Posted on 06/16/2004 4:43:29 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Clinton Calls Impeachment Battle 'Badge of Honor'
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former President Bill Clinton (news - web sites) called his fight against impeachment a "badge of honor" and his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky "morally indefensible" in a CBS television interview.
In the hourlong interview on CBS "60 Minutes" this Sunday, two days before publication of his memoir "My Life," Clinton said he was proud of his successful fight against impeachment, the network said in excerpts released on Wednesday.
"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 honor. I don't see it as a stain, because it (the impeachment process) was illegitimate," added Clinton, who called the process "an abuse of power."
Clinton's more than 900-page memoir, published by Alfred A. Knopf, hits book stores on June 22.
He told "60 Minutes" that high on his list of regrets was his affair with Lewinsky, which he called "a terrible moral error."
Clinton said his wife, Hillary, and daughter, Chelsea, were able to overcome the effect of the revelation of the affair through counseling.
The former president said Hillary needed time with him to decide whether she would stay married to him.
"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 said there was no rational explanation for his adulterous behavior.
"I did something for the worst possible reason. Just because I could," the former president said. "I think that's just about the most morally indefensible reason anybody could have for doing anything."
Clinton also discussed other issues during the interview, including the war on terror and Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and regretted his failure to convince Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) to accept a proposal he thought could finally bring Middle East peace, CBS said.
I suspect that John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer might have made this same quote.
Does one suppose that Mr. Clinton has some anti-social personality traits?
His legacy is......that he has none. A hundred years from now, nobody will know his name.
Like it or not, Clinton's legacy is how history will remember him. He is in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. Roosevelt has "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." Reagan has "Mr. Gorbachov tear down this wall!" HW Bush has "Read my lips, no new taxes!"
Bill Clinton has:
"It depends on what the meaning of the word is is."
"I did not inhale."
"I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."
All were ways of misrepresenting the truth, and none have anything to do with leadership. His legacy is set in stone.
DK
Keep talking, Slick. There are a lot of Americans who aren't as blind as they used to be and now see you for the POS that you are.
As I noted at the portrait unveiling the other day, a psychiatrist's dream.
What a LOON.
.
...During his own Impeachment BILL CLINTON called his own Impeachment his 'Badge of Honor.'
Nothing new here at all from this guy.
...During BUSH's Speech praising RONNIE REAGAN at last Friday's Washington National Cathedral Funeral Service BILL CLINTON's real 'Badge of Honor' was his and HILLARY's making a "Sleepy" Face to BUSH's Face on National TV.
...All to show his constituents just how badly he didn't want to be there to honor RONNIE REAGAN and the Goodness he stood for at all.
The Enemy is now Within...
and always has been.
.
So he proudly wears his impeachment battle as a badge of honor? He's spinning perjury and sexual molestation and abuse of power into something honorable?
Incredible!
"Clinton, who called the process "an abuse of power."
Pot/Kettle
Exactly. And you can be damned sure that no one in the media will ask him if perjury and/or obstruction of justice are morally defensible if the subject is sex, thereby "illegitimizing" the impeachment process.
Under this standard, every rapist would be unpunishable under the law.
I wonder if BJ explains why he's the only sitting President to cop a plea to prevent procecution... and why if all this was "illigitimate" his license to practice law was revoked.
The facts still won't spin.
Yep..his legacy wasn't written on an Etch-A-Sketch. It's over, done, and sealed. And there's not a thing he can do about it. I personally take great comfort in that.
This is no surprise, but then it really doesn't matter what he thinks. It's disgraceful that he was impeached, and a scandle that he wasn't even tried, let alone convicted.
All those Republican braintrusts back there couldn't see any witness tampering, bribery or obstruction of justice, all three dead bang stone cold cut and dried issues.
Clinton does not have a corner on the disgrace in that whole fiasco, for if he couldn't be removed from office for what he did, then nobody every will be. And if he couldn't be convicted for those things, then we should open up the prisons and release everyone that is serving hard time for what he did.
Yeah Bill, spin it any way you like. In fact, sit on it and spin.
I disagree. 100 years from now William Jefferson Clinton will be a footnote in history. He is after all, only the second President to be impeached.
And, this is his "badge of honor". LOL :^D
Apparently so! Great! If I ever go before a judge and he asks if I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, I'll tell him I am using the Clinton defense method and I'm about to lie my ass off! Whatta c*ck!
Who was the first??
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