President Bill Clintons Impeachment :: William Jefferson Clinton Essays

Clinton's Impeachment In 1998 the American public was riveted by headlines detailing the private sexual encounters of our president and a White House employee. For the first time in US history, a sitting president had every aspect of his personal life presented to the public for debate. As the smoke cleared, discussions began to question what trend had allowed the media to print such sordid details about our top elected official. Suddenly, our Commander in Chiefs private life warranted front-page news. What gave us the right to invade his privacy? The theories presented to answer this question blame everything from technology to a lack of morality. Many feel the information age has allowed the public such a high degree of exposure to headline news-bites that the competition for an original, attention grabbing story has forced the media to dig deeper to hold public interest. Others say the success of tabloid media in the late eighties and early nineties is to blame. They proved that scandal sells. Political analysts believe Clinton can only blame himself. During his first campaign he answered personal questions openly and with amusement. Even an extrinsic question about his choice of underwear was acceptable. GOP leadership would have us believe it is a conspiracy lead by the Republican Party in an attempt to gain control of the White House. Religious leaders think American morality has sunk so low that all this news of scandal has just become perverse entertainment. Journalists in an attempt to justify the story wil l argue it is our right to know. It would be reasonable to assume that each of these factors contributed to the end result. It may be necessary to look into the history books to find the root cause for this. We know from biographies written about former presidents that there were very few who can claim they had nothing to hide. In contrast with the current trend there was actually very little scandalous press written during their respective terms. Harry Truman was the harbinger of change. He almost lost his bid for re-election when some of the countries most respected newspapers printed allegations, based mostly on rumor, that he was involved in the corrupt politics of Thomas Pendergast. This was a departure from the term of James Garfield in 1881.