Rand Paul’s motives here could be many—embarrass a presumptive political rival, or raise his stature with the religious right, perhaps. Also: deflect charges that that the GOP is alienated from women, unsympathetic to their concerns and ignorant of certain basic facts about their bodies. He clearly hopes to obscure some outlandish recent commentary, like Mike Huckabee and his talk of contraception being provided by “Uncle Sugar,” by countering that Democrats are—what, exactly? Soft on workplace harassment? Workplace harassment that happened more than a decade ago? By resurrecting the scandal, he—or his “secret asset”—is trying to insinuate that Democrats remain insufficiently exercised about Bill Clinton’s behavior, and therefore are hypocritical, and that even today this should call into question their standing with women. Apparently even Hillary Clinton’s own standing with women should be called into question, despite the fact that she is one. Or something. It’s a little bit confusing.

But what if we follow him on his stated thought experiment? It is no doubt true that thousands of young people who are hearing this framing from Rand Paul have no idea what the scandal involved. But will they react as Paul seems to hope: Will they see the scandal—once they’ve consulted Wikipedia to find out what happened—as a workplace incident involving a man with a history of approaching women who are not his professional equals, and who now represents a possible menace to a new generation of White House interns?