What if Clinton had come clean?

What if Bill Clinton had told the truth? Would America’s sexual and political history be different? The thought occurs because of the new TV drama Impeachment (being shown in Britain on BBC2) about the Monica Lewinsky affair.

Somewhat unfairly to both main parties, it is part of the American Crime Story series. Previous subjects have included O.J. Simpson and Andrew Cunanan, who killed Gianni Versace. It’s a bit rich putting Bill Clinton in the same bracket as these murder cases. Nonetheless, the result is intriguing, not just because of the magnificent acting and production — and not only because in the quarter of a century since the world’s most famous blow job a certain axis of society seems to have turned.

Back then Monica Lewinsky was the butt of every joke. In the ancient-modern parlance she was ‘shamed’. Late-night comedians, like everyone else on the planet, did jokes you can still rattle off: ‘Girl in her class voted most likely to suck-seed’ — that sort of thing.