Howard Kurtz mentions today that the Bushies have sometimes (I’d say it’s rare) been rough on the press, and then notes that the Clintonites were aggressive in fighting what they thought was a “relentless focus” on Clinton’s personal life with Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, Kathleen Willey, and Juanita Broaddrick. But a look at the actual media coverage should tell you that only one of these four drew a “relentless focus”–the intern. Paula Jones was ignored when she first charged sexual harassment in February 1994, and when she filed suit in May, she was harshly attacked, for about three days, and then her name barely came up again until after the 1996 election. Her case drew a fair amount of attention during Lewinsky, of course, since it was the civil case in which Clinton lied about a sexual relationship with the intern.

Willey’s story surfaced in 1997, for a few days. It went up the flagpole on “60 Minutes” and back down again hours later when the Carvillites dug out her warm personal letters to Clinton. Like the Jones case, the Broaddrick rape charge sat around for months, until the Clinton impeachment trial had fizzled. It was also up and down in a matter of days in the national media, with people like Dan Rather kissing it goodbye from the first moments. It’s just not true — with the glaring exception of 1998 — to argue Clinton’s sex life was an omnipresent on-air media obsession of his presidency.