"In the spring of 1971 I met a girl."

So began Bill Clinton’s speech to the Democratic National Convention, an address that was part love story, part campaign pitch, and in which he sought to humanise a woman long criticised for behaving too robotically. 

It was clear he spoke from the heart. And while Mr Clinton showed he was no longer quite the energetic, bounding speaker he once was, he himself earned a standing ovation

Bill Clinton said no one was better qualified for the White House than his wife (AP)

But if some people were moved by Mr Clinton’s comments - “This woman has never been satisfied with the status quo about anything” – others were critical about what was elided. 

Indeed, commentators on social media and elsewhere, were quick to point out that while he found time to talk about meeting his wife, marrying her, finding a house in Arkansas and raising their daughter, Chelsea, he failed to mention any of the sex scandals that have engulfed him. 

Most notably among these, was his involvement with a 22-year-old White Hosue intern called Monica Lewinsky. His lying about the affair led him to endure the scandal of being impeached, and for Hillary Clinton to suffer the pain of her husband being publicly exposed as a cheat.

“The harder the Clintons have worked to preserve their marriage, the less easily that marriage has fit into easy stories about what true love should look like,” Alyssa Rosenberg wrote in the Washington Post.

The Lewinsky Scandal In Pictures

“And whenever the Clintons put their marriage at the centre of the political cases they make for each other, the relationship becomes more vulnerable to criticism and dissection at the moments when it’s asked to carry the greatest public weight.” 

Ben Mathis-Lilley wrote in Slate: “Could Bill Clinton possibly give a speech explicitly about his relationship with Hillary without mentioning his high-profile public infidelities? The answer turned out to be yes.”

On Tuesday night, Mr Clinton highlighted his wife’s strengths as a mother, and as someone who worked for those with less. He said there was a stark difference between the image he was painting and that which had been portrayed by her opponents at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last week.

“How do you square the things I told you with the picture the Republicans painted of their opponent in Cleveland? You can’t,” he said. “Well, One is real; the other is made up.”

CNN presenter Jake Tapper, whose early career included a stint at the Washington City Paper where he wrote about a date he went on with Ms Lewinsky, also did not mention the affair during his commentary on Tuesday night. Instead he called Mr Clinton a “speech giver”.

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