Posted on 06/01/2005 5:01:22 PM PDT by Libloather
Clinton: ‘I paid a big price’
The former president on his legacy, his health and his wife's future
By Brian Williams
Anchor & “Nightly News” Managing Editor NBC News
Updated: 6:52 p.m. ET June 1, 2005
CHAPPAQUA, N.Y. - Former president Bill Clinton is just back from a grueling 14-day, 12-nation, 16-stop tour.
**SNIP**
I asked the president a blunt question about his legacy and any regrets he may have that impeachment will always play a prominent role in how his presidency is remembered.
Clinton: It probably would, because — but to be fair, you said you're being blunt with me. People in your business like that very much. And they like what Ken Starr did because they thought it made good ink. And they didn't do a very good job of reporting for years all the innocent people he persecuted and indicted because they wouldn't lie...
Williams: And yet...
Clinton: ...and the assault on the American Constitution that he waged...
Williams: This was...
Clinton: ...or that I was acquitted. And that the charges that the House sent to the Senate were false. So I did a bad thing. I made a bad personal mistake. I paid a big price for it. But I was acquitted because the charges were false.
Williams: Guantanamo Bay, Amnesty International says it's become the "gulag" of our time. The president yesterday said that's absurd. Where do you fall on this issue between those two?
Clinton: Just like you said, between those two. My own view is just based on what I read — is that it's part of this kind of gray area we've been in since 9/11.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
More revisionist history from the great lying scum.
President Clinton mistakes the lack of hunger by the people to put a President behind bars for the sake of the office as acquitted.
The office and only his office saved him.
Did he talk about giving missile guidance and rocket technology to China while the hole was at it?
He is a stain on the office.
Yeah right bill, tell it to the democrats.
For a man who has spent his life murdering his enemies, raping women, running drugs, and selling out his country, I'd say he has gotten off pretty lightly so far.
I would also say that it was our country that paid a big price on his account.
No they weren't and no you weren't.
With Bill, the BS just never stops. Pity me, I'm a victim, he says. He makes the perfect Democrat. Never responsible for anything he does, never accepts any limits on his ego. No wonder the Dems love him so.
More bs. The sole power of impeachment lies with the House. The Senate can only sentence, not acquit.
Hey Bill, if you were acquitted, why did you have to give up your license to practice law?
And Ken Starr was considered to be a Boy Scout by Dems - before you used the office of POTUS to launch attacks on him.
No Bill, you were aquitted because too few of your peers didn't have the gonads or morals to convict you.
This is great that he puts himself out there to remind America how much he and Hillary are despised.
Keep it up, Bill, it's another nail in Hillary's coffin.
Bill why did you bomb Iraq o?
Sadly, not despised by enough voters to give Hillary a huge defeat in 2008. That race will be uncomfortably close.
He wasn't challeneged when he asserted the charges were false.
As the election draws closer, the media is rehabilitating and building the Clintons up.
They're still crooks. IMO
Clinton's legacy will always be "There was no one left to lie too."
The Senate didn't convict because they didn't see any evidence against President Pantsless. They didn't see any evidence because the took a dive and didn't go and look at it.
This "man" lies as often and as naturally as most people breath out and breath in. He is a boil on the butt of the body politic that needs to be lanced. I'd say more, but I'd have to use puppets.
Congressman Billybob
Bill Clinton should just now be walking out of Federal prison with all his worldy goods in a paper bag.
He's scum. Was then, is now.
I stood up for the American way of life, says Clinton
Government Miscellaneous Keywords: CLINTON
Source: Electronic Telegraph
Published: 11-10-99 Author: Ben Fenton
Posted on 11/09/1999 23:24:26 PST by Born in a Rage
PRESIDENT CLINTON has presented his survival of impeachment as a personal triumph in which the American people stood at his side in a patriotic fight against enemies of the Constitution.
President Clinton: believes historians of the future will salute his defence of the Constitution Evoking an almost heroic view of his ordeal at the hands of the Republican-controlled Congress, Bill Clinton said historians of the future would salute his defence of the Constitution. His words seemed part of an effort to shape his own political legacy. This process includes reaching out to a population which has always warmed to his personal touch, not least by his first question and answer session on an internet site.
Mr Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives in December for lying to a grand jury when he denied having a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky. But Republicans in the Senate could not raise the two-thirds majority to remove him.
In an interview with ABC television, Mr Clinton said: "I think that history will view this much differently. They will say I made a bad personal mistake, I paid a serious price for it, but that I was right to stand and fight for my country and my constitution and its principles, and that the American people were very good to stand with me." He put the Lewinsky scandal in the context of other investigations into his conduct, like the Whitewater development deal in Arkansas.
He said: "I made a personal mistake and they spent $50 million trying to ferret it out because they had nothing else to do, because all the other charges were totally false, bogus, made up, and people were persecuted because they wouldn't commit perjury against me. I think that over the long run, the fact that we accomplished as much as we did in the face of the most severe, bitter partisan onslaught . . . will, in a way, make many of the things we achieve seem all the more impressive."
When he appeared on the Web via George Washington University, Mr Clinton likened his internet debut to the "fireside chats" that Franklin Roosevelt held with the American people on the radio, or John F Kennedy's first televised press conferences. Asked by "Mark of England" if he wished he could serve a third term, something prohibited in the constitution, he said: "I love this job and I would continue to do it if I could."
With an online audience of 50,000, he told another questioner that he thought his legacy would be "a time of transformation, hope, of genuine opportunity, a time when we deepened the bonds of freedom".
Impeach is like "indict." After the indictment, then the trial. The Senate conducts the trial. It can acquit, but it can't unindict, or unimpeach.
If the Democrats were really smart, they could have pulled a cloture motion, and not voted on judgement in the case at all ;-) (kidding - just kidding. Except it makes about as much sense as using cloture to withhold a vote on a nomination)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.