Ahh. But as you say that is apparently a lie. What he sought was the fig leaf of a crafted legal opinion that wasd devised to justify his administrations illegal activities.
As you say public tolerance for such lies is unpredictable.
Weighing Clinton's getting a little afternoon delight between the meetings of his office, and Bush/Cheney/Rove engaging the country in torture and war crimes, on top of waging an unjustified war of aggression, just doesn't even begin to be measured on the same scale.
If the country wants to get up tight about a President getting something on the side, because he thought it was no one's business but his own, then as you say where this ends up, given the graveness of the misrepresentations and the affairs of state it was trying to hide, then by your own argument, I'm guessing you can't be surprised at all that the country would want to put a few heads up on poles outside the teepee.
Besides no one is asking for Bush's head. Maybe as it stands Yoo and Bybee. But without knowing what other lies there may be, who knows where it might end.