quote:

In 1998, I was one of a few establishment feminists to argue on behalf of Monica Lewinsky, when the unofficial representative of the movement, Gloria Steinem, threw her under the bus in the pages of The New York Times to protect Bill Clinton. I maintained my position until, two decades and a #MeToo movement later, Ms. Steinem issued a non-apology for the essay.

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So what is the greatest good or the greatest harm? Mr. Biden, and the Democrats he may carry with him into government, are likely to do more good for women and the nation than his competition, the worst president in the history of the Republic. Compared with the good Mr. Biden can do, the cost of dismissing Tara Reade — and, worse, weakening the voices of future survivors — is worth it.

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Contemplating the act makes me feel a little like Gloria Steinem, circa 1998. I was so sure I’d never do what she did, and I still think saving Mr. Clinton for two years at the cost to Ms. Lewinsky was a terrible move. Denigrating Ms. Lewinsky denied all women’s vulnerability to powerful men, and replacing Mr. Clinton with another Democratic centrist, Al Gore, would have been a perfectly acceptable outcome. But it also makes me remember why Ms. Steinem did it.

The other side at the time, embodied by the special counsel Kenneth Starr, was so awful. Mr. Starr’s censorious Republican Party seemed to pose much more of a threat to women’s interests than Mr. Clinton’s libertinism did.