The Nineties: A Book

by Chuck Klosterman

If, like so many people, Clinton is remembered for only one thing, it will be for his affair with Monica Lewinsky, a twenty-two-year-old White House intern. If, like so many other people, Clinton is remembered for a collection of choices that aggregate into one overall portrait, it will be for his relationship with Lewinsky and the numerous other women who accused him of pursuing unwanted (or consensual-but-extramarital) sexual encounters, a number stretching into the double digits. Either prospect makes him an irreconcilable villain among young people (and particularly young women) who have little or no memory of Clinton’s time in office. It’s an impossible thing to explain, way beyond the cinematic stardom of Pauly Shore: How could a married forty-nine-year-old “liberal” president (a) chronically seduce an unpaid subordinate less than half his age, (b) receive nonreciprocal oral sex inside the Oval Office, (c) get caught, (d) lie about it, (e) never directly apologize to the involved woman, and (f) still experience his highest presidential approval rating immediately after being impeached for lying under oath about the nature of that sexual relationship? Every component of the scandal is so averse to the post-#MeToo worldview that any neutral attempt at contextualizing or rationalizing the action is viewed as a crime unto itself. This, without question, is the reason Clinton will never be embraced by those who barely remember his presence.