Trump’s Approval Rating Almost 30 Points Worse Than Bill Clinton’s During the Monica Lewinsky Scandal

-- That's a current headline at Newsweek.com.

The reason Bill's approval rating was 30 points higher is that the real scandal back in 1998 was that the Republicans were trying to remove the President from office over a private matter between consenting adults. How long will it take for journalists and historians to catch up with what over 60 percent of the public understood in 1998, and start referring to it as the Starr affair or the Starr failed coup or the Starr insanity or something like that, instead of the Lewinsky affair?

In the same way, the real scandal today is not Trump's sexual assaults or his encouragement of police brutality or his financial entanglements or his dealings with Putin or his clear mental illness and inability to do his job properly -- the real scandal is that the GOP-led Congress has not impeached him yet.

Think about it. Let it sink in: in 1998, they impeached Clinton, tried to remove him from office, for that. And during that attempt, Newt Gingrich and the Republicans' first choice to replace Newt both had to resign, because they had both been caught doing pretty much exactly the same thing they were using as the world's flimsiest excuse to oust a head of state. And now, they haven't impeached Trump or invoked the 25th Amendment.

I'm Sick Of Hearing People Say We've Got Two Terrible Candidates For President

We've got one candidate who may be the very worst ever nominated by a major US political party; and we've got one fine candidate who will make a great President, provided that enough of the sheer bullshit flung at her by right-wingers over the past quarter century is refuted in the public's perceptions so that she is, in fact, elected.

I have to admit that Hillary has one serious weakness, and that is when it comes to refuting ridiculous charges made against her and her husband. Examples of this weakness: a completely-accurate phrase she coined back in the 90's about a "vast right-wing conspiracy" dedicated to smearing the two of them, almost immediately became a beloved slogan of the right wing, with, for instance, Rush Limbaugh introducing his batshit-crazy-but-popular right-wing radio show as "the great right-wing conspiracy." Another example: Hillary's inability to make the uproars about Ben Ghazi and emails seem as ridiculous and manufactured to everyone as they are.

The right wing has been squandering public resources for a quarter-century trying to get something to stick to the Clintons, and they've come up with squat. I think the Clinton campaign should talk more about this, because there are a lot of voters out there who are appalled by Trump for very good reasons, but who are also appalled by Hillary, for no good reason whatsoever.

It's true that in 1998, after five years as a Special Prosecutor on a case called Whitewater because the case originally had to do with allegations of fiscal wrondoings involving a company named Whitewater, the egregiously partisan Kenneth Starr caught Bill Clinton lying about getting a blowjob. It's true that "I did not have sexual relations with that woman... Miss Lewinsky" was absolutely the wrong thing for Bill to say. Debating what the meaning of the word "is" is was very entertaining for me, but I think the vast majority of the public did not have the linguistic training and temperament to enjoy it the way I did.

No, what Bill should have said was, "Ken, blow it out your ass. You've been wasting the public's resources for five years, and all you've come up with is something which is none of your God damned business. You will be remembered forever as a punchline. Now excuse me because I've got serious matters to attend to." I know, he wasn't allowed to blow Kenneth off like that, but he wasn't supposed to lie under oath either. He might well have been impeached for refusing to co-operate with a Special Prosecutor, but the result would have been the same: he would have been acquitted although he was technically guilty, the same way he was acquitted although he had clearly lied under oath. He would have been acquitted for the same reason either way: because the special prosecution had clearly become a farcical fishing expedition. And if he'd done it my way, a healthy legal precedent would have been set when Congress officially ruled that there are, in fact, limits to a Special Prosecutor's powers.

James Comey, the head of the FBI who was unable to find any dirt on Hillary but was also unable to refrain from insinuating that she somehow got away with something, used to work for Kenneth Starr. I hope that news doesn't come as a complete shock to anyone. Here's an idea for future Democratic Presidents: stop appointing Republicans as Special Prosecutors and heads of the FBI and every frigging thing else. The GOP has more than used up all the goodwill Presidents Clinton and Obama have extended to them by reaching across the aisle.