It’s likely my standards are low, but I’ve been relatively pleased that the presidential race has featured very little talk about the Lewinsky scandal. Going into the race, I was a little worried the media would be preoccupied with this nonsense, and Republican candidates, anxious to score cheap points, would make hay of the decade-old controversy.<\/p>\n
By and large, that hasn’t happened. But leave it to Mitt Romney to take the low road<\/a>.<\/p>\n “We’ll try and represent ourselves and our nation well also to our kids because I think, I think kids watch the White House and there have been failures in the past in the White House — if you go back to the Clinton years and recognize that — that I think had an enormous impact on the culture of our country,” Romney said. “And we’ll do our very best, our whole family will to — well, if we can’t be perfect, we’ll do our best to uphold and to be a good example for the kinds of values I think people expect from our leaders.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Wow, that sure is dumb.<\/p>\n The Lewinsky scandal had an “enormous impact” undermining American culture? Seriously<\/i>? <\/p>\n This is actually the second time Romney has given up on decency and emphasized this, the first coming in October when the former governor said<\/a>, “One of the ways that you help instill, if you will, family values is by having a White House be a place that demonstrates family values. And, you know, I think during the last Clinton presidency, the White House did not demonstrate that in a way that was helpful to our nation’s character.”<\/p>\n This strikes me as misguided, for a few reasons. Second, I have no idea why anyone would go after Hillary Clinton because of Bill Clinton’s mistake. Maybe a few far-right activists will find Romney’s rhetoric appealing, but I doubt this will give him much of a boost.<\/p>\n
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\nFirst, I haven’t seen any polling data on this, but I really doubt voters still care about the Lewinsky scandal a decade later. Indeed, there was scant evidence voters cared about the scandal at the time<\/i>. If anyone looks bad 10 years after the fact, it’s the Republican attack machine that launched an absurd impeachment crusade.<\/p>\n