In HRC’s case it’s not that people don’t care it’s that there’s sympathy because of the circumstances. If there was a tape of Bill boasting about his ability to get away with sexually assaulting women and doing it again in the future, things might have gone differently for him. But as Ken says, there’s a character difference between them – Bill at least recognizes that what he did was wrong and never tried to excuse his behaviour by comparing it to someone else.

Even if there is hypocrisy, that doesn’t excuse Trump’s behaviour. And I don’t see how being a Democrat at the time is relevant. Are you trying to say that becoming a Republican changes what sort of person he is? You’re too smart not to know that’s ridiculous. Besides, do I really need to produce a list of all the Republicans who have been caught up in sex scandals.

Personally, I think there are just as many Democrats as Republicans who have a bad history when it comes to this sort of thing. What I have noticed though is that the Republicans have inevitably run on a family values platform. That’s where I see the most hypocrisy.

The Clintons are not smart so much as they are ruthless and unscrupulous. And of course the biggest difference is they can count on the supine compliance of the lamestream media.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is accountable for her own corrupt and sleazy acts, including her treatment of sexual assault survivors. If you’re saying that no one cares in her case, then there’s your double standard.

Modern technology has something to do with Donald getting caught, but Bill is not only smarter than Donald, the huge difference is again that he’s not nearly as narcissistic. Bill knows what he does is wrong and tries to keep the details of his philandering quiet, quite possibly in the past committing crimes in the process, while Donald sees it as a badge of honour and can’t really understand why there’s a problem. If he was a Democrat he’d have never got near the nomination, just as Bill wouldn’t have if more of the truth had come out. The Donald is the sum total of all his own problems. Anyone who votes for him has to own that instead of rationalising their own poor choices by blaming his behaviour on others.

If W.J. Clinton won the “women’s vote” despite a pattern of similar conduct, but now Trump won’t, that’s a double standard.

It’s worth recalling that Trump was a Democrat when he made these remarks. Interesting to ponder where we would be at this juncture if Trump had elected to run in the Democrat primaries this year.

The thing is jam, the Democrats have actually been pretty disciplined about not jumping on this – they have, very wisely, just been letting it play out on its own. They haven’t said anything beyond Clinton’s tweet that Trump can’t be allowed to be president. So far, they can’t actually be accused of hypocrisy in this situation. That may change of course.

There’s no justification for the sexual behaviour of many individuals politicians, both Democrat and Republican, including Bill Clinton and Ted and President Kennedy. But they’re not running – Hillary Clinton is. I’ve written what how I see her role in her husband’s bad behaviour, and I guarantee you Trump will be making a mistake if he tries to justify his behaviour in any way by referring to what happened then. Bad behaviour by someone else doesn’t mean he gets a pass. Remember, since the Lewinski incident, he’s be re-elected and Hillary has been elected twice as New York senator. This has played out publicly several times and it hasn’t damaged her enough and that was without her opponent being an admitted sexual predator. In addition, you know she will be prepared for anything he says. Basically, all she needs to say is, “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

Narcissists don’t need enabling by anyone else’s terrible behaviour. They’re more than capable of being reprehensible on their own.

If Trump doesn’t get what’s so bad about what he said (and what he said is sickening), then maybe it has something to do with the fact that, for instance, Bill Clinton was stoutly defended by many left-wing so-called feminists (including his wife, Trump’s opponent) after it became well-known that Clinton had assaulted and harassed numerous women, and then perjured himself to evade accountability for it. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Ted Kennedy remained a pillar of the Democrat party, and a perennial contender for its presidential nomination, long after he had stood idly by and watched a young woman drown in order to cover up his own misconduct.

Trump’s words are despicable, but so are the hypocrisy and double standards.

Trump is a textbook narcissist. We can’t expect him to “get it”, beyond a narrow and immediate calculation of how it might hurt him politically. And even then he doesn’t really get it, as he’ll say or do something similar ten more times before the election, even as he watches himself go down in flames. His only chance now is an even bigger October surprise for Clinton that keeps her voters home, and while that can never be off the cards, the likelihood that something big enough will occur is receding. Trump is just pushing the bar too high.

Agreed! He’s not getting the women’s vote now, and most decent men are abandoning him too. The amazing thing is I don’t think he gets what’s so bad about what he said. The delay in getting his main statement out was, I bet, because they had to come up with words he was prepared to say compared to what Kellyanne Conway thought he should say. I also bet including Bill Clinton in the statement was non-negotiable on Trump’s part.

Agreed!