Liberals retroactively turn on Bill Clinton amid wide reckoning on the sexual misconduct of powerful men

Reuters/Larry Downing

US Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, (D-NY) speaks about pending legislation regarding sexual assaults in the military at a Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 4, 2013.

• Prominent Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand spoke out against Bill Clinton.
• Gillibrand, who holds Hillary Clinton's old senate, said he should have resigned over his affair with a young intern.
• Other prominent liberals are critcising Clinton too after the #metoo movement.
• But Gillibrand has frequently praised and fund raised with Bill Clinton.
• Some are now calling her a hypocrite as a result of her statement.

The latest episode on the worldwide reckoning on the sexual misconduct of powerful men actually happened almost two decades ago - but important liberals have just now turned on the perpetrator, former President Bill Clinton.

On the same day that TV host Leeann Tweeden accused Democratic Sen. Al Franken of kissing and groping her without her consent, Kirsten Gillibrand, Democratic 2020 presidential hopeful and the Senator who holds Hillary Clinton's former seat, said that the former president should have resigned after his own sex scandal.

Asked Clinton should have resigned after his affair with a young intern during his time in the Oval Office, Gillibrand replied "Yes, I think that is the appropriate response," the New York Times reports.

Gillibrand clarified that she meant that Clinton's affair, if it happened in today's political climate, should result in a resignation, but Gillibrand's ties to the Clintons go back.

When Gillibrand endorsed Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential run, she wrote that she was returning the favor after being "truly honored that President Bill Clinton campaigned for me in my first run for Congress in 2006."

Gillibrand's reorientation with the established fact of Clinton's misconduct follows prominent voices in liberal politics, like Vox's Matt Yglesias.

In 2007, Yglesias wrote in an article discussing the prospect of impeaching then-President George W. Bush, that the case for impeaching Clinton almost a decade earlier was "very trumped-up and trivial," and owed at least in part to political motives.

But on Wednesday, Yglesias published a long article on Vox entitled "Bill Clinton should have resigned."

MSNBC host Chris Hayes, New York Times writer Michelle Goldberg, and Atlantic writer Caitlin Flanagan all similarly called on the Democratic party to reckon with Clinton's history of sexual misconduct during amid the #metoo movement.

Lucas Jackson/Reuters

Former President Bill Clinton was accused by Juanita Broaddrick of raping her in 1978.

While liberal pundits have called for an organic reconciliation with the past, some have questioned the timing of the shift in tone.

Reacting to Gillibrand's statement's on Clinton, Philippe Reines, a longtime adviser to Hillary Clinton tweeted: "Over 20 yrs you took the Clintons' endorsements, money, and seat. Hypocrite. Interesting strategy for 2020 primaries. Best of luck."

Besides the issue of the former president's legacy, Hillary Clinton's role at the top of the Democratic party has also come under scrutiny as former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile alleged in a new book that Clinton unethically controlled the party and skewed the primary against her challenger, Bernie Sanders.