In 1992, Bill Clinton was under attack for a reported affair with a woman from Arkansas. His wife, likely pissed, could have taken the easy way out, stayed in the shadows, let Bill work it out. Instead she went on camera and gave a speech that largely revived her husband's presidential chances - and cemented her negative opinion in the public eye for all time to come.

“You know, I’m not sitting here, some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette,” she said, wearing gold earrings and a black headband, perched next to him on a couch in a hotel suite in Boston and waving her clenched right hand. “I’m sitting here because I love him, and I respect him, and I honor what he’s been through and what we’ve been through together. And you know, if that’s not enough for people, then heck—don’t vote for him.”

Bullet dodged - Bill's a great guy, earnest, hard-working - and his wife's a bit of a bitch.

In early 1998, Kenneth Starr as part of his years-long investigation of all things Clinton dredged up a tidbit of a dalliance in the Oval Office. Again, Hillary was on her game:

But I do believe that this is a battle. I mean, look at the very people who are involved in this—they have popped up in other settings. This is—the great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president.

Yes, of course her husband had had those relations (call it sex or just a BJ), but the background on it was accurate. And rather than sulk like Achilles in his tent, she was out to do battle.

That battle has left her the laughing stock and scorn pit not just of the right, but of the left as well. A steady current of her as "woman who'll do anything", "staying in a loveless marriage for power", and what ever else fits in an industrial size garbage sack floats among us to this day. She believes in conspiracy? We'll give her conspiracy.

In October, 2 months ago, one of the candidates pulled together a scandalous press conference of all her husband's accusers over the last 3 decades, including a purported incident where she'd laughed at a rape victim she'd defended, when the tapes and evidence show her laughing instead at the absurd legal situation.

Outrage? Not so much - pinch yourself if you even remember this piece of theater as being one of the top 10 events of campaign 2016. And slap yourself if you forgot it yet somehow expected Hillary to focus on "the issues", especially white men's deep troubling issues out in the "heartland".

Here's Time Magazine basically repeating the Fox News "interview" with same women, providing no additional information, simply a sounding board - the media echo chamber where it's easier to recycle words than think.

And here's Business Insider summarizing a CNN interview - let's see how many times "not worrying about Bill Clinton's sex life" comes up, vs. other topics...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) says he believes Donald Trump should be focusing on more "important things" on the campaign trail than former President Bill Clinton's "sex life."

In a CNN interview on CNN, host Dana Bash asked Sanders if Trump's criticism of Bill Clinton's "sexual history" is "fair game."

Sanders rattled off several areas where he disagreed with Trump's policies, including Trump's opposition to raising the minimum wage and on dealing with climate change.

"Maybe Trump should worry about those issues rather than Bill Clinton's sex life," Sanders said. 

Bash marveled at Sanders' seamless transition — then pressed him to more directly respond to the question. 

"Only Bernie Sanders can segue from climate change to Bill Clinton's sex life. That was impressive," Bash said. "But what is the answer?"

"No, I think we have more important things to worry about in this country than Bill Clinton's sex life," Sanders said. 

Trump has recently attempted to make the former president's infidelities a campaign issue against Hillary Clinton, now the Democratic front-runner for president. In a "Face the Nation" interview on Sunday, Trump asserted that Hillary Clinton cannot criticize him for his controversial statements on women's issues because of her husband's history.

"I'm the only one that's willing to talk about his problems," Trump said. "I mean, what he did and what he has gone through I think is frankly terrible, especially if she wants to play the woman card."

Wow, that clears it up - I suddenly forgot all about Bill's sex life. Did you note that even "important things" is in scare quotes? Because what could be more important than talking about consensual sex between adults 20 years ago?

And did you notice the "Trump card"? Talking about women has to start by acknowledging and talking about Bill's sex life - which of course is a never-ending topic, so hey, stop playing the "woman card" already.

Remember - this was in reaction to Trump's outrageous sexual comments and behavior - notice they've vanished in the whole piece, and now it's Trump giving advice, good ol' Unka Donald (no longer Uncle Ernie).

Of course the art of not talking about Bill Clinton is as great as the art of talking about him. Here's Bernie Sanders responding to an audience question back last fall:

Look, Hillary Clinton is not Bill Clinton. What Bill Clinton did, I think we can all acknowledge, was totally, totally, totally disgraceful and unacceptable,” the Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate told a crowd at an Iowa town hall. “But I am running against Hillary Clinton. I’m not running against Bill Clinton.”

Note the 3 "totally"s there. Yep, when I want to avoid talking about something, I highlight and caption it with excessive adverbs and 2 strong adjectives and finish off with the thing I don't want to talk about.

But more important, and I'll come back to it with the blog I meant to write, is that we're totally faithless to people who fight for us, and totally kneejerk for the next shiny thing coming down the road, whatever it may be.

Instead of being rightly seen as a valiant victim who took one for the team, Hillary inherited the stain of her husband's actions more than he did - and let's be real, it was just copping some quick sex, not say Petraeus handing over a ton of confidential material to a mistress he was obsessed with.

But instead, Hillary became the rapist, she became her hubby's enabler, she because she's female becomes the real villain - she couldn't control her husband, so bad deeds were done. Lady Macbeth should have had it so easy.

Once upon a time, Hillary stood up in a shitstorm - twice - to make sure one of her core struggles, to get her husband elected and stay elected and all the shared values & policies that included, didn't go down the tubes. She did it not just for herself, but for all of us, since holding back the vast rightwing conspiracy even a little bit for 2 decades was worth its figurative weight in gold.

And instead we're here second-guessing her commitment to party, to "true" progressive values, to how she campaigned, to whether she had enough passion for those white male voters who count.

Well next time you're thinking about those white male voters, think about this:

Because even *after* flushing his political career down the tubes with puerile sexting, Huma's husband was found sexting underage girls, dragging in his wife who'd been busy with the most important act of her stellar 20 year career - now vanished in a heartbeat, or 1 FBI chief's press conference in October, thanks largely to him.

Yeah, I'm worried about men's libidos over any other issues, their concerns about being replaced by women, made irrelevant, their need to pussy grab to enforce self-esteem and buck up their dwindling machoism and inability to compete in the world that up to now has always been tilted towards them.

Women's issues? The biggest one is men.