Rethinking Media Politics and Public Opinion: Reactions to the Clinton‐Lewinsky Scandal
In one of the great political ironies of modern times, Bill Clinton weathered a year-long sexual and obstruction of justice scandal and became only the second president in U.S. history to be impeached, while maintaining some of the most impressive public approval ratings of any modern president. In a phenomenon at first curious and then truly remarkable, public support for Clinton's performance steadfastly held in the mid-60 percent range and occasionally surpassed 70 percent in some polls even as the House of Representatives voted to impeach him and the Senate conducted an impeachment trial. This public response was not well predicted by dominant models of public opinion and political communication, leading to considerable scholarly headscratching. Ultimately, many political scientists have drawn two conclusions: the media coverage of the scandal did not matter to public opinion nearly as much as nonmedia influences; and the public responded to the scandal in relatively thoughtless ways, relying on simple heuristics like the state of the economy to decide whether the president should be impeached. For example, writing in the early months of the scandal, public opinion scholar John Zaller argued that the public's continued support for Clinton in the face of the Monica Lewinsky story could be accounted for by reference to three a priori variables not subject to media influence: peace (the lack of serious