In 1998, days after it was revealed that President Bill Clinton had explored various bodily orifices of his young White House intern Monica Lewinsky with a cigar, his public approval rating... increased, from 53 to 70 percent!

(Clinton, one comic remarked, later smoked the cigar, but did not inhale.)

["It seems Monica Lewinsky is on the loose again, teaming up with HBO to do a documentary about her affair," Jay Leno later reported. "It's not really a documentary; it will be more of an oral history." (In 2002, Lewinsky was offered a stogie while attending a GQ Men of the Year Awards after-party. "Whoa!" she exclaimed. "You've got to be kidding!")]

["The $10 million Clinton is getting for his [memoirs] beats the old record of $8.5 million paid to the Pope," Jay Leno once noted. "How do you think this makes the Pope feel? The man dedicates his life to the 10 Commandments, he gets 8.5. Clinton breaks every one of them, he gets 10!"]