The Monica Lewinsky/Bill Clinton scandal was just over twenty years ago. Listening to Slow Burn, the podcast devoted to recounting it, I realise how many of the details I either never knew or have since forgotten.
The same could be said of the previous series of Slow Burn, which was about Watergate. What's most striking about the Clinton one, apart from his breathtaking recklessness, is that the Democrats were every bit as quick to close ranks around him as the Republicans are to get behind Trump today.
In both cases there's a lot of moralising in public while the decisions are made purely on the basis of legislative arithmetic. It's not a matter of what's right. It's a matter of what they get away with. It's a salutary illustration of the truth of Lyndon Johnson's dictum that the thing that matters most in politics is the ability to count.
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