Lewinsky Scandal Tapped For Future Season Of FX's American Crime Story
The Monica Lewinsky scandal broke in 1998. I was only 9 at the time, so a lot of it went over my head. It has morphed into a punchline in history, but I’m sure many people my age or younger don’t know the exact details. Thanks to FX and the (so far) brilliant American Crime Story, it looks like we’ll all be getting a dramatized look at what (and who) went down in the Oval Office during Clinton’s presidency. In the meantime, here’s my synopsis:
In 1998, a story broke that the 49-year-old President, Bill Clinton, had held a torrid affair with 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
Not my cup of tea but I don’t have the nuclear codes. According to testimony, Monica often performed oral sex on Bill but they never had actual sex. Thus, when I’m playing golf with my dad, whenever he hits a put that lips out, he yells “Monica! All lip and no hole!”
Anyway, the highlight of the story was that Monica reportedly used to masturbate for Bill in the oval office using a cigar, while Bill watched and jerked off. This is the PRESIDENT we’re talking about. This guy:
You’d have thought a story this depraved would cost Clinton his job, right? Wrong. Bill created a grey area about what happened, saying he didn’t bang her (true), was impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate, and still ended his presidency with an approval rating of 65%– the highest rating of any president since before Truman (beating even Reagan and Eisenhower). A Gallup poll conducted in 2007 had people ranking him as the 4th greatest president of all time. Of course, that same poll showed that when people were asked to name the worst president of all time, he ranked 3rd behind Nixon and George W. Bush…
When I look back, my mind is blown. But you know what’s crazy? JFK used to do this kind of shit with like 3 women A DAY and nobody cared! As the story goes, the secret service would let women in through a tunnel, Kennedy would take a quick break from the Cold War, pipe, and get back to work.
You can’t teach that level of thirst. There’s a saying: well-behaved women rarely make history. To that I say… badly-behaved men make the best history.