On the one hand we want politicians that have character

I used to think the same but that's just not true anymore. It's very difficult to understand, particularly with the silence coming from the GOP and even more so, with the silence from the evangelical community.

The GOP and the evangelicals have just lost the right to claim any moral high ground over the Democrats.

That said I distinctly remember people saying they didn’t care what Bill did as long as he did a good job as president. There wasn’t 1/10 th the outrage about what he was doing compared to Trump.

Well I lived in the U.S when Clinton was acting up. In the church communities where I lived and around the country, there was mass outrage over how Clinton degraded the office. The Lewinsky scandal went on for years and anyone who thinks it wasn't a major point of contention by Republicans (all Republicans) is simply rewriting history.

Hillary should have divorced her crappy husband after Clintons term was up and then maybe she would have earned some respect.

You really think that if Clinton had a divorce, she would get more respect from the conservative Christians and evangelicals? You know, the ones who used to strongly oppose divorce?

Proving my point that BOTH sides suck and are a bunch of hypocrites. I don’t remember snowflakes melting in the streets like they are today either. Only the right cared about what Clinton did.
Like I said before, I didn’t vote period because there really was no lesser of two evils. However I am happy that liberal predictions of a stock market crash and nuclear war if trump were elected never came to fruition.
This country needs a viable third now more than ever. Oprah......seriously

Then you have a bad memory.

How does Clinton making a payoff weaken anything I have said? You are arguing against what you hope I said instead of what I actually said.

I don't care who Trump had sex with several years ago and not outraged in the least.

The reason Clinton should have resigned was the astoundingly bad judgment, not the consensus sex deal. His other sex indidents may be a different thing.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

Very close to my analogy that a large group of voters were sick of not being heard. So, like in the movie, Platoon, where the officer called in ordinance on his location, that's what a vote for Trump was.
What a fucking lovely war.
Do you hear me now?

No. But lying creates all sorts of problems.

First, there's the potential for perjury (I see Clinton is all over this thread).

Then even if not perjury, from a national security perspective, holding secrets makes one potentially susceptible to extortion/blackmail. Almost *anyone* less than President in a national security position who lied about an paying off an affair would have their security clearance pulled and lose their job.

So letting the President off would create the de facto policy that all national security personnel are held to one standard, except the boss, who can do whatever the hell he wants.

That's not very American. It's more reminiscent of shithole banana republic government. This isn't new with Trump. Clinton. There were affairs before Kennedy. But I'm sticking with the point.