Steamy desires and the people of the United States

I vaguely remember hearing about the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal as a child, but I didn't really think anything about politics at the time except for what the adults around me fed me. Looking back at it now, their views weren't far off from mine, as well as Gephardt: "It's almost as if (the American people) are saying collectively: 'Enough already! Enough! Bring it to an end' " (p.149)

Clinton may have made some bad decisions and I'm sure he knew full well the consequences of them. I've heard the justification before that Clinton was merely the only president that was stupid enough to get caught in a sex scandal, and that every other president has had at one point or another extra-marital affairs. However, that doesn't completely get him off of the hook in my opinion. He did lie under oath, and that in itself undermines the court system. He used his power as president to gain advantages, to issue rewards to those that succumbed to his will, and to justify his actions. All of these are pretty harsh, but Clinton sort of had it coming in the ways that he dealt with the case(s).

My main beef with this case is that it turned into a sex scandal. (haha, I know that sounds weird, but hear me out) The charges brought forth and finally accepted were not about sexual relations, they were about lying to the American public and undermining the court system, not about Clinton's character. All things considered, if Clinton had admitted to having extra-marital affairs with Monica, then he wouldn't have been in -so- much trouble. The only charge legitimately left would have been using his power to avoid punishment. However, things did not go out this way, and Clinton was left in a big mess of media politics. Do I care if my president is sleeping around? As long as it doesn't interfere with his duties as the president of the United States of America, I really don't care. In fact, I think I would appreciate a shady president more than a disclosed one (sort of how Clinton's publicity rating boosted after the tapes were released) because at least the shady president would admit their faults to a certain extent instead of being so secretive and private.

That being said, there are many issues of privacy in this case, some of which Gutmann and Thompson address in the comments section. Was it right for the house to first release the Starr documentation and then after seeing all of the scrutiny release the video tapes of the hearings? I mean, you'd think they would learn from their mistakes, but I guess without a majority it is hard to change things in your favour. What really bugs me is that the public did not need to know all of the explicit details of the case. These details, even though the explicitness of the documentation was unknown at that point due to negligent behavior of the house, seemed to express the intent of evoking emotion and anger toward the president. I feel that Clinton's attorney David Kendall put it nicely, "The amount of lurid, graphic detail here far exceeds any legal justification"; "This is personal and not impeachable"(p.146) Is this what we really need in our legislative process?

To what extent should Clinton's case been kept private? Should the whole case been kept behind closed doors, or because there were charges of perjury and the threat of impeachment, does the American public have the right to know what is going on? Do you think this case is more serious than that of Justice Thomas' case? Seeing as both deal directly with issues untouchable by the American people, out of our hands, do we deserve the right to be in the "in" of things? Such explicit details, let into the media sight unseen, seems very unprofessional and almost unethical. What does this say about the way our legislative system works? Are we supposed to assume that once you are in a high ranking public position that there are no limits?

"In the brave new world created by the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, the private lives of public figures are no longer off-limits." -Salon internet magazine (on p. 147)