Sorry, I just had to post this

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Sorry, I just had to post this
39
Thu, 06-17-2004 - 9:56am
SHAME-FACED BILL: I FOOLED AROUND 'BECAUSE I COULD'

June 17, 2004 -- In a bombshell confession, Bill Clinton has told why he had a torrid affair with Monica Lewinsky: “Just because I could.”

“I did something for the worst possible reason — just because I could,” he said of his romps with Lewinsky (left, yesterday in New York). “I think that’s just about the most morally indefensible reason anybody could have for doing something — when you do it because you could," a contrite Clinton told CBS newsman Dan Rather in an interview about his hotly anticipated memoir that airs Sunday on "60 Minutes."

"And I thought about it a lot, and there are a lot of more sophisticated explanations, more complicated psychological explanations, but none of them are an excuse.

"Only a fool does not look to explain his mistakes."

Clinton also called his Oval Office trysts with the Sexgate siren "a terrible moral error" that put him in the "doghouse" with wife Hillary and threatened to alienate daughter Chelsea.

The philandering 42nd president has publicly apologized numerous times for the scandal, which rocked the country and led to his impeachment in 1998 — but this is the first time he's revealed what fueled his presidential peccadilloes.

Rather told The Post yesterday that the 57-year-old Clinton seemed genuinely remorseful about the salacious affair.

"He said it was a terrible mistake — indefensible morally," Rather said.

In the wide-ranging interview, Clinton also said Hillary needed time to decide whether she would stay with him — and that only through counseling were they able to heal their fractured marriage.

"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 counseling," said Clinton.

"We did it together. We did it individually. We did family work."

Clinton called his impeachment fight a "badge of honor."

"I don't see it as a stain," he said. "Because it was illegitimate."

The "60 Minutes" interview is part of Clinton's massive publicity blitz for "My Life," the 957-page tome for which he was paid a $12 million advance.

The much-buzzed-about $35 book hits stores Tuesday — but come Monday, bookstores in New York and Washington are considering staying open until after midnight for the first official sales.

The book's publisher, Knopf, will release 1.5 million copies of the memoir — the all-time record for a work of nonfiction.

"My Life" is broken into two parts — one chronicling his hardscrabble childhood in rural Arkansas to his election as president in 1992, and the second covering his White House years and the Sexgate scandal.

"I don't try to settle a lot of scores in the book," Clinton said recently.

"I don't spare myself in the book."

Meanwhile, Lewinsky declined comment about Clinton's bombshell revelations when The Post caught up with her yesterday outside her posh West Village apartment building.

Clinton will appear in bookstores in New York Tuesday to autograph copies. Once it is released, Clinton will make the rounds on the news and talk shows.

For those who can't wait until Tuesday to find out what's in "My Life," AOL — beginning tomorrow — will offer audio excerpts of the tome as read aloud by Clinton, and Infinity Broadcasting Corp. will air excerpts on the radio.

Additional reporting by Don Kaplan and Primrose Skelton

http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/23238.htm

If you want, just look at the headline in the paper, as it made me laugh.

http://www.nypost.com

Pages

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Tue, 06-22-2004 - 6:00pm
When he was directly questioned about the allegations by Lewinsky and Tripp, Clinton perjured himself, which, being an attorney, he should have known better about.




Understood and I don't think anyone here is debating that.

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-02-2004
Tue, 06-22-2004 - 6:07pm
>>>But WHY was he even questioned about it in the first place? It was no one else's business. They were trying to get him for Whitewater and when that fell through, they went after him on the one and only thing that they could find. It NEVER should have been an issue. It was something that belonged in his marriage - not the courtroom<<

That is my point, why ask in the first place! starr spent 70 million trying to get clinton to admit to something that was nobody' else's business in the first place.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Tue, 06-22-2004 - 7:14pm

That is my point, why ask in the first place! starr spent 70 million trying to get clinton to admit to something that was nobody' else's business in the first place.


Exactly!


iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Wed, 06-23-2004 - 10:24am
I heard Dick Morris say the other night that Janet Reno asked Ken Starr to look into the Lewinsky matter.

Does anyone know if that is true?

I have seen a few websites that are not the most noteworthy, as they are trying to blame Ken Starr for just about everything, including things that he could not possibly have done as they were done prior to him being appointed the independent counsel.

I have also seen websites that say that Ken Starr did nothing, which I also take with a grain of salt.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Wed, 06-23-2004 - 10:33am
<>

As Clinton says, Starr and the people who hired him wanted to bring the presidency down, no matter what. This requires a great deal of anger, and I don't understand why they were so angry.

When I read post, people attack him because of the perjury, as if this was vndication for perceived wrongs. What made his enemy's so angry?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Wed, 06-23-2004 - 12:02pm

What made his enemy's so angry?


I'm not sure...all I can think of is that he was re-elected and they wanted their 'power' back...

Fireworkscl-nwtreehugger


iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Wed, 06-23-2004 - 2:52pm
Ask Janet Reno who gave Starr the green light to look into the Lewinsky matter (my source on this information is Dick Morris, so take it for what it is worth).
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Wed, 06-23-2004 - 6:24pm
"Look into" is quite different from forcing to testify and face public questions.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Wed, 06-23-2004 - 9:45pm
She apparently (according to Morris) gave Starr the green light to investigate the situation thouroughly.

I do think that what he did was overkill to an extreme however.

Pages