On 21 October Ben Bradlee, the famous ex-editor of the Washington Post, died, aged 93. The day before that, on 20 October, Monica Lewinsky, 41, the even more famous ex-girlfriend of Bill Clinton, made her first public speech after ten years spent keeping out of the public eye. They had nothing in common except for the fact that each had been responsible for bringing disgrace to a president of the United States.
Richard Nixon would have faced impeachment by Congress over the Watergate scandal, which the Post exposed, if he had not first resigned in 1974 (the first president ever to do so) and then been pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford. President Clinton was impeached in 1998, but acquitted by the US Senate. He was only the second president in history to suffer this humiliation (Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868, but also acquitted). So we were suddenly reminded within a couple of days of two of the greatest scandals ever to engulf the American presidency.
Lewinsky’s re-emergence from the shadows coincided with the cranking up of Hillary Clinton’s efforts to seek the Democratic candidacy for the White House in succession to Barack Obama, who saw off her first attempt six years ago.
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