Posted on 06/25/2004 11:52:35 PM PDT by South40
There's a typo on the cover of Bill Clinton's just-released memoir. The title reads "My Life." It should be "My Lie."
In the 957-page tome, the nation's 42nd president revisits his adulterous affair with a woman young enough to be his daughter.
"During the government shutdown in late 1995," he writes, "I'd had an inappropriate encounter with Monica Lewinsky and would do so again on other occasions between November and April."
That corroborates Lewinsky's 1998 testimony before a federal grand jury that their sexual dalliances began in November 1995. But it contradicts Clinton's very own grand jury testimony that their affair didn't start until "early 1996."
Of course, it really didn't matter whether Clinton and his White House toy began their illicit relationship in November 1995 or early 1996.
Indeed, the reason Clinton cited the later date was to avoid the ignominious admission that he stooped to having sex with an intern as Lewinsky was in the fall of 1995 rather than a full-fledged White House staff member as she was by winter 1996.
What really matters is that Clinton blatantly lied to the grand jury, after insisting all these years that he told the truth. And only now, with publication of a book for which he received a $10 million advance, has he deemed to fess up to the American people.
Well, as long as the former president is in a confessional mood, perhaps he will set the record straight about the other women he allegedly victimized, who rated barely a mention in his autobiography.
Like Kathleen Willey. In an appearance on the CBS News program "60 Minutes" in March 1998, the former White House volunteer said that in November 1993 she met with Clinton in the Oval Office to beseech him for full-time, paid position on the White House staff.
Willey said that the commander in chief embraced her, kissed her on the mouth, fondled her breasts and put her hand on his genitals. Clinton claims that "nothing improper happened."
Then there was Juanita Broaddrick, the Arkansas woman who, in February 1999 told "Dateline NBC" that she was raped by Clinton back when he was the Razorback State's attorney general.
She said that Clinton assaulted her in a Little Rock hotel room, kissing her against her will, biting her lip, forcing her down on a bed and, finally, having non-consensual sex with her.
Through his attorney, President Clinton said that Broaddrick's charge was "absolutely false."
Then there's Paula Jones, the former Arkansas state employee who, in February 1994, accused Clinton of sexual harassment.
Jones said that in 1991 she was propositioned in a Little Rock hotel by Clinton, who was Arkansas governor at the time. She asserted that the future president dropped his pants, exposed himself to her, and requested that she perform a sex act on him.
To this day, Clinton maintains that Jones made it all up.
Finally, there is Gennifer Flowers, the Arkansas cocktail lounge singer, who in 1992 disclosed that she had had an ongoing adulterous affair with Clinton, who was stumping for the White House.
Clinton denied a sexual relationship with Flowers during a 1992 interview aired on "60 Minutes." And his long-suffering wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, stood by her man, saying she didn't believe he had sex with such a woman.
Well, we know Clinton lied to the American people about his sexcapades with White House intern Lewinsky. We know he lied about his sexual liaisons with lounge singer Flowers. He conceded as much in sworn testimony.
But the former president continues to deny making a sexual advance on Willey, sexually assaulting Broaddrick and sexually harassing Jones. He continues to dissemble, to obfuscate as he has done throughout his public life, from the Arkansas state capital to the nation's capital.
Clinton hopes that his memoir will somehow raise his standing in the eyes of the American people, most of whom have an unfavorable view of the former president, according to a recent Associated Press poll.
You nailed it Joe!
I think I would add an "s" to LIE(S)! There is definitely more than one LIE in this book. At least Ken Starr has been proven right when he said Clinton lied to the Grand Jury and he believed Monica!
Bump for later :-)
As everybody continues to pore over that book, comparing it to the public record, he's going to wish he never wrote it. But he can't whistle it back now, can he?
Yes, that seems to be the missing outrage here: Monica was an intern when the affair began. How many interns does the White House have any given year? A hundred? And how many of those bright-eyed youth are given a full staffer's position? Me-thinks it is a pretty small number.
I always felt the worst was trumping up false charges to fire everyone in the travel office, sicking the FBI on them and replacing them with the Clinton cronies. That happened almost right at day one. But now that I think about it perhaps that was Hitlery who did that. (NY's finest.)
BTW-I thought it was interesting the news reporters would bring up Reagan's firing of the air traffic controllers when they illegally struck but there is no mention of Clinton firing the White House Travel Office staff.
Please do NOT phrase the arguments about Clinton along the lines of "Clinton lied about his sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky" or variations on this theme.
Instead please phrase the arguments about Clinton along the lines of "Clinton lied about his sexual relationships during the SEXUAL HARRASSMENT LAWSUIT that was brought against him by a female former government employee" or variations on this theme.
How many of the recent news articles about Clinton mention the SEXUAL HARRASSMENT lawsuit? Very very very few.
How many mention sex with Monica? Almost all. "They" are trying to whitewash the Clinton scandal as a "sex-scandal".
Remember the issues are:
The so-called non-issues go to the heart of presidential character. Liberals have helped to make moral judgment a dirty word and now its considered improper to question if someone's character measures up to age-old standards of etiquette and social propriety. How far we've fallen.
I think it is funny that he says he had the affair with Monica "during the 1995 government shutdown". Sounds like he is trying to blame the Republicans for creating all the spare time and that is why he got himself in trouble.
That's not what he said in his grand jury testimony and what his lawyers told the U.S Senate. Clinton is so lazy he doesn't even remember what he said six years ago!
Not necessarily. His mother may have been raped and impregnated by Satan. That would explain a lot more.
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