It also provided a vast amount of inflammatory fuel for the “moral majority” fire-and-brimstone crowd to mass around and warm themselves; it provided a common lightning-rod issue for all of them to deplore. Bush provided the corresponding polar opposite to them to ground out on and unify around. It broke ground for his “Christian base.”

Given how close the election was, I wonder how close it would have been without the so-called “immoral taint” to the office. Part of Bush’s appeal was his self-portrayal as a god-fearin’ moralist in the office, the implied message that he would “bring some respectability back to the office.” (That last being a sort-of quote of a lot of articles and public discussion I remember from the 2000 election).

As for “poisioning the pot,” that’s a stolen line from Hunter Thompson’s wonderful book “Better than Sex,” telling the story of the 1992 election:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345396359/qid=1127402441/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-7734627-0307163?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Nixon left us with an overall profound distrust of presidential politicians and a subtler distrust of our political system. One could argue that Carter won much the same way that Bush won - as a backlash/protest vote against the taint of the Nixon scandal.

Clinton’s oval office antics simply served to belittle the man in the moralistic public eye, to show his personal flaws in a harsh public light - and to strip facade of dignity, so to speak, from the somewhat naive American public’s eyes. Americans are victorian and naive; the idea that a politician would get a blowjob in his office is shocking, just shocking! By contrast, I recall Francois Mitterand’s mistress and his illigetimate daughter, standing side-by-side with his wife and daughter, at his state funeral. And the French press made hardly a mention of it, save to note it.

Man, this is one repressed country!

Gore lost cause he wouldn’t run on the successful Clinton platform, choosing to placate a “moral outrage” that wasn’t there. He started mumbling about lockboxes, and programs.

If Clinton ran again, he would be elected in a heartbeat.

When you peel back the facade, people are generally twisted and perverse at some level or some point in their life, and the gritty reality of human existence never quite matches with moralistic rhetoric. Bush’s checkered past is just as replete with indescretions; they just aren’t impeachment offenses.

It’s really too bad that Clinton so badly tainted his own legacy, and the overall public perception of politicans and the office of the Presidency. Like Nixon, in a way he poisoned the pot for everybody.

I have a joke for you:

Monica Lewinsky, being quite lonley after the whole scandal, was walking alone on the beach one morning when she tripped over and fell flat on her face. She looked back, and saw an oil lamp sticking out of the ground. She picked it up, rubbed off the sand, and a genie appeared before her eyes.

“Thank you Mrs. Lewinsky for freeing me from my prison. To show my gratitude, I will grant you one wish!”

“Isn’t it supposed to be three wishes?”

“Yeah, but with the economy being on the rocks… you know? So one wish it is”

Monica thought about this for a few minutes and said:

“You know, I’ve always wanted to get rid of these love-handles”

“As you wish”, replied the Genie. He snapped his fingers and *** POOF ***

Her ears dissapeared.