacrifice for their children. There are many ways I'd like to waste my money, but I prefer to spend it (or save it) for my kids' futures.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

It was in The Ten Commandments after Moses breaches the temple granary to feed the slaves that the head priest guy complains to Ramses that the food was stolen from the gods and Ramses, unimpressed, retorts, "You don't look any leaner."

Somebody thought of that.

Brando said...

"@Brando it would appear that Trump might be the only candidate capable of sucking up so much attention that Hillary can escape notice. I suppose even a cockroach has her day."

I think the more voters are thinking about Hillary, the more likely she will lose. Her best hope is to make this about Trump. His best move is to either talk about her, or say nothing.

Brando said...

"It was in The Ten Commandments after Moses breaches the temple granary to feed the slaves that the head priest guy complains to Ramses that the food was stolen from the gods and Ramses, unimpressed, retorts, "You don't look any leaner.""

Like when Judge Judy says "you don't look like you miss a meal" when a fat person complains about not being able to afford anything.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

When asked whether he'd give his life to save a brother, Haldane supposedly said no, but that he would to save two brothers or eight cousins.

Somebody thought of that.

And maybe it was even Haldane!

Wince said...

When it comes to relative sacrifices of Khan and Smith, Hillary arguably caused Sean Smith's death, lied about it to his mother next to his casket and had a Coptic Christian imprisoned for a year to cover it up.

Trump did none of that.

Bob Boyd said...

I get the feeling that when Dowd looks at Hillary now, she thinks about how she betrayed her principles for the Clintons (was that a sacrifice?) and she feels...a little gypped.

rhhardin said...

A cow that makes it to the other side of the board becomes a queen cow and starts a new hive.

Guildofcannonballs said...

When I was about 10 there was an ad in the WSJ (Wisconsin State Journal) for a bike, the seller told about what great condition it was in and how he hated to but he still had to sell it. He wrote "Sacrifice: $4500" and I felt bad for the guy, having to sacrifice his bike.

I figured somebody was getting a helluva deal, what with the seller's sacrifice and all.

Now?

Hell, now I've become more numb than Lincoln Park after six days on the road paying homage to The Flying Burrito Brothers.

Sacrifice don't mean nothing to me no more as a sales/persuasion technique. Backfires like Uncle Buck's Buick*.

*not sure if Buick

Big Mike said...

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.

Except! What about the mother of Sean Smith? What about the angry of the mother of Marc Lee, who died taking Ramadi, when Barack Obama basically gave that city back to ISIS? As has been noted elsewhere, whether or not to honor the sacrifices of our troops seems to depend on whether those sacrifices can be used to beat up a Republican or can be used to beat up a Democrat. In the latter case, crickets.

rhhardin said...

Potlach was supposed to get around the problem of the gift, namely that you always seem to get something for a gift and that defeats the purpose.

Sacrifice has the same built-in contradiction.

But 75% of women survived the Titanic, 19% of the men. You can overthink the benefit to men. Instead, it's a narrative.

khesanh0802 said...

Hypocrisy thy party is Democratic!

Clayton Hennesey said...

Now that the Khans have taken their 15 minutes of prime time political celebrity onto the political media rubber chicken circuit, Gold Star families and all veterans are going to have to come to terms with that sort of franchising.

Those more cruel than I might call it the question of whoring out military sacrifice for political celebrity. We've already seen this in police shootings.

Static Ping said...

For the record, sacrifices in the ancient world did not necessarily result in burning up whatever was sacrificed. In the Old Testament, the burnt offering did consume the animal in fire, but the hide was not burned and given to the Levites. Most sacrifices resulted in some of the animal burned as God's portion but the rest was eaten by the priests and/or the persons who gave the sacrifice.

Jupiter said...

"It belongs to generations of women and men who struggled and sacrificed and made this moment possible...."

Let us all keep in mind that, according to feminist theory, there are no significant differences between men and women. None. Therefore, if, in fact, Hillary is allowed to plop her fat twat down on Bill's old chair in the oval office, it will be of purely symbolic significance. Because any war a man can declare, any tax a man can raise, any ancient liberty a man can erase, a woman could and would have done the same. And don't you forget it!

