Opinion: Chelsea Clinton questioner: Lewinsky matter ‘needs to be talked about’

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The young man who got the ‘none-of-your-business’ response from Chelsea Clinton this week about the effects of the Monica Lewinsky scandal on Hillary Clinton‘s credibility maintained today that he had asked a legitimate question.

‘What I said was I just wanted to know your opinion [if] Hillary showed weakness during the Lewinsky scandal and she might not be a strong-enough leader,’ Evan Strange, a student at Butler University in Indianapolis, said today during an appearance on CNN.

Strange, a staffer on the student newspaper, said that he attended Chelsea Clinton’s address with members of his mass communications class and that a couple of his classmates later came up to him and said it was a worthy question.

‘Wow,’ Clinton told Strange in her widely reported response. ‘You’re the first person actually that’s ever asked me that question in the, I don’t know, maybe 70 college campuses I’ve now been to, and I do not think that is any of your business.’

Reflecting on the moment, Strange said, ‘Just mentioning Lewinsky, I think she probably shut down’ and didn’t want to talk about it. ‘I think she has that right. But it needs to be talked about. No. 1, she is campaigning for her mom, so any question is valid, especially when there is a $3-trillion budget at hand.’

He added that the Lewinsky scandal was ‘just something that’s in the back of everyone’s minds.’

And yes, he said, he is a Hillary Clinton supporter, ‘as of now.’

-- Mark Silva

Mark Silva writes for the Swamp of the Chicago Tribune’s Washington bureau.