<The GOP changed the rules with Clinton by going after his private life.

When he started getting his cone honed in the Oval Office, while taking official phone calls, it stopped being "his private life." And the sex was just a reflection of an entire philosophy of life that, in my opinion, made him unsuited to be President. Obviously, sex is not an impeachable offense on its own, and maybe the case for removing him from office on the perjury, although legitimate, was weak. That's beside the point. What is really disgusting was that the man was elected twice when everyone knew he was like this.

A man's "private life" is entirely relevant to his suitability for public office. The term is called "integrity:" that is, the realization that a man's character is made up of all his actions and attitudes, not just the convenient ones that he picks and chooses.

I realize any number of people will claim that one can separate crude adultery, disrespect of an institution, and breaking of vows in one's private life from how one behaves in one's job, but I never bought that and I never will. As for the people pushing this point of view, I have my suspicions on why they so badly want this "separation" of morality to be true.

And if a man's "private life" shouldn't be a political factor, then why did Gore's Mud Squad dig up, just before the last election, a 24-year-old DWI by Bush, to which he pled guilty to a misdemeanor and paid the fine? As far as I know, at that time Bush held no political office at all. According to a Gore aide, and Dick Morris, this smear was enough to tip the election into the morass in which it wound up.

Democratic hypocrites were astonished that Bush had not widely advertised this apparently highly-relevant quarter-century-old "crime" during the campaign. The very same Democrats who thought that an acting President sexually harassing interns in the office in which 17 great presidents had worked had no relevance at all to his suitability to be Commander in Chief.

BTW, if I had gotten caught pulling something like that in the office of any private business I ever worked for, I would have gotten my ass fired.