BY Richard Blakeley
May 6, 2008
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It’s 1997 and the news is just breaking that there’s a huge sexual scandal coming out of the White House — but it has nothing to do with Bill Clinton and everything to do with Hillary Clinton. Reports state that Hillary had inappropriate relations with one of her male interns who was only twenty-two years old. The country is rocked by the news. But what happens next?

Of course, this didn’t happen (not to my knowledge, at least), but it does bring up an interesting point: what if it were Hillary who had an affair and not Bill? There seems to be an unwritten double standard for cheating that states that it’s alright for a married man to cheat, but not a married woman.

If it had been Hillary who had cheated, Bill would have been left looking like a fool. What would he, arguably one of the most powerful men in the world, have looked like had he stood by his cheating wife? How much respect would he have lost — both from the American public and other world leaders? Would he still be here, in 2008, helping his wife with her own Presidential ambitions?

For some reason it’s perfectly acceptable, and commonplace for women to “stand by their man” in these types of situations.

And it’s not just the cheating. There’s also the fact that he lied to his wife about the affair. Would he be so quick to accept her apology after she lied to him? And if he did, what kind of message would that send?

We may never know the answers to these troubling questions of double standard. Unless by some chance Hillary does become our next President. Then maybe we will.