But of course, it is important to remember that women bring a unique and valuable sensibility to everything they encounter, which no man can hope to provide. Without actually touching upon any real, verifiable differences, we can say that women are completely different than men, in almost every way, and in every case, women are better! That is why it is so important to elect Hillary! Everything will be different, once Hillary has become the President.

holdfast said...

So Khan Sr., who basically runs immigration investment scams, is a saint, and Patti Smith is a dirty fucking liar? So much for the slogan of "Believe Every Woman (Not Named Juanita Broderick)".

PB said...

Let's be clear about the word "sacrifice". The Khans suffered a loss, but they did not make a sacrifice. Their adult son volunteered and he lost his life making the sacrifice his own. We should not make light of their grief, but that doesn't elevate their political views above those of others. On the contrary, deep emotional feelings tend to distort the perception of reality. People compromised in this manner should actually have their views discounted.

God forbid we start getting into the "sacrifice" game, measuring and ranking sacrifices, and assigning varying levels of currency to different "sacrifices".

holdfast said...

What's really great about the modern abortion industry is that it helps families from South Asia and East Asia sacrifice unborn girl fetuses on the alter of having male heirs. Feminism is Awesome!

Jupiter said...

I think the most important nonexistent difference between the sexes is that women are naturally aware of possibilities that the blinkered, linear thought habits (crimes?) of men make us incapable of seeing. For example, most men would suppose that to eat one's cake is necessarily to cease having it.

holdfast said...

Speaking of sacrificing a son - check this out, from the R.o.P.!

During weekly protest near town of Modiin Illit, Arab protester sends small child towards IDF soldiers, tells them to shoot his son. . . .

. . . While provocations against soldiers and Border Police are common, this Friday, one Arab participant attempted to use his son in the propaganda war against Israel, in a disturbing form of child exploitation.

A recording of the incident shows the man carrying his young son towards several Border Police officers, setting him down, and shoving him off in the officers’ direction while waving a PLO flag.

The man then seemingly yells at the soldiers to shoot his son, hoping to create a news item and fire up anti-Israel sentiment.

The officers, however, do not take the bait. They instead attempt to shake the boy’s hand and speak with him, though the father, apparently intent on exploiting his son and turning him into the latest “martyr,” seems to scream at him to attack the soldiers with stones.

The child eventually attempted to comply with his father’s demands, but posed little threat as the soldiers watched him harmlessly toss stones aimlessly.


http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/215739

Anonymous said...

The dichotomy you make between the lamb offered to the gods and the lamb eaten by the people doesn't appear to be historically justified. In both Greek and Jewish practice, the same animal usually played both roles. The Greeks, for example, would slaughter an ox according to ritual rules, and then take part of the carcass and roast it for human consumption, and burn up the other part as an offering to the gods (who, it was agreed, really liked the parts human beings didn't want—neat how that worked out, no?). It appears that most Greeks ate meat mainly when it was given out at sacrifices. In fact, there was a big controversy over this in the early Christian church, which Kipling referred to in his story "A Church There Was at Antioch": Was it legitimate for Christians to eat meat from pagan sacrifices, or were they required to eat only meat that had been slaughtered according to Jewish rituals?

The association persists in Christian ritual, too. The central Christian rite, communion, involves eating human flesh (whether literally, as in Catholic doctrine, or symbolically, as in the doctrine of most Protestant denominations); but the flesh is that of a man who was sacrificed.

khesanh0802 said...

@Clayton Hennessy I wonder, in the long run, whether the Khan's will have proven to have done considerable harm. Their act and message was purely political. There is no discernible link between Trump and their son's death for those who are wiling to remain rational enough to look. I will go ahead and say that it was, indeed, whoring military sacrifice and in the long run it will - unfortunately - redound negatively on those who grieve silently and honorably.

Fernandinande said...

Jupiter said...
Let us all keep in mind that, according to feminist theory, there are no significant differences between men and women. None.


"We look at race as a social construction. It is not genetic, it is not biological, and we believe the same is [true] for sex … The male-female dichotomy doesn’t cover everyone, right? We have trans people, intersex people." -- a sociologist of gender who doesn't like sports.
From "Almost all men are stronger than almost all women."

cubanbob said...

