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Probably a very trivial answer from an American point of view, but from a European perspective this is rather strange. In Europe the private life of a president is in many cases, well, private. As long as he/she rules the country decently, there is no problem.

As far as it is described, the relationship was not "forced": the president did not abused his "power"... Thus this is a personal affair.

The part that causes the most problems from a European perspective is that Clinton lied about his encounters with Lewinsky. In Europe, this would probably created a climate of anti-trust.

willeM_ Van Onsem
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    I feel that this may be better suited on Politics.SE, and/or alternatively too opinion-based for History.SE –  Oct 05 '14 at 19:20
  • @Semaphore: Well the question is not who is right. But merely what the arguments were of the opposition and why the American citizens found this relevant. But no problem with moving the question to politics... –  Oct 05 '14 at 19:22
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    @Semaphore This is now history. We should try to objectively assess why this scandal blew up its scale and perhaps why ones involving other people did or did not. My first guess for the difference would be the time period that it occurred. One could compare JFK, Strom Thurmond, Gary Hart, Eliot Spitzer, and Mark Sanford and hypothesize that sex scandals had an effect form the 1980's to today that they did not have in earlier generations. –  Oct 05 '14 at 21:39
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    this is more about politics and American culture than history. The US obsession with morality and sex (at the same time, while they generally consider sex immoral, go figure) has a lot to do with it. – jwenting Oct 06 '14 at 07:42
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    I am not in the depth of US politics, but I suspect it was more about bad communication since J. F. Kennedy had several stories with various women, but he communicated it way better, there were no such huge pile of lies as Clinton had. – CsBalazsHungary Oct 06 '14 at 07:59
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    Also I would defend the opinion that it belongs to History SE since it derives back to presidental history, and it has to be said what was different before. The analysis would require way more historical data than recent politics data. If it gets closed I will vote for reopen – CsBalazsHungary Oct 06 '14 at 08:06
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    Why was this post downvoted? I agree there is discussion where to put this post, but in my opinion, this post is perfectly clear and asks a valid question. –  Oct 06 '14 at 08:41
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    @CsBalazsHungary AFAIK it isn't as though JFK admitted to the affairs. The difference I think was that JFK's were a very different time from Clinton's - Presidential prestige was higher and with it deference by the press etc, and there wasn't as much of this association between "morality" and good presidency. –  Oct 06 '14 at 09:19
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    BTW, comparing JFK and Clinton would be a good presidential history question IMHO. I did not downvote this one, but it seems more about the difference in European and American political attitudes than the history thereof. –  Oct 06 '14 at 09:31
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    Elsewhere in US law subordinates are not allowed to have sexual relationships with their supervisors; there is an implicit quid-pro-quo which is damaging to the workplace. Even worse when the subordinate is not paid, and is entirely dependent on the goodwill of the manager for career advancement & references. –  Oct 06 '14 at 12:23
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    The current question is about politics & culture; I cannot support a re-open until I see it related to history. I also don't see any way to answer the question that isn't fundamentally an opinion based answer. –  Oct 06 '14 at 18:11
  • @MarkC.Wallace: Fine, can you move it to the politics.se? –  Oct 06 '14 at 18:22
  • I cannot, but I support the notion, and ask that one of the senior moderators do so. (I think to migrate it, I'd have to re-open the question then migrate; I think a mod can do it with less rigmarole.) –  Oct 06 '14 at 18:24
  • I disagree with the second paragraph of your question. Anyone who works for the Executive Branch of the US Government works for the President. He cannot "not abuse his power" if he bonks an aide, period. That he had an affair was bad enough. However, he had an affair with a person who worked for him, and a very young person (although of legal age) at that. She could not, in the eyes of US Federal Law, consent to have sex with her boss, without him using undue influence, even of the point of "ever done it in the oval?" –  Oct 06 '14 at 18:42
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    @CGCampbell not sure if that's the legal situation in the US, but sounds plausible. It's certainly "not done" in many countries to have sexual relations with subordinates in businesses and military organisations. – jwenting Oct 07 '14 at 07:02
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    @CGCampbell: perhaps this is the missing link. In Europe these relationships are tolerated, except if there are indications, the relationship is "forced"... –  Oct 07 '14 at 08:49
  • @CommuSoft If you add up previous examples with J. F. Kennedy and few others who were mentioned here to your question, I think it surely will fulfill the "history related question" category. – CsBalazsHungary Oct 08 '14 at 12:58
  • I am not sure if Europe would not mind about an incumbent President having a extramarital affair in the Government office, I recall the case of the Italian PM and some other cases of Royal affairs playing big part in the European media. – S182 Nov 08 '14 at 22:19
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    @S182 in the case of Berlusconi it was a teenage prostitute! And yes, the tabloids are (often) reporting on affairs - but calls to resign (or even impeachment) play no role at all. – user45891 Nov 08 '14 at 23:22
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    @S182: as user45891 already pointed out, it was with an under-age prostitute. Something that is prohibited for anyone in almost all civilized countries. As long as presidents in European countries had affair with adults, I can't remember any case in the last 20 years where this caused more than a lot of publicity. Nobody was "forced" to resign. – willeM_ Van Onsem Nov 09 '14 at 22:15
  • @CommuSoft: I think the same logic works with the Lewinsky affair, Clinton wasn't impeached on moral grounds he was impeached on the changes of perjury and one of obstruction of justice. – S182 Nov 13 '14 at 11:37

2 Answers2

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Probably a very trivial answer from an American point of view, but from a European perspective this is rather strange. In Europe the private life of a president is in many cases, well, private. As long as he/she rules the country decently, there is no problem.

