Sen. Hillary Clinton's dramatic account of when and how she learned about the Monica Lewinsky affair came under attack yesterday - even before her memoir hit the bookstores. Discrepancies between leaked excerpts from Clinton's soon-to-be released "Living History" and other published accounts had her enemies chortling about Slick Hilly.
"I am absolutely shocked that anyone would question the Clintons' veracity," GOP consultant Whit Ayres said with a laugh.
Dan Allen, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said he's not surprised she's trying to make herself out to be a sympathetic character - instead of an enabler.
"The memories of Bill and Hillary Clinton are usually blurred when compared to other accounts," he said.
Clinton's defenders backed her account, especially her claim that then-President Bill Clinton confessed to the affair Aug. 15, 1998 - long after he lied about it to her and the rest of the country.
"Hillary Clinton gives an honest, forthright account of this incident," Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said.
Her 562-page tome goes on sale Monday, but the juiciest sections have leaked out.
In one, Clinton describes how her husband confessed to making White House whoopee with Lewinsky. She wrote that one of the "most difficult decisions I have made in my life" was to stay married.
But according to the memoir by Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal, she apparently needed just a couple of days to decide to stay with Bill.
In "The Clinton Wars," Blumenthal recounted that he talked by phone to both Clintons on April 17, 1998, after the President admitted on TV that he had lied about Lewinsky. "They were still working as a team," he wrote.
Blumenthal could not be located for comment last night. But pollster Mark Penn said he was in the room when the Clintons called Blumenthal.
"The atmosphere was frosty," he said. "The guys were on one side of the room, Hillary and [adviser Linda Bloodsworth] Thomason was on the other side. I knew from my experiences there that Hillary had just found out."
In "The Breach," Washington Post writer Peter Baker wrote that Clinton lawyer David Kendall told the First Lady about her husband's affair on Aug. 13, 2000.
Kendall said Baker's account, which is based on anonymous sources, was wrong.
"I did not inform her of the Lewinsky matter," Kendall said in an E-mailed message. "In Washington, D.C., you can find anonymous sources who will say anything."
Baker, who is the Washington Post's Moscow correspondent, could not be reached for a rebuttal last night.
Originally published on June 6, 2003