The problem for Gold Star families is that since Johnson Democrats and the Left inevitably will snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.

n.n said...

Khan's testimony was not about his son sacrifice or our soldiers, police, border guard generally; but his claim, and the Democrat ploy, is that the loss of his son's life is exemplary and even redemptive of a philosophy. Meanwhile, Democrats construct classes based on race, sex, skin color, etc. It's a Pro-Choice thing.

Sebastian said...

Did some of you come to class unprepared? Did you not do the reading? People, people, do your homework! Hubert and Mauss, Sacrifice: Its Nature and Functions.

@PB: "that doesn't elevate their political views above those of others" Another gross generalization, in the Althouse mode. Wrongly assumes that there are objective standards and that political argument involves reasoning in good faith. But no: if it serves a leftist cause, it elevates their views above others; otherwise, not. Smith mom = GOP tool; Khan dad = truth-teller. Sheehan under Bush: go code pink; Sheehan under O: STFU. And so on, and so forth.

damikesc said...

stories were leaked that he was sleeping on the couch

Outrage theatre.

I think the more voters are thinking about Hillary, the more likely she will lose. Her best hope is to make this about Trump. His best move is to either talk about her, or say nothing.

Yeah. Shame he's already discussing his defeat, but his best strategy is to take every single question ever asked of him on any topic and use it against Hillary.

Ann Althouse said...

""Sacrifice" implies that you are losing something for a purpose--how was turning on Monica Lewinsky a "sacrifice" for the Clintons? Sounds more like an "under the bus throwing". "

I think what those doing the sacrificing sacrificed was their interest in appearing committed to a set of feminist principles having to do with believing women and overcoming sexual harassment in the workplace. (A great investment in that appearance had just been made in the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings.) That interest was sacrificed to the interest in advancing Hillary's political power through preserving her husband's power. You had to choose one path to power or another. Both were valuable, but they could not both be served.That fits the definition (and shows that sacrifice involves a lot of nasty stuff sometimes).

Ann Althouse said...

"When it comes to relative sacrifices of Khan and Smith, Hillary arguably caused Sean Smith's death, lied about it to his mother next to his casket and had a Coptic Christian imprisoned for a year to cover it up. Trump did none of that."

Clinton also voted for the war that killed Khan. Trump wasn't involved in that at all.

Nonapod said...

There's lots of people who have done great and amazing things, just as there are people who have sacrificed things for a greater good, and there are people who have lost loved ones in service of a greater good. These are all related concepts, but not necessarily same. None of these things guarantees that a person is beyond reproach. The fact that someone has lost or sacrificed shouldn't elevate any political opinion they may have to an unquestionable status. Of course, what should happen and what does happen are two different things.

Human beings have a habit of blending ideas and concepts together to the point that they become difficult to differentiate and separate. Imprecise language acts as an adhesive.

The Godfather said...

When someone talks about sacrifice, ask what it is that's being sacrificed, and by whom? Capt. Kahn sacrificed his life. The Clintons sacrificed Monica (to further their political ambitions). Often, phonies use the word "sacrifice" to give themselves unearned moral standing, but they don't say WHAT they or their supporters have sacrificed; you can tell that's what they're doing if you can figure out what the object of the verb is.
'

walter said...

It's too bad Capt. Khan isn't around to weigh in on Hil's Benghazi inaction and the sacrifice of those who died trying to help anyway.

Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...

I see Obama's ordering airstrikes against ISIS in Libya now. Yes, that Libya. Sight of Hillary's greatest foreign policy achievement. And somehow, there seems to be a total lack of curiosity in the press over how and why this came about. Color me shocked.

ddh said...

The Clintons remind me of Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe's line about British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan:

"Greater love hath no man than this: To lay down his friends for his life."

Gabriel said...

@Eric the Fruit Bat:That lambs and goats and other valuable sources of protein were wasted, utterly . . . that's not so easy to believe.

They weren't. Read the Bible some time.

