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Tue 22 Jun, 2004 02:19 pm
Clinton Book Weighs Failures and Successes
Memoir Contradicts Testimony on Lewinsky
By John F. Harris and Linton Weeks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, June 22, 2004; Page A04
Former president Bill Clinton concluded that President Bush was a "formidable politician" the first time he saw him speak on television, but predicts that the high court ruling that ended the 2000 election deadlock will "go down in history as one of the worst decisions the Supreme Court ever made."
Clinton's memoirs, "My Life," which went on sale at midnight, are filled with rueful commentary on the 2000 election, Bush's success and what Clinton believes was Democrat Al Gore's failure to effectively run on the administration's record or enlist his help. Clinton said he could have helped Gore win Arkansas, which would have been enough to give Gore victory, and compared the high court's decision ending the Florida recount to the Dred Scott slavery case as similarly motivated by a politicized and "reactionary" court.
Clinton's own legal battle with independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr accounts for one of the book's more peculiar revelations. In his August 1998 grand jury testimony, Clinton said he began an inappropriate sexual relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky in "early 1996." His testimony, as was widely noted at the time, was in conflict with Lewinsky's story: She testified the relationship began on Nov. 15, 1995, in the midst of a government shutdown.
Starr's prosecutors, in their report to Congress, accused Clinton of lying about the date of their relationship in order to avoid admitting that he had sexual relations with an intern, as Lewinsky still was in the fall of 1995 before being hired for a paying job in the winter.
Without explanation, in his memoir Clinton departs from his grand jury testimony and corroborates her version: "During the government shutdown in late 1995, when very few people were allowed to come to work in the White House, and those who were there were working late, I'd had an inappropriate encounter with Monica Lewinsky and would do so again on other occasions between November and April, when she left the White House for the Pentagon."
Clinton aides yesterday said they could not explain the discrepancy, and his attorney, David Kendall, was traveling and did not return a call.
In a long, sometimes diary-like review of his presidency, Clinton issues his own verdict on the successes and failures of his presidency. Among the former, he credits his signing of an overhaul of welfare in 1996, and his success in ending the chronic budget deficits and lagging economic growth he inherited upon taking office in 1993.
Clinton's setbacks, however, supply some of the narrative's most arresting passages. These include his account of negotiations he moderated between Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 2000. Days of talks at Camp David that summer came tantalizingly close to a breakthrough but stalled due to Arafat's reluctance to embrace a deal, Clinton wrote.
A few months later, with weeks left in his presidency, Clinton believed all the most difficult practical issues between the two sides had been solved, but that Arafat "seemed confused, not wholly in command of the facts," and that he ultimately "couldn't make the final jump from revolutionary to statesman" -- what Clinton calls "an error of historic proportions."
He recounts his frustration that Osama bin Laden was not killed despite what Clinton calls persistent efforts to find him. He also acknowledges that his failure to take action in 1994 to stop genocide in Rwanda "became one of the greatest regrets of my presidency."
One of the book's recurrent themes is what he calls an orchestrated right-wing campaign to destroy him personally as punishment for his success politically. Clinton recounts a conversation with an aide to former president George H.W. Bush in July 1991, as Clinton was weighing a race for president the next year.
According to Clinton, Bush domestic policy adviser Roger Porter -- with whom he has worked on education issues -- told him that Clinton was the most threatening potential candidate to Republicans, and that Bush operatives had assigned Porter to send a message: "Here's how Washington works. The press has to have somebody in every election, and we're going to give them you. . . . We'll spend whatever we have to spend to get whoever we have to get to say whatever they have to say to take you out. And we'll do it early."
Porter, now on the faculty at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, did not return telephone message and e-mail messages yesterday seeking comment.
In another revelation, Clinton said that current Secretary of State Colin L. Powell -- who in 1993 served as chairman of Clinton's Joint Chiefs of Staff -- told him recently that he would never have approved a manhunt for Somali warlord Mohamed Aideed if he had known the raid would be conducted in daylight. A firefight in Mogadishu killed 18 Army Rangers, one of whom was dragged through the street by a jeering mob, and was a searing national security debacle for a new administration.
One of his era's most skilled politicians does not shed much light into his political operations. Dick Morris, the consultant for Clinton's 1996 reelection, whose influence and poll-obsessed tactics have figured prominently in Clinton-era memoirs by former senior adviser George Stephanopoulos and former labor secretary Robert Reich, gets only a few mildly worded references for his White House role. Pollster Mark Penn, a top adviser both to Clinton in his second term and, later, to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), gets two references.
Clinton is as popular with Americans today as he was when he left office three years ago, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. More than six in 10 Americans -- 62 percent -- said they approved of the way Clinton handled his job as president -- 15 points higher than his successor's current approval rating and roughly equal to Clinton's standing when he left office in January of 2001. But Clinton still divides the country sharply along partisan lines. Nearly nine in 10 Democrats -- 85 percent -- approved, but barely a third of Republicans were similarly positive.
