Bills Cosby and Clinton Compared

by Jack Le Moine

Why is one being vilified and the other not?  I’d like to know.

Both Bill Cosby and Bill Clinton have sex scandals and both have been accused of making unwanted advances as part of those scandals.  Both men have multiple accusers.  Both men’s alleged actions occurred at roughly the same timeframe — decades in the past.

Here’s a summary of Bill Cosby’s sex scandals and here’s one of Bill Clinton’s sex scandals.  Note that in connection with his scandals Bill Clinton was disbarred from practicing law for a year after his term of office ended.

Yet Bill Clinton was attacked by mainly Republicans while the attacks on Bill Cosby are nearly universal.  As of the time of this writing Bill Clinton is a beloved elder statesman of the Democratic Party and an asset in his wife’s Presidential Campaign while the other Bill, Cosby, is having his past television shows pulled.

So why are the two Bills being treated differently?  Maybe the different treatments of the two men are justified.  I’d like to know.  I’m genuinely perplexed.

This is from the Boston Globe.

This blog tries to stay away from current events unless there is a historical basis to them.  Then we want to emphasize the history.  This particular story concerns two scandals where both of them allege actions which occurred so far in the past as to be historical in nature.  Disparate current treatment of seemingly similar scandals affect how we treat historical events.  Thus this story qualified for this blog.