This rite, together with that of "heaving" or "raising" the offering was an inseparable accompaniment of peace offerings. In such the right shoulder, considered the choicest part of the victim, was to be ("heaved," and viewed as holy to the Lord, only eaten therefore by the priest: the breast was to be "waved," and eaten by the worshipper. The scriptural notices of these rites are to be found in ( Exodus 29:24 Exodus 29:28 ; Leviticus 7:30 Leviticus 7:34 ; 8:27 ; 9:21 ; Leviticus 10:14 Leviticus 10:15 ; Leviticus 23:10 Leviticus 23:15 Leviticus 23:20 ; Numbers 6:20 ; Numbers 18:11 Numbers 18:18 Numbers 18:26-29 ) etc.

walter said...

Why..that is just so beautiful, Gabe.

cubanbob said...

If the Clinton's actually were to make a sacrifice they would confess to all of their felonious activities for the good of the nation. Heck I would even offer them a no time served conviction if they did this public service for the nation.

Brando said...

"I think what those doing the sacrificing sacrificed was their interest in appearing committed to a set of feminist principles having to do with believing women and overcoming sexual harassment in the workplace. (A great investment in that appearance had just been made in the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings.) That interest was sacrificed to the interest in advancing Hillary's political power through preserving her husband's power. You had to choose one path to power or another. Both were valuable, but they could not both be served.That fits the definition (and shows that sacrifice involves a lot of nasty stuff sometimes)."

Maybe, except the bus-throwers in this case suffered not one bit from the feminist left. At most they got some "tut-tutting" and it was right back to getting in line for Team D. Now, if the Clintons became pariahs like John Edwards over this, I'd say that was a sacrifice.

damikesc said...

That interest was sacrificed to the interest in advancing Hillary's political power through preserving her husband's power.

But the feminists went along with it. Steinem created that idiotic "one free grope" rule nonsense. There was no sacrifice as, it seems, nobody actually believed the nonsense. Reporters offered free blowjobs for keeping abortion legal.

I see, literally, no sacrifice either Clinton made. Feminists sacrificed their credibility, though, and will never recover.

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

I think it helps to distinguish what is good from what is noble. Sacrificing a lesser good (for oneself) for a greater good is still good, and therefore we might say clearly rational. With the deliberate sacrifice of one's own life, the good to oneself is not usually clear (even religious believers are likely to say you still have to go into some kind of limbo and/or be judged, yikes!). "Noble" means something like: we hope it is good, it may be more clearly good for others, i.e. survivors, than for oneself, or it serves the community; the good for oneself is not clear.

Sacrificing others, asking others to sacrifice themselves, is something office-holders and generals have to do all the time. There is a sense that the Clintons slip into this mode of thinking a bit too comfortably.

n.n said...

I wonder if "sacrifice" refers to the sexual relations or their cover-ups. That said, why haven't the intrepid JournoLists at The Washington Post forced the Clintons into a corner? So selective. This story of sacrificial women for the greater female chauvinist good is worthy of at least a Pulitzer Prize. Perhaps even a Nobel Peace Prize.

n.n said...

The human abortions, harvesting, and trafficking at Planned Parenthood et al are also cannibalism in the clinical sense. Purportedly, sacrifices for the greater good. Surely, a progressive slope that began with normalization of abortion rites.

walter said...

"stories were leaked that he was sleeping on the couch"
Wait..as punishment?

rehajm said...

What was Monica's outcome supposed to be before she was sacrificed?

From what I've seen of her today she seems to be doing better than she would have otherwise.

buwaya said...

Re Monica -

"From what I've seen of her today she seems to be doing better than she would have otherwise."

She never married, had no kids. I suspect this scandal and the notoriety kept her from overcoming her childhood problems and settling down. A tragic case really. This was a rather talented family.

Fernandinande said...

Gabriel said...
@Eric the Fruit Bat:That lambs and goats and other valuable sources of protein were wasted, utterly . . . that's not so easy to believe.

They weren't. Read the Bible some time.


OK. They wasted one, utterly, and then ate a different one.

"18 And thou shalt burn the whole ram upon the altar: it is a burnt offering unto the Lord: it is a sweet savour, an offering made by fire unto the Lord.

19 And thou shalt take the other ram;" ... do some goofy rituals with it and then eat it.

mikee said...

