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(Corrects Bob Packwood's party affiliation to Republican in 11th paragraph.)

How responsible is a wife for the betrayal of her husband?

In the case of Hillary Clinton, the answer is, a lot, according to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and Senator Rand Paul.

They got delicious material to use in their effort from exchanges between Clinton and her best friend Diane Blair. Blair died at 61 in 2000. Her husband donated her papers to the University of Arkansas, where they were reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website.

The charge against Hillary is that she was an enabler, not a victim, of her husband's extramarital affairs, a long string of which culminated in the White House encounters with Monica Lewinsky.

Recalling a 1998 conversation, Blair wrote: HRC insists, no matter what people say, it was gross inappropriate behavior but it was consensual (was not a power relationship) and was not sex within real meaning.

As engrossing as it is to get inside Hillary's mind, to use Bill Clinton's behavior against Hillary requires that you think she let the philandering happen, that she somehow deserved it (she's often portrayed as cold and withholding), that she did nothing to stop it, blamed the other woman, and through it all, didn't suffer.

Her first reaction about Monica was the one many of us would have: This can't be true; surely, not in the Oval Office (or the adjoining study), surely not with an employee; surely not someone young enough to be his daughter. Then came the second thought: How do I protect Chelsea, calm the rabble hounding us on the front lawn night and day, keep our enemies from using it?

What she didn't do was leave. But since when do we punish people for NOT breaking up their marriages? Aren't Republicans the family values folks? And her instinct was to believe her husband above the women with whom he strayed. Who wouldn't?

Still these remembrances from Blair show Hillary to be ready to attack women to defend her husband, guilty to all but her. She believed too long, defended too strenuously, and lined up with women's groups who wouldn't ordinarily be siding with a public official who treated women so badly.

See the rest here:

The Politics of Hillary Clinton's Marriage