Should Bill Clinton have resigned after the Lewinsky scandal?

[Sirius_]

Should be in jail for rape/sexual assault

He should be in jail for stuff that probably didn't happen?

[CookieDamage]

It would have set a better precedent for sexual assault being taken seriously, but could have prematurely ended Hillary's career.

It could have given Al Gore an incumbency advantage while also weakening him.

[America's Sweetheart ❤/𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕭𝖔𝖔𝖙𝖞 𝖂𝖆𝖗𝖗𝖎𝖔𝖗]

If I was alive at the time I would've said no, but with hindsight, yes he should have resigned.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yes, and any Democrat who says no is a hypocrite.

[NoTrump]

No. He had consensual sex with an adult woman. He's an adulterer, but that is not a crime, nor something that disqualifies you from holding public office.

Not solely due to Lewinsky. A power imbalance is not in itself abuse; many women are attracted to powerful men, and for understandable reasons. It is only abuse if the power was leveraged coercively; this does not seem to be so in Lewinsky's case. Now, if the Juanita Broaddrick, or any number of other accusations where he forced himself on women were credible, then yes. So overall, probably still yes, but not solely due to Lewinsky.

Do you believe that it should be legal for parents to have sex with their adult children? Also, do you think that it would be appropriate for them to do this? (Legal and appropriate are not quite the same thing.)

Basically, this is what Clinton's affair with Lewinsky should probably be compared to.

wat

No. He had consensual sex with an adult woman. He's an adulterer, but that is not a crime, nor something that disqualifies you from holding public office.

Not solely due to Lewinsky. A power imbalance is not in itself abuse; many women are attracted to powerful men, and for understandable reasons. It is only abuse if the power was leveraged coercively; this does not seem to be so in Lewinsky's case. Now, if the Juanita Broaddrick, or any number of other accusations where he forced himself on women were credible, then yes. So overall, probably still yes, but not solely due to Lewinsky.

Do you believe that it should be legal for parents to have sex with their adult children? Also, do you think that it would be appropriate for them to do this? (Legal and appropriate are not quite the same thing.)

Basically, this is what Clinton's affair with Lewinsky should probably be compared to.

Appeal to ridicule fallacy.

Indeed, someone here mentioned that Clinton's affair with Lewinsky was consensual. In turn, I pointed out that, just like adult incest, it is consensual but with a power imbalance between the parties.

If you are going to criticize my analogy here, how about you tell me why exactly it is invalid. Also, for the record, another analogy to this can be a teacher/professor having sex with an 18-year-old current student of his or hers. In such a scenario, the relationship and sex would likewise be consensual, but there would still be a power imbalance between the parties.

In such a scenario, do you think that the teacher/professor involved should at the very least resign/be fired from his or her job?

[Blair]

He should have resigned, but shouldn't have been impeached.

[7,052,770]

No, and anyone left of center who says yes is just trying too hard to come across as cool, woke, etc.

[Fuzzy Bear]

I think he should have resigned, but I don't think he should have been impeached.

Bill Clinton's actions were not the actions of sexual harassment; they were the actions of moral turpitude.  A President who gets caught doing an intern while married to his wife ought to at least offer his resignation.  I'm not sure exactly how that would happen, but he could, I suppose offer it to Congress and allow it to be binding on him.

I don't think a President ought to be impeached for committing adultery, but it's a pretty crappy thing when a President does it while in office.

[tallguy23]

No. He had consensual sex with an adult woman. He's an adulterer, but that is not a crime, nor something that disqualifies you from holding public office.

[dw93]

Should FDR, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson have resigned over their extramarital affairs?

[HillGoose]

Should FDR, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson have resigned over their extramarital affairs?

FDR and Kennedy yes. They were commies.

[NoTrump]

Should FDR, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson have resigned over their extramarital affairs?

Did any of them have extramarital affairs with their employees? If so, probably Yes--other than for FDR, since defeating the Nazis was the utmost priority back then.

[HisGrace]

Should FDR, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson have resigned over their extramarital affairs?

JFK should have resigned for his host of personal issues such as his prescription drug issues, and would have resigned had it been made public.

To reiterate, Clinton's been accused of groping and exposing himself to multiple women, having consensual affairs is not the issue. Then of course there's the legal element separate from the actual affair.

[Sestak]

I mean, there is a power dynamic question with him having an affair with a subordinate. So yes, I think he should have resigned.

[SWE]

While on trial for sexual harassment and lied under oath when asked about a relationship where a power imbalance was absolutely a possibility. I would genuinely question the character of anyone who says no.

[Rookie Yinzer]

Yes.

