I mentioned earlier this week the crippling effect a proclivity to philander can have in a president. My thoughts along that line regarding former President Bill Clinton focused on the events which occurred in his second term.

But Slate's Mickey Kaus observes that Clinton's "bimbo eruptions" also affected his first term and possibly had an effect on the Democrats loss of Congress for the first time in decades.

Clinton's philandering in fact heavily impacted both his terms in office. First, his wife had the goods on him, which encouraged him to defer to her in giving her health care plan priority over welfare reform and defending it past the moment of compromise--the biggest mistakes of his first four years, mistakes that led directly to GOP control of the Congress. Second, because Clinton got away on the philandering charge in 1992 (thanks to all the Democrats covering for him) he was encouraged to think he could get away with it in office, even in front of a federal judge, with the obvious disastrous results for his second term. [emphasis in original]

The issue is relevant and shouldn't be hidden from the voting public.