WASHINGTON: To Betsey Ross Wright, a long-time aide to Bill Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas, goes the credit for coining the term “bimbo eruptions“. Tasked with defending Clinton when he was running for President in 1992, she used the expression to push back a raft of claims and charges about the candidate's alleged extramarital affairs and peccadilloes, a strategy that Hillary Clinton was seen to have supported.
Nearly quarter century later, the ploy of discrediting women who make such claims and allegations is very much in play as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton size each others campaign up.
Trump is now having his own share of “women troubles“ as his past dalliances comes back to haunt him.
Earlier this week, US's slavering media unearthed a recording of Trump describing a model who claimed she had dated him in the 1990s as a “f***king third rate hooker“.The model, Victorial Zdrok, has called Trump a racist and a narcissist, describing how he could never stop talking about himself and his looks, while claiming that women were stalking him all the time.
“He loves to talk about how women are chasing him all the time, which doesn't make a girl feel special on a date,“ Zdrok, a Ukarainian immigrant who was a Playboy and Penthouse centerfold when she purportedly dated Trump, told a New Jersey magazine. “The other thing he talks about is what a great lover he is. He said to me, `Once you made love to me, you'll never be able to make love to anybody else.“
Zdrok, whose resume lists a law degree and a PhD in clinical psychology , also claimed that Trump was obsessed with a mixed-race supermodel but he would not go out with her “because she was half-black and that would be bad for his reputation.“
Trump has trashed Zdrok, but the language he has used, recorded for posterity by a reporter, is not something that will endear him to women even if he is correct that she stalked him and sought him out. “I don't even know who the hell she is. And, based on her picture, I would never take her out, she looked like a f***ing third-rate hooker,“ Trump says, telling he has “good taste in women.“
While Trump's demeaning declamations echo Bill Clinton's own finger-wagging “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Moni ca Lewinsky ,“ the Republican billionaire has also turned on Hillary for being the enabler for her husband's indiscretions. Some of Trump's supporters are saying Hillary has no one to blame for the current coarseness and misogyny of political discourse but herself and her husband, maintaining it was she who made light of her husband's straying and blaming rightwing conspiracy for the charges. “If she doesn't care when her husband does, why should we get all worked up over Trump's indiscretions?“ asked one commentator, as both sides girdled up for what threatens to be a below-thebelt campaign.
The ensuing spat has been godsend for the stand-up comedians. Stephen Colbert noted that if Trump chose Newt Gingrich as his running mate, they would have six marriages between them (three each), and “both the First Lady and Second Lady would actually be the Third Lady .“
Donald ends bitter feud with TV anchor Donald Trump, not usually one to back away from a fight, made peace on Tuesday with US television news star Megyn Kelly after describing her in the past as a “bimbo“ -and worse. Trump during the primary campaign resorted to unusually extreme rhetoric -including a distasteful reference to menstruation -in his attacks on Kelly. In an apparent move to soften his image, Trump on Tuesday publicly buried the hatchet with Kelly. “When I'm wounded, I fight back hard,“ Trump explained when pressed by Kelly about the reason for his bare knuckles, no-holds-barred style, describing himself as a “counterpuncher“ on the campaign trail. He also conceded that he might have been a little rough in his handling of Kelly. “I could have done certain things differently. I could have maybe used different language in a couple of instances,“ Trump said.