It is not 'Funny how the sarcastic Dowd language slots right into Hillary's own rhetoric." It is sad that the Dowd and her fellow Democrats fail to understand that one fundamental ideal of this country is that an individual's rights are more important that any government plan, policy, or politician.

Dowd has no relevance to 99.99% of the population of the United States, who, if encountering her writing for the first time would not try it a second time.

Dowd has not been heard from except in terms of the presidential campaigns since, oh, the last presidential campaigns.

Dowd is simnply an operative of the Democrats, paid for by the New York Times.

And Hillary's plans of sacrifice enabling her to obtain the presidency are as vile as any corruption in our nation's history.

Althouse, if you vote Hillary your guilt will be, and should be, and cannot avoid being, enormous.

SukieTawdry said...

It belongs to generations of women and men who struggled and sacrificed and made this moment possible....

All that struggle and sacrifice to make possible the election of one of the most reprehensible politicians in a long history of reprehensible politicians. Imagine that.

walter said...

Hey..an academic who sealed his academic record promised to skyrocket electricity costs..and won..twice.
It was high time. He wanted it.

traditionalguy said...

A sacrifice is a victim being offered to a god by a Priest so the god accepts the death. It takes all three to work.

The Priest and the god really enjoy doing it...not so much the victim. In fact catching victims requires a weak minded surplus people that are willing to submit or an enemy captured in battle.

The Mohammedans enjoy the power of ritually killing both types, but they prefer catching enemies/infidels for the added loot. But in a bind they will even slice the heads off Catholic Priests. No professional courtesy at all.

Khan's son was a victim of the Mohammedans blood lust. His Daddy says it will be wasted if Mohammedan warriors are not empowered by that blood. And that brings him to Trump playing a modern Charles Martel role.

Brando said...

Back in '99 we had Monica come speak to our class (Ken Starr and Robert Bennett also dropped in--Bennett seemed a bit cold but Starr seemed nice and very reasonable, considering the class was packed with Clinton fans). She was a lot prettier in person.

I think we all can imagine what would have happened if Monica had never kept proof of her affair with Bill. The Clintons would have smeared her as a lying psychopath, to hopefully deter any other women from coming forward. As it was, the humiliation Monica received over it probably had that same effect.

And these dangerous people are poised to take power again. We've had a good distraction this year.

buwaya said...

"It belongs to generations of women and men who struggled and sacrificed and made this moment possible...."

The moment, being that moment just before they realize that they are the last generation.

Captain Drano said...

Kahn just "sacrificed" his website. Interesting that he took it down.

Static Ping said...

Back to the Biblical sacrifices, there were several different kinds for different purposes. They all had different procedures.

Also keep in mind that an animal in the ancient world was a sign of wealth. To give up a perfectly good animal, even if you got to eat it, was a significant cost. If you did not have an animal, buying one was not cheap. Anyone who could regularly slaughter animals for consumption was very wealthy. It is noteworthy that some sacrifices actually came with a price range with the poor allowed to sacrifice something inexpensive they could afford and the wealthy expected to choose the most expensive thing on the menu.

n.n said...

just before they realize that they are the last generation

Yesterday's progressive is today's conservative. The cycle of social life. It's just too bad that they are so damned selective... Sacrifices will be made for the greater good, of course.

walter said...

Monica, working as an "anti-bullying advocate" must be really enjoying this election cycle.

damikesc said...


I think we all can imagine what would have happened if Monica had never kept proof of her affair with Bill. The Clintons would have smeared her as a lying psychopath, to hopefully deter any other women from coming forward. As it was, the humiliation Monica received over it probably had that same effect.


The baffling part, though, is that she blamed Starr for the whole thing. Not the guy who had the affair, splooged on her dress, and had his minions already pimping out that she was a psycho stories.

She blamed the guy asked to investigate. This is as baffling as German women who were raped by "immigrants" lying about the nationality of their attackers to not cause them more problems.

It is baffling. Progressives are the worst enablers of horrendous behavior out there.

rehajm said...

She never married, had no kids. I suspect this scandal and the notoriety kept her from overcoming her childhood problems and settling down. A tragic case really.

Do we know that's what she wanted but couldn't get it?

