This is something Hillary Clinton, her team, and her supporters are going to have to reckon with eventually. Although the limitations of current technology make it extremely difficult for us to revisit the past and assess any changes that may have taken place to a given moment that has ceased to be occurring in the present, all indicators suggest that it is still the case that Monica Lewinsky gave President Bill Clinton a series of blowjobs in the 1990s at his workplace, the White House. And it still seems to be the case that around 1998 the entire nation became aware of this.

Thus, this facet of what we call "the past" is likely to "resurface" during the 2008 election campaign, just as has happened with equally irrelevant and irksome episodes from the "past" of Barack Obama and other candidates.

Here's Chelsea Clinton today, responding to such a question.

Campaigning in Indianapolis for her mother, Chelsea Clinton had a quick retort when asked a question she had never had before. When a male student asked her if her mother's credibility had been hurt during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Clinton quickly responded.

"Wow, you're the first person actually that's ever asked me that question, in the, maybe 70 college campuses that I've been to," Clinton bitterly said at Butler University. "And I don't think that's any of your business."

The students gathered to see Clinton quickly erupted into applause. Clinton took one more question, on global warming, and then wrapped up the event.

Why so angry? Did the Clintons really think they were going to get a free pass on this all the way through the general election? If Obama has to address some remark made by a church pastor with a 37-minute speech, and if McCain has to stand up with his weird-looking wife and bluster about not exchanging favors for sex with a lobbyist or not having a black lovechild, etc., then what -- Hillary and Bill don't have to address this one?

Sorry, but it's going to be an issue in the general election. Is it disgusting and vile to raise it as an issue? Yes, sure, just as it was disgusting and vile to leak a picture of Obama in a turban or peddle cherry-picked excerpts of his pastor's sermons to the press (as Hillary's campaign did in each case). Anyone who thinks she won't have to deal with this is living in a dream world.

There are dozens of angles of attack and so far Clinton has faced none of them. What does this episode say about Hillary's judgment of character? Did she stay with him simply out of ambition, and if so, does that make her the kind of person that an "average voter" can "relate to"? Will Bill continue to philander as First Dude, thereby making a mockery of both the White House and our first Lady President? Will the Clintons expose themselves to blackmail by a foreign power? Etc., etc., etc., etc.

What will her response be?

How can anyone say Hillary Clinton has been "vetted"?