Reporter Ronan Farrow appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher over the weekend. During a discussion about the Kavanaugh confirmation, Maher suggested that it’s unclear what Kavanaugh did and also how serious it would have been given that he was a teenager at the time. In response, Farrow brought up the allegations against Bill Clinton, saying they were different because they went beyond grey areas.

“I think that it is very important to interject that Bill Clinton is a different conversation,” Farrow said. He continued, ” He has been credibly accused of rape. That has nothing to do with gray areas. I think that the Juanita Broaddrick claim has been overdue for revisiting. It’s getting one now.”

Guest Dennis Prager pointed out that Clinton wasn’t impeached for the affair with Monica Lewinsky, he was impeached for lying under oath. He suggested that if Clinton had just admitted the affair and apologized, Americans would have accepted that at the time and been willing to move on.

Farrow countered that saying, “I’m heartened by the fact that people now routinely express outrage about Bill Clinton and particularly those more serious allegations about him.”

Juanita Broaddrick tweeted out a partial clip of Farrow’s comments. “All Democrats in Congress refused to read my interview with Ken Starr during the impeachment process….. and of course, NBC’s Andy Lack held my Dateline interview until impeachment was over,” she wrote.

All Democrats in Congress refused to read my interview with Ken Starr during the impeachment process….. and of course, NBC’s Andy Lack held my Dateline interview until impeachment was over. https://t.co/zcp7J3zPx8

— Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) November 3, 2019

Farrow deserves credit for not dodging this. Sexual assault by powerful men has become his issue thanks to his pieces about Harvey Weinstein. In this case, he didn’t have to be dragged kicking and screaming to acknowledge that Bill Clinton deserves a similar second look. He brought it up himself and said it was long overdue.

Bill Clinton laid the groundwork for the idea that if you’re popular and progressive, you get a pass on allegations of assault. Other men did their best to follow in his footsteps. If more people on the left had called out Clinton instead of defending him, maybe it wouldn’t have taken another 20 years to stop predators like Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein (who were both friends of Bill). But don’t expect a lot of deep introspection on this point from the left. If Hillary had won the election, they’d still be defending and celebrating Bill.

Here’s the full show already cued up to a few seconds before Farrow’s comment:

https://youtu.be/mJoa8e0WWzU?t=1038