RSVP to Ms LEWINSKI: Not-sorry, just responding will not join in re-litigating your event.

[UTUSN]

(Yes, there is a long thread on the subject but much of it re-litigating.)

*** From the glimpse at her message, I gathered she thanked the young people of today for changing the perspective on what happened, something like changing definitions of power and abuse, victimizing and shaming.

Since I'm not young, am 78, I'm not eligible for the thanks, although I'll submit here that my attitude back then was a bit different from the stereotyped condemnation you experienced and I have no reason to change how it all filtered into my reaction back then.

* No, I didn't call you a victim, but neither did I succumb to Mr C's inner circle calling him a victim of your stalking.
* Instead, in my inner voice, I called you both selfish and thoughtless.
* My utter shock and disappointment was largely focused on him.
* But to my small, outside world I defended him relentlessly on a partisan basis.
* When it was finally over, I just didn't want to be reminded about it ever, never defamed you before or after.
* He as a former President and my party leader couldn't very well disappear.

Yes, the culture has changed regarding awareness of the Power vs Victim dynamic, to which I subscribe. But we all changed, and we the Shocked ones also became victims of you two selfish and thoughtless specimens. On a personally absurd naive or innocent level, it was a shock in itself about the oral sex, yes in the WH, but just in itself at my then 48 years. It took a few more years to process that it was a common, widely practiced thing. But I never put the label of shame on you.

So Ms L. and Mr C., you weren't the only victims, and now my poor DU is included because of my embarrassing disclosure at the end. Buh-bye.

[Ocelot II]

1. Even at the time I thought Bill's behavior was gross and he should have known better.

Monica had a crush on him, and as the person in the position of power he had an obligation to put on the brakes and tell her any kind of relationship would be highly inappropriate and downright dangerous. I never thought it was Monica's fault; he was too weak to resist the sexual temptation; I just didn't think it was an impeachable offense. I also thought Linda Tripp was disgusting the way she betrayed Monica.

[SheltieLover]

2. Monica was young at the time, but she was not a child

Release all epstein materials!

[Justice Brandeis]

3. Her behavior was stupidity, but Bill Clinton had the responsibility to be the adult in the room

And instead he made another choice.

And that may well have given us President George W. Bush and the Iraq War.

[UTUSN]

4. Well, just about every incumbent pendulums the next one

[drmeow]

5. If accusing someone of being

selfish and thoughtless is not a subset of shaming them then what is it?

Shame: n A painful emotion caused by the awareness of having done something wrong or foolish. v To cause someone to feel shame.

When you call someone selfish you feel they should feel shame for what they did.

[UTUSN]

6. There's always a twist, eh. You left out that it was my inner thought, not expressed

to others, and I won't be participating in this.

[Mossfern]

7. I don't see it that way

From that viewpoint no one could object to another's behavior regarding to societal norms.
Sometimes shame is not the awful monster we believe it is. It depends on the intentions of the person "shaming" another
and the intensity of the accusation.

Honestly, I think Linda Tripp is the one who should be shamed for betraying a friend.