What has gotten into Bill Clinton, he of red-faced outbursts of anger, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson asked Tuesday.

Katha Pollitt of the liberal Nation Magazine, an unlikely ally of Hillary's "vast rightwing conspiracy" already gave one answer (http://www.thenation.com/doc/­19990322/pollitt):

"We will never know the truth behind Juanita Broaddrick's claim that Bill Clinton raped her in a Little Rock hotel room in l978. The most you can say about it, which is also the least you can say about it, is that her story is credible ... investigations by NBC News and reporting from the Washington Post poked no major holes in it.

"She has as much corroboration as Anita Hill--friends who say she told them about the assault at the time, one of whom says she saw her immediately after with a bruised and swollen lip.

"So far as we know, Broaddrick has no motive to lie. Of course, the President's men are right to say you can't disprove an ancient charge like this.

"But the best Clinton's defenders can come up with is that rape doesn't fit his 'MO'--as if, after all the backing and filling and prevaricating and outright lying, we know what this man's MO really is."

More recently Christopher Hitchens, also of the independent left, has written
(http://www.slate.com/id/21820­65):

"In my opinion, Gennifer Flowers was telling the truth; so was Monica Lewinsky, and so was Kathleen Willey, and so, lest we forget, was Juanita Broaddrick, the woman who says she was raped by Bill Clinton. (For the full background on this, see the chapter 'Is There a Rapist in the Oval Office?' in the paperback version of my book No One Left To Lie To. This essay, I may modestly say, has never been challenged by anybody in the fabled Clinton "rapid response" team.) Yet one constantly reads that both Clintons, including the female who helped intensify the slanders against her mistreated sisters, are excellent on women's "issues."

Then there was one of the original Washington Post stories, "Clinton Accuser's Story Aired"
(http://www.washingtonpost.com­/wp-srv/politics/special/clint­on/stories/broaddrick022599.ht­m), that was very sympathetic to Ms. Broaddrick:

"Juanita Broaddrick told her story to a national television audience last night, saying she did not tell authorities 21 years ago of her contention that Bill Clinton sexually assaulted her because 'I just don't think anyone would have believed me.'

"In a gripping account punctuated by sobs, the Arkansas woman told "Dateline NBC" that in her Little Rock hotel room, Clinton suddenly 'turned me around and started kissing me, and that was a real shock. I first pushed him away. I just told him 'no.' . . . He tries to kiss me again. He starts biting on my lip. . . . And then he forced me down on the bed. I just was very frightened. I tried to get away from him. I told him 'no.' . . . He wouldn't listen to me.'

Yet today, somehow, the media is more interested in covering the presidential "horse race" than looking at hard truths while professional "women's rights activists", whistle softly and look past the individual carnage and the possibilities for a reprise of Oval Office embarrassment.

On Tuesday, The State, the largest newspaper in South Carolina, in its endorsement of Barack Obama for president, editorialized:

"We...have a good idea what a Clinton presidency would look like. The restoration of the Clintons to the White House would trigger a new wave of all-out political warfare. That is not all Bill and Hillary’s fault - but it exists, whomever you blame, and cannot be ignored."

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton (of all people) makes cheap shots in last night's debate saying that Obama "never take(s) responsibility" and the media dutifully chalks up the debating point in her favor but doesn't ask, as they say in Spanish, "and how are things at home?"

When, in one of those silly moments similar to how much of the media fall all over the Clintons as if the presidential campaign was a Restoration, a lone voice from the back of the U.S. Senate, that of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, called out to remind a body that was about to rubber stamp Clarence Thomas' elevation to the Supreme Court about their responsibilities.

Anita Hill came forward and the rest was history. Unfortunately, it was too late to make a difference.

Unlike Hillary I do not believe in vast conspiracies. I believe much of the media reportage this season is better described as the work of a confederacy of dunces.

I'm sorry, but what does this rehash have to do with anything? Bill's recent outbursts seem to have more to do with his sense of entitlement than anything. He seems to believe that the nomination is Clinton family property, and that Obama is some sort of interloper.

I voted for Clinton twice, but frankly, I'm sick of the guy. Hillary needs to stop hiding behind Bill's skirt, and Bill needs to realize that his time has passed, get off the stage and shut the fuck up. Not that any of that is likely.