The story of Bill Clinton's winding life -- full of successes and surprises -- begins in Chapter One with a winding sentence: "Early on the morning of August 19, 1946, I was born under a clear sky after a violent summer storm to a widowed mother in the Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, a town of about six thousand in southwest Arkansas, thirty-three miles east of the Texas border at Texarkana."
The book's initial pages are full of familial anecdotes. Clinton tells how his father, William Jefferson Blythe Jr., the son of a poor Texas farmer, met his mother, Virginia, when she was working as a nurse. Blythe was dating a woman who had a medical emergency. Virginia caught his eye, and he dropped the other woman. Blythe married Virginia, then Blythe went off to World War II. After the war, the couple moved to Chicago. Virginia returned to Hope while pregnant with Bill. One night, while he was driving from Illinois to Arkansas, Blythe went off the road in Missouri. He drowned in a ditch.
Clinton writes of learning, in a 1993 Washington Post story, that his mother was probably Blythe's fourth wife. And Blythe was the father of two other children that Clinton had known nothing about.
His boyhood home in Hope, he writes, "is the place I associate with awakening to life -- to the smells of country food; to buttermilk churns, ice-cream makers, washboards, and clotheslines; to my 'Dick and Jane' readers, my first toys, including a simple length of chain I prized above them all; to strange voices talking over our 'party line' telephone; to my first friends, and the work my grandparents did."
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
Notice how Clinton now admits that Monica WAS an intern when the affair started,a clear violation of the law.
Why does he change his story now?
novemebr, January, why with all the holiday preparations he probably forgot when he got his first BJ
Thats possible farmer,but if he was messing with her while she was an intern,like he now admits,then he broke at least two laws.
Messing with her is one,and committing perjury,again.
doglover wrote:mysteryman wrote:Thats possible farmer,but if he was messing with her while she was an intern,like he now admits,then he broke at least two laws.
Messing with her is one,and committing perjury,again.
Small potatoes compared to the whoppers GW Bush tells. At least Bill's lies didn't cost anyone (military and civilian) their life.
So,does that mean there are degrees of lying?
Do you punish your kids for lying,even though nobody got killed?
If you say you do,then you are a hypocrite.If nobody gets hurt when your kids lie to you,then you cant punish them for lying.
doglover wrote:mysteryman wrote:Thats possible farmer,but if he was messing with her while she was an intern,like he now admits,then he broke at least two laws.
Messing with her is one,and committing perjury,again.
Small potatoes compared to the whoppers GW Bush tells. At least Bill's lies didn't cost anyone (military and civilian) their life.
So,does that mean there are degrees of lying?
Do you punish your kids for lying,even though nobody got killed?
If you say you do,then you are a hypocrite.If nobody gets hurt when your kids lie to you,then you cant punish them for lying.
That is very interesting about Arafat (if we may raise our minds above the belt, however briefly - or is this a thread only about sexual peccadilloes, not about the book?) - such a tragedy for everyone if " Arafat "seemed confused, not wholly in command of the facts," and that he ultimately "couldn't make the final jump from revolutionary to statesman" -- what Clinton calls "an error of historic proportions."", especially given the opportunity afforded by the then Israeli leader's more conciliatory stance towards the Palestinians.
peckerdillios.
mystryman--That was just a feeble attempt at humor. you know, wherein we say things full of irony that other people 'get it'
Also the porter story. AS i suspect, this is true because the GOP machine spent so m uch on the defamation of John McCAin. They eat of their own if enough dollars are available to feed an active cause.
so who is the real puppetmaster?
Tired ol' subject, interesting enough take.
Quote:CLINTON ON "60 MINUTES"
Old Tricks
by Andrew Sullivan
Only at TNR Online | Post date 06.22.04
All of us who endured the deeply frustrating presidency of Bill Clinton have some interest in seeing whether the former president has come to terms with his successes and failures in the White House. He's an immensely complicated figure, whose presidency saw great achievements--welfare reform, a fiscal surplus, widespread prosperity--and terrible failures--the unimpeded growth of Al Qaeda, a genocide in the Balkans, betrayal of civil rights, and a failed attempt to turn the American health care system into a hybrid, unified bureaucracy worthy of Sweden. But the critical, central feature of Clinton's presidency was--how does one put this kindly in retrospect?--his difficulty with candor. He was a liar on a grand and petty scale. Has he changed? Here are some passages from his recent interview with Dan Rather on "60 Minutes." It's not encouraging.
RATHER: Was [the Lewinsky affair] the worst thing you ever did?
CLINTON: In my whole life? Oh, I don't know. I think I've talked a lot about that in the book, and I think I've said enough about my personal life. I think I've--I've honestly tried to say more about my life than I believe any public figure ever has, and probably more than anyone ever should, and I