  1. "decently" is in the eye of the beerholder. That's problem #1 with your statement. From the point of view of a large number of people (those who voted against him - roughly 1/2 the country), he did NOT rule the country "decently".

    In politics, ANY reason to attack an opponent is a good reason. This one was just as good as anything else.

  2. In addition, a political sex scandal is a very popular entertainment. People eat it up. It's sex, scandal, and politics all meshed together. Not to mention all the comedy material that arose out of this specific one. As exhibit, I present to you Anthony "flashing" Wiener.

  3. As another answer noted, there used to be somewhat of an expectation that a President isn't a bald-faced liar. Especially after the last "I'm not a crook!" was forced from office over it. In this case, we had: adultery (including lying to your wife), coverup, lying to investigators in deposition, lying to a grand jury, AND lying to pretty much the entire country in a televised speech.

As far as it is described, the relationship was not "forced": the president did not abused his "power"... Thus this is a personal affair.

This is where you are 100% wrong (unless you're a closet libertarian :)

Americans have it drilled in their heads from the moment of entering job market, for the last 20 years, about sexual harassment and the evils of imposing your (typically male) sexual attention on a person who is in a power-imbalance relationship with you - including, and especially at, workplace.

There can't POSSIBLY EVER be a greater power imbalance than between President of the frigging United States of America ("the most powerful man in the world") and an intern in the federal government. That's a far as a power imbalance can possibly stretch.

Frankly, ANY OTHER male in that position, had he not been a Democratic politician, would have been crucified by feminists.

Any CEO or manager in a private company would immediately loose his job (among higher profile ones: Boeing CEO fell that way. Or look at the witch-hunt feminists started against Herman Cain the moment he became a political threat).

The fact that the relationship was consensual is 100% irrelevant to the power imbalance and thus sexual harassment

  • source #1: many many years of mandatory annual sexual harassment training).

  • Source #2: City/County of San Francisco government, publication "Sexual Harassment: Frequently Asked Questions by Ann Lehman & Hillary Flynn, Sexual Harassment Task Force May 1996 (Revised September 1998, August 2008)"

The reason for that is that the assumption of "there's no way to tell if the consent was caused by the power imbalance"

The part that causes the most problems from a European perspective is that Clinton lied about his encounters with Lewinsky. In Europe, this would probably created a climate of anti-trust.

The problem wasn't JUST that he lied (that was a problem but not a legal one). Although as you noted, that was definitely a problem in that it imposed a great(er) level of distrust in politicians from people.

The problem was that he lied under oath in a criminal deposition - and perjury is a criminal offense. Again, the only reason he's NOT in jail (like, say, Walter Libby on identical charge) is because he was a popular left wing politician in a period of good economy.

user4012
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    @CommuSoft - "in the U.S. where people don't like any government" - that is a wrong assumption. Sexual harrassment laws are a product of radical feminism and progressives, who like big government just as much as any (and more than many) European. US is extremely polarized, so any generalization about "US People" is bount to be false. – user4012 Nov 10 '14 at 02:41
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If we are to follow Max Weber, this is an indirect consequence of Protestantism, especially Calvinism. For John Calvin, Grace is given by God and God only. Grace is roughly defined as "being ultimately saved", i.e. going to Heaven at your demise. In 16th century catholic Europe, people believed that you could win your ticket to Heaven through your good works. On theological grounds, Calvin rejected that idea, because it looked like humans being able to constrain God, to force a divine decision. Instead, Calvin proclaimed that whether you would be saved or not was already pre-ordained, and you could do nothing about it (at least in the to-Heaven direction; if you are supposed to be saved, you can still "fall" through evil actions and thought, and be redirected to Hell).

Since this is a rather depressing view, God (in Calvin's view) dispenses earthly gifts to those who will be saved, so that their hope may be strengthened. If you are a businessman and God elected you for a nice afterlife, God will make sure that you will prosper. Conversely, if you are evil and wicked, thus destined to Hell, then God will strike down your endeavours. According to Weber, this was the main engine for the rise of capitalism in northern Europe and then North America, with, as central figures, ascetic businessmen who accumulated wealth and reinvested it, but did not seem to really enjoy it or spend it.

A consequence is that the tenant of a public office must then be pious and irreproachable in all aspects of his life: by being adulterous, Clinton was incurring God's wrath, thus putting the USA in jeopardy. Very few Americans still think of that in terms of Grace and Heaven, but the trait remains very active. The political career of an American politician is all but finished when an extra-marital affair is revealed (this happened to Arnold Schwarzenegger not long ago, for instance). It is unthinkable to run for presidency if you are not happily married.

By contrast, in an historical catholic country like France, private life is private, and there is no problem in electing an unmarried President (as is the case for the current incumbent), or for the President to scandalously divorce then marry a singer during his mandate (as the previous one did).

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    I think the first paragraph is true and the last paragraph is true. The middle two paragraphs advance a hypothesis to resolve the conundrum; why are French (religious) voters tolerant while American (secular) voters prudes? –  Oct 06 '14 at 12:21
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    The problem I have with the thesis of this answer is that POTUS infidelity wasn't exactly new to Clinton. At least one prior POTUS even admitted to having children with a mistress. So clearly something more was at work. – T.E.D. Oct 06 '14 at 13:07
  • I am not sure about that, Italy is a traditional catholic country and few years ago there was a big fuzz about their PM being involved in parties. – S182 Nov 08 '14 at 22:14
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    @S182 It could simply mean that Berlusconi finally lost his iron grip on the media; rather than a shift in attitudes. – LateralFractal Nov 10 '14 at 04:22