She made a go of a business venture. Earned a seven figure endorsement deal. Movie. Reality TV host. Speaker circuit. Has the giant asset of a huge book deal in her hip pocket. Is every White House intern expected to exceed this reality?

Gabriel said...

@Ferdinande: There were lots of different rituals, some where they ate the animal and some where they didn't. They also offered wheat and other non-animals.

Even in your own cite, you could have read a little further:

And thou shalt take the breast of the ram of Aaron's consecration, and wave it for a wave offering before the Lord: and it shall be thy part.

27 And thou shalt sanctify the breast of the wave offering, and the shoulder of the heave offering, which is waved, and which is heaved up, of the ram of the consecration, even of that which is for Aaron, and of that which is for his sons:

28 And it shall be Aaron's and his sons' by a statute for ever from the children of Israel: for it is an heave offering: and it shall be an heave offering from the children of Israel of the sacrifice of their peace offerings, even their heave offering unto the Lord.

29 And the holy garments of Aaron shall be his sons' after him, to be anointed therein, and to be consecrated in them.

30 And that son that is priest in his stead shall put them on seven days, when he cometh into the tabernacle of the congregation to minister in the holy place.

31 And thou shalt take the ram of the consecration, and seethe his flesh in the holy place.

32 And Aaron and his sons shall eat the flesh of the ram, and the bread that is in the basket by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

33 And they shall eat those things wherewith the atonement was made, to consecrate and to sanctify them: but a stranger shall not eat thereof, because they are holy.

Brando said...

"The baffling part, though, is that she blamed Starr for the whole thing. Not the guy who had the affair, splooged on her dress, and had his minions already pimping out that she was a psycho stories."

My guess is at that time she still had feelings for Bill Clinton, making her unable to see him and his minions for what they were. Plus, as a longtime Democrat, she probably had this idea reinforced by fellow partisans that Bill just wanted to keep everything hush hush, and it was nasty old Ken Starr and her turncoat friend Linda Tripp who forced her into the open and humiliated her. Once the Clintons couldn't deny the story and spread the "stalker" theme, they tried to make Monica look like a willing dalliance (how French!) where the only crime was the Republicans going on a puritan witch hunt. They played it quite well, and those of us who lived through it realized the Clintons were a slimy, conniving couple that would not be easy to pin down.

Fast forward almost two decades, and they're about to pull a similar con. If I'd read a book about it beforehand, I'd say the plot was too far fetched. Yet here we are.

tim in vermont said...

The Clintons wanted Starr, and it paid off. It turned out that Hillary had publicly berated Vince Foster in a White House staff meeting, calling him a "hick lawyer, who would never get it." And this little tidbit was left out of his report.

tim in vermont said...

A week before he killed himself. Friends said that he was changed after that.

buwaya said...

"Is every White House intern expected to exceed this reality?"

Is she happy at 3:00 am?
I suspect not.

Bilwick said...

No doubt about it, statists love sacrifice--especially when they make others the sacrifice.

SukieTawdry said...

She never married, had no kids. I suspect this scandal and the notoriety kept her from overcoming her childhood problems and settling down. A tragic case really.

She claimed in an interview a few years back that she always (and still) wanted to marry and have a family but she didn't meet many men who were interested in a once-notorious woman whose last name was synonymous with a sex act.

holdfast said...

@Sukie

Plus, every guy pretty much knows up front that she doesn't swallow. . .

jg said...

@tim in vermont, this is the best I could find - didn't see the "never get it" bit (not saying that didn't happen)

Ronald Kessler: This is really shocking, the FBI investigated the circumstances of the suicide and they interviewed the aides, the friends, the wife and they found that Hilary Clinton had this meeting in the White House a week before the suicide with Foster and other top White House aides.
As you say, accusing him of failing the Clintons calling him a small town hick lawyer, you’ll never make it in the big time. Just because she disagreed with legal interpretation that he had given and this was her mentor at the her law firm. This was supposed to be her friend.
Well, after that, he was already depressed of course, but he went downhill after that. His voice changed, he became totally disconsolate and withdrawn. He would break into tears easily. He, after that, committed suicide. And the FBI says on the record that episode triggered his suicide.

Viking In Winter said...

“Sacrifice is the surrender of that which you value in favor of which you don't.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged