Addressing the Lewinsky Scandal The Lewinsky Scandal rocked the lives of Bill and Hillary Clinton while in office. Monica Lewinsky was just an unpaid intern that started a sexual relationship with Mr. Clinton who at the time was the President of the United States. This event was the most important thing to happen in 1998. It showed how even as president you can fall to temptation like any other human being. Challenging the trust of the American people for the president raising questions like “Can we trust this man?”, “Should we let this relationship slide and pretend it never happened?” To this day people are still talking about this scandal making it one of the most famous scandal to date. This whole thing started in the summer of June 1995 …show more content…
Mr. Clinton left office with low public ratings and a title of conflict. In 1998 this was the number one topic you would speak about and to this day thinking back on the 90s this scandal surely comes to mind. Since the start of Hillary’s run for presidency we have been reminded of the mistakes of Bill Clinton that happened over a decade ago forgetting to separate his life from presidency and privacy. There were many consequences that followed Bill around at the time of the scandal many of those publicized. “President Clinton made a brief appearance in the White House Rose Garden and stated: ' 'Now that the Senate has fulfilled its constitutional responsibility, bringing this process to a conclusion, I want to say again to the American people how profoundly sorry I am for what I said and did to trigger these events and the great burden they have imposed on the Congress and on the American people."(The History Place) Mr. Clinton is known to be the most controversial president to date. “Widely considered the most investigated President ever, the Clinton administration was dogged by controversy from the very beginning.” (The History …show more content…
That one scandal is the Monica Lewinsky Scandal. The ratings of Bill Clinton plummeted drastically once this gut wrenching news hit the media. The highest rating was 73% while the lowest was 37%. His approval ratings and disapproval ratings were clearly affected in 1998 by this scandal. Approval rating of rating of 65% and a disapprove rating of 31%. (Holloway) People were already on edge when starting his presidency by holding too few meetings and being out right rude to reports speaking with aggression. “Bill Clinton started off negatively with his presidency by holding too few press conferences, allowing himself to be criticized for such things as $200 haircuts that held up airline traffic (a story later admitted by reporters to be false), and displaying anger toward critical reporters.”
The “Whitewater” scandal was a real estate scheme by the White Water Development Corp. Both President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary Clinton were involved in the scandal to make a land deal. Many people were involved in the scheme, which was held in the 1980s in Arkansas. Bill Clinton and his wife maintained their funds by the support of the Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, which represented the Clintons in the overthrow of their Whitewater shares. The Clintons were being investigated when there were improper campaign contributions, political and financial favors, and tax benefits.
The Damon Investment Company manages a mutual fund composed mostly of speculative stocks. You recently saw an ad claiming that investments in the funds have been earning a rate of return of 21%. This rate seemed quite high so you called a friend who works for one of Damon’s competitors. The friend told you that the 21% return figure was determined by dividing the two-year appreciation on investments in the fund by the average investment. In other words, $100 invested in the fund two years ago would have grown to $121 ($21 ÷ $100 = 21%).
Before Clinton was elected President he had an encounter with Paula Jones in a hotel room. After Clinton took office Paula Jones then sued Clinton for sexual harassment. A short time later Monica Lewinsky began her intern at the White House. Clinton and Lewinsky began a sexual relationship. Judge Kenneth Starr was the investigator of Whitewater. President Clinton denied any sexual relations with Lewinsky. On October 8, 1998, the House would vote to have an impeachment and won. Clinton was charged with perjury and obstruction to justice. Bill Clinton would end up not getting kicked out of office by senate.
None of this would have been much of a problem had Monica Lewinsky had not told Tripp that Bill Clinton and Vernon Jordan instructed her to lie about the affair with Clinton. Supposedly Linda Tripp has Monica alleging this on tape. These tapes if finally released to the public should prove to be quite titillating, Monica Lewinsky claims that Clinton was very fond of oral sex and that she it to him on a number of occasions. It has been alleged by various news organizations that a secret service agent actually caught Lewinsky and Clinton in the act. It has also been alleged that Monica Lewinsky has a blue semen stained dress which, if true, would be direct DNA evidence of the affair. But it still would not prove obstruction of justice. If that was ever proven it could be an impeachable offence, a sexual scandal probably would not lead to the impeachment of Bill Clinton. If not then it will simply be a source of Bill Clinton jokes.
In the current post-impeachment proceedings the question becomes whom it has affected most and what it will mean to them and their agenda. Obvious groups that will suffer most from the impeachment that are subject to the after effects are the Republican Party and American politics in general. As far as individuals are concerned, Monica Lewinsky has a good deal of post-scandal baggage. But what about those who will experience the effects of Monica and what she represents as a woman in American society? The movement which has suffered the most in the standpoint of social and political agenda are the Feminists.
On August 17, 1998, exactly one year after making the statement above, President Bill Clinton prepared to deliver a speech concerning a scandal that had gripped the nation for months. It is needless to say that this was an important moment during the Clinton administration. After accusations of sexual harassment, Clinton addressed the nation and admitted to having a relationship with Monica Lewinsky. In this critical speech Clinton set out to admit to wrong-doings, provide a few reasons for his action, and ultimately persuade the audience into moving on and forgetting the scandal. This essay will break down his speech into sections and examine the most and least effective strategies that Clinton employed and how well he executed those strategies. This is an interesting speech given under rare circumstances. Not since Watergate had an American president been under such harsh moral criticism from the public. By looking critically at this speech we are able to gain valuable insight into Clinton's motives.
Not only was Clinton’s act immoral as he was married at the time, he also lied under oath, which questioned his character and had an affair in the White House itself, which may seem to the public that Clinton was not being a responsible president. Clinton’s impeachment in the case was justified as he lied to the public while being under oath at the same time. Although, one could argue that the scandal occupied the headlines for long than necessary which hindered necessary policies from being debated or discussed and driving away quality talk (unit 7, From the
In August 17, 1998 Clinton, after seven months of silence, Clinton finally admitted that he had an inappropriate relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. In a four-minute apologia speech, Clinton formally apologized for his personal misconduct, and at the same time, asked for support from the people to stop the lawsuit and accusations that came from the scandal. Clinton carefully and skillfully made use of logos and pathos throughout the speech to convince the audience that there were bigger issues at hand than his personal dealings with Monica Lewinsky. Therefore, he believed that this matter should no longer be the focus point of the nation, and it was about time to move on.
an article named "Another Lesson about Pubkic Opinion" by Stephen Earl Bennett, when looking at public approval ratings of president clinton regarding the scandal was a shock. the author explains that although the ratings have dropped in the beginning of the scandal, it remained high through out the scandal. he stated that the reason for that is the public saw president clinton was effective regardless of his loose morality. in this case, the public seemed to accept the idea that not all public officials will be completely flawless when it comes to morality. also the public had chosen to to look at the situation as having a glass half full of water instead of it being half empty. after all, if president clinton is getting his duties done in his term in office, the public may possible be able to forgive him for his mistakes regarding the Lewknski
Of all the ways a president can be remembered as a failure, however, one of the most common is to have a scandal. While a single scandal may not ruin a president, if the US public reacts in a negative way, regardless of the accomplishments of the president,
www.freerepublic.com "CLINTON SCANDALS," The Progressive Review Pub. Aug. 12, 2000 Posted on 08/12/2000 01:52:19 PDT by Jim Robinson.
Owen, D. (2000). Popular politics and the clinton/lewinsky affair: The implications for leadership. Political Psychology, 21(01), 161-177. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3792069
He had committed this perjury in his Paula Jones testimony and he persuaded Monica Lewinsky to lie under oath about their sexual affairs. Lewinsky admitted the affair after a promise of immunity to a grand jury. The Judiciary COmmittee forwarded four articles of impeachment to the House of Representatives. However, Clinton wasn’t convicted because the public felt that the president’s actions didn’t meet the Constitution’s “high crimes and misdemeanors” standard removal from office. Voters appeared willing to tolerate his personal flaws and they saw him as a target of Republican
As Bill Clinton name was being mention “Clinton goes on national TV to admit he had an inappropriate relationship with Monica Lewinsky” (CNN). This quote showed that Clinton realizes that he had to say the truth of what happened between them since he would always be denying that they had no relationship. This was the first step that Clinton had to do, to be sincere of what happened between them and later apologize for his bad conduct he had with Lewinsky, since he was having a relationship with Hillary Clinton. He mentions that “It is important to me that everybody who was been hurt know the sorrow I feel is genuine… Monica Lewinsky” (The History Place). This quote shows that he is feeling bad for what he had done to Monica and ask her if he could be forgiven due to the bad actions he had done to her that cause pain to her in the heart and that he was unfaithful to his wife Hillary Clinton that cause her pain as well as he did it to
Lately, the top story in the news day after day, months after months have been about William Jefferson Clinton, also known as Bill. Who could blame them, there is nothing better than a story out of the ordinary, especially one with presidential status. For the past months he has been the most talked about figure, being the essential topic for news, talk shows, late night comedy and even going as far as the big screen. Talk about 'Primary Colors' and 'Wag the Dog.' What has gotten to me the most however, were the constant flow of Republicans, along with a few Democrats, who just want to say how shocked and embarrassed they are along with the people of the United States.The president had not just become the most talked about figure, but also one history had ever seen, so far that is, breaking the record and becoming a topic of conversation and debate 'twenty-four seven.' The people, who I think were most affected by this crisis and feel very sad for, are the Republicans, since they had lost severe amount of sleep over the president's bedroom crisis. They had to perform their republican duties by shocking our brains with the president's affair with Monica Lewinsky. We had to ignore the rest of the world news and its issues while they plough through the valley of lies, abuse of power and something they called high crimes and misdemeanors.