Posted on 06/17/2004 6:27:55 AM PDT by Know your rights
Former US president Bill Clinton said he had an affair with intern Monica Lewinsky “just because I could”.
In an interview to promote his new book, Mr Clinton told how his “terrible moral error” nearly destroyed his family.
But he insisted that attempts to remove him from the White House following the affair were illegitimate, and fighting those attempts was a “badge of honour”.
Millions of advance copies of the book, entitled My Life, have already been ordered. Mr Clinton received an advance of £5.5 million for his memoir, which will be published on June 22.
In the hour-long CBS interview, Mr Clinton said he never considered resigning over the Lewinsky scandal.
“I didn’t quit, I never thought of resigning and I stood up to it and beat it back,” he said.
“The whole battle was a badge of honour. I don’t see it as a stain, because it was illegitimate,” he said, calling attempts to impeach him as “an abuse of power”.
Nevertheless, Mr Clinton said he deeply regretted straying from his wife, Hillary Clinton, who is now a New York senator.
Calling it a “terrible moral error”, he said the affair left him “in the doghouse” with his wife and also threatened to alienate his daughter, Chelsea.
The family underwent counselling to overcome the devastation they suffered.
Mrs Clinton did not demand a separation because she needed time to decide whether she wished to remain married in the aftermath of the 1999 Senate vote on his impeachment, Mr Clinton said.
“We’d take a day a week, and we did – a whole day a week every week for a year, maybe a little more – and did counselling,” he said.
“We did it together. We did it individually. We did family work.”
Asked why he committed adultery, he answered: “I did something for the worst possible reason – just because I could.
“I think that’s just about the most morally indefensible reason anybody could have for doing anything.”
Among the high points of Mr Clinton’s presidency was his role in the ousting of Slobodan Milosevic.
“The day that Kosovar war ended and I knew Milosevic’s days were numbered was a great day. I had a lot of great days,” he said.
His biggest achievement, he said, was his economic plan.
“I kept score, how many people’s lives were better off,” he said.
“I think the fact that we were able to have 22 million jobs and record home ownership and lower interest rates ... people actually had the ability to do more things than ever before.”
But he was disappointed he was never able to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The interview will be shown on the CBS 60 Minutes programme on Sunday.
Does this POS book reveal his version of what he did while behind the iron curtain in 1969? The traitorous ba$tard POS was the 'mancurian candidate' who got elected.
Despite principles being frowned upon by both sides of the aisle; as a principle, elected public officials should never lie to the public. For that alone, he should have been removed from office.
Add to that his lieing under oath, denying an American citizen her fair day in court, and using law enforcement officers to pimp & fetch women to him; the man should remain in jail.
Putting aside principle has cost this nation so much. On the upside, don't we all feel wonderfully pragmatic today?
I'm sure psychologists have a term for this level of reality avoidance...I'll just call it some of the most twisted logic I've seen...but, hey, it's Bill Clinton...the King of Twisted Logic!
She and her future boyfriends will have to live the fact that she is the ho she is.
"Because I could."
Pretty much summarizes The Nameless One's entire career of what W glowingly called his "decades of service."
Would have been a better book-title, too.
Dan
Yup...CBS is lapping it up big time, they demanded that all of their talk radio show hosts carry this interview uninterrupted or be fired, according to our local talk radio show host. Worst part is that it is running during rush hour here in San Antonio (5:00-6:00 PM), so we will not be able to get traffic reports on that station while it is on. He was very unhappy and said he scheduled someone before and someone after the interview to tear the book apart.
"I allowed my AG to get away with deep-frying 80+ misguided men women & children at Mt Carmel because I could."
My life, the last time a guy wrote a book like this it was Mein Kamph. Life battle the same thing.
1) To buy influence; or...
2) You agree with that candidates', or that partys', vision of how a government should be run.
I wonder which motivated the Chinese to contribute.
A poster child for the ME Generation.
I love this bit: We did family work
Bull!
Do tell, slick. We knew that all along, you big creep.
sw
"I killed 2500 serbian civilians on the false pretext of genocide because I could.">>
Try again. "I let the Serbians commit unquestioned genocide against 7500 helpless prisoners because I could."
PING
Pray for W and The Election
No thanks. I don't recall Clinton citing this as a reason to bomb Belgrade.
President Clinton wouldn't keep his pants on in the Oval Office.
A bedrock methodology of all socialist tyrannies is to pit one group of the people against another. Christain against Jew, white against black, or one generation against another.
Of course, this only works if there are sheep willing to be herded.
Now, what was that you were insulting....another generation?!!!
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