Today marks the tenth anniversary of the day Hillary Clinton made her famous statement regarding the Republican fascination regarding the sex life of her husband.
It came a day after Bill Clinton assured the public that he “did not have sexual relations with that woman.” —’that woman’ referring to Monica Lewinsky, not his wife.
When President (Bill) Clinton’s remarks were found to be untrue, he questioned the definition of sexual relations, and later of the word ‘is.’
“It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is…if ‘is’ means is and never has been, that is not—that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement…Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true.”
The admission and subsequent fallout provided opponents and the media with fodder to belittle Hillary Clinton for her remark regarding the right-wing conspiracy.
Bill Clinton was impeached and found not guilty by the Senate, which voted almost entirely along party lines; a handful of Republicans voted ‘Not guilty.’
Despite rising job approval ratings, the public’s impression of Bill Clinton in terms of character and honesty suffered substantially.
According to Deborah Arotsky ”Post-election polls found that, in the wake of Clinton-era scandals, the single most significant reason people voted for Bush was for his moral character.”
During the election Vice-President and presidential nominee Al Gore distanced his campaign from the sitting President. The breaking of the Lewinsky scandal ten years ago marred the President’s ability to pass legislation through Congress for the remainder of his term, laid the groundwork that enabled the former President Bush’s son George W. to win the election on account of his moral fortitude, and marked the downfall of Western civilization as we know it.
