New Clinton Scandal: Alleged Illegitimate child takes DNA test

Nathan Newman nathan.newman at yale.edu
Sun Jan 3 04:51:24 PST 1999


Well, the Drudge Report and the New York Post are leading with an accusation by a prostitute and her thirteen-year old child that Bill fathered the child during paid sex back in Arkansas. Working with a reporter from the STAR magazine, they are comparing his DNA to a sample they reportedly have from the President (how they obtained it is unclear.)

This story has been making the rounds for years (and may have been Joe Klein's inspiration for the scandal in Primary Colors) and this new flurry may just be a publicity stunt for the STAR.

But if true, Bill is toast. This time it's not the sex, it's not lying, it will be the hypocrisy of Bill talking about deadbeat Dads. The public rightly have skewered the GOP for the sin of hypocrisy and Bill will go down for the same in this case.

Bill never preached abstinence or railed against adultery on the campaign trail, so Monica et al has remained only a question of his private morality. It was the GOP who railed against sex while staffing their leadership with serial adulterers, and so their private sins were held against them for conflicting with their public morality.

Bill has however promoted a broad ethic of "rights and responsibility" as part of his New Democrat agenda. And going after deadbeat Dads has been one of the core features of this policy. The public will rightly say that if Bill wants a policy to take away the driver's license of a man who fails to take care of his kid, then Bill should lose his driver's license for running the nation for his failure.

Now, this may all be a stunt, but from the day Monica broke as a story, I have assumed that Bill would not be removed from office. If this story is true and is confirmed, he will be out of office within two months.

--Nathan Newman



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