Gore (and Hillary probably, if she left him) would have ended up president under this scenario, funnily enough.

[BlueSwan]

Appeal to ridicule fallacy.

Indeed, someone here mentioned that Clinton's affair with Lewinsky was consensual. In turn, I pointed out that, just like adult incest, it is consensual but with a power imbalance between the parties.

If you are going to criticize my analogy here, how about you tell me why exactly it is invalid. Also, for the record, another analogy to this can be a teacher/professor having sex with an 18-year-old current student of his or hers. In such a scenario, the relationship and sex would likewise be consensual, but there would still be a power imbalance between the parties.

In such a scenario, do you think that the teacher/professor involved should at the very least resign/be fired from his or her job?

OK, I'll bite.

You are operating under the assumption that any power imbalance equals every other power imbalance. This kind of black/white thinking rarely leads to anything good.

A power imbalance can be many things. Even one party earning more money than the other is inherently a power imbalance - does that make such a relationship unethical? Hardly.

I would argue that it is not necessarily the power imbalance as such that is the problem but rather the nature of the power imbalance and the role conflicts that may arise.

In the teacher/student relationship you mention there is a rather serious role conflict as the teacher is supposed to grade the student AND be the students partner at the same time. That is at least problematic. However, if both parties are adults, I wouldn't say that such a relationship is inherently immoral, but I would say that the education institution is well within its right of forbidding such a relationship and firing the teacher if such a relationship occurs.

More or less the same can be said for boss-secretary type relationship at the workplace.

When I refrain from calling either of those relationships immoral it is both because both parties are adults who can make decisions for themselves, and because it is quite natural for attraction to occur in those settings. But the fact that I won't call them immoral obviously doesn't mean that such relationships cannot be deeply problematic and that one should think long and hard before getting involved in such.

Adult incest is entirely different. As both parties are adults there actually isn't much of a power imbalance. I would argue that the fact that most of us strongly disapprove of such relationships actually has nothing whatsoever to do with the power imbalance but everything to do with a very severe role conflict. Parenting is inherently about caring for your offspring, bringing them up, guiding them, helping them become their own person. Nurture is incompatible with a sexual relationship. You are supposed to nurture your kids, not lust after them.

[7,052,770]

Monica came to DC "with presidential kneepads" wanting to seduce the president because his power turned her on. The very first conversation they ever had included the phrase "I'm wearing a thong - wanna see it?" In no way did Bill ever seduce or coerce Monica because she got exactly what she wanted out of it. (At the time, not in hindsight of course)

Obviously Bill's actions were shameful and inappropriate as a married man, but he's hardly the first president to do that - it's safe to say that a majority of 20th century presidents had mistresses, and no president other than Carter would be shock if they created on their wife while in office.

And while he did not abuse his power to force himself onto Monica or anything, the appearance of such a situation still puts Bill into the wrong. Just not enough into the wrong to deserve impeachment. Some kind of censure would've been appropriate (Democrats offered this and Republicans said no because they were obsessed with impeachment).

The people who are saying yes are either acting on their political frustrations with Bill instead of the facts, or else just don't really understand that Bill's relationship with Monica was not the typical power coercion that these cases often are.

[Rookie Yinzer]

Monica came to DC "with presidential kneepads" wanting to seduce the president because his power turned her on. The very first conversation they ever had included the phrase "I'm wearing a thong - wanna see it?" In no way did Bill ever seduce or coerce Monica because she got exactly what she wanted out of it. (At the time, not in hindsight of course)

Obviously Bill's actions were shameful and inappropriate as a married man, but he's hardly the first president to do that - it's safe to say that a majority of 20th century presidents had mistresses, and no president other than Carter would be shock if they created on their wife while in office.

And while he did not abuse his power to force himself onto Monica or anything, the appearance of such a situation still puts Bill into the wrong. Just not enough into the wrong to deserve impeachment. Some kind of censure would've been appropriate (Democrats offered this and Republicans said no because they were obsessed with impeachment).

The people who are saying yes are either acting on their political frustrations with Bill instead of the facts, or else just don't really understand that Bill's relationship with Monica was not the typical power coercion that these cases often are.

He lied under oath and had several other sexual misconduct and rape allegations that were in ongoing litigation. I’m sure Monica was a willing participant based on her interviews in the immediate aftermath of the scandal, but that doesn’t change those other facts. He had a credible past of being sexually inappropriate with women in the workplace. Squarely focusing on the one consensual relationship doesn’t absolve him of his other actions.

[Wakie77]

Consensual sex between 2 adults is, in fact, legal in the United States.