Lewinsky’s affair with Clinton was revealed by the Drudge Report, a US news-aggregation website, on 17 January 1998, the day after the FBI had detained Lewinsky in a sting operation known as Prom Night. Even before – long before – any truth in the affair had been established, Lewinsky became a hate figure. Katie Couric, a mainstream news anchor, described her as a “predatory girl who had set her sights on the president”. This interpretation – that the intern was problematically promiscuous and “basically blackmail[ing] the president of the United States”, in the words of the talkshow host Bill Maher – was not uncommon, from Democrats as much as Republicans. Clearly, she was power-mad, her grandiosity and narcissism conveyed by the fact that, for her, only the president would do.
The more allegations came out about Clinton, the more his polling improved – even in the wild west of the newly minted internet, which gave out details that mainstream media outlets prior to this would never have touched; even with Starr’s epic report. Public shaming relies on a public, yet the public seemed to identify with the wrongdoer. This is interesting to consider in the light of the Teflon reputations of Boris Johnson and Donald Trump. I always thought they had a pass on infidelity and misogynistic language because of the nature of their support base; an authoritarian politician can get away with anything, so long as it can be filed under “red-blooded man”. But it might be more accurate to say any man can get away with anything that can be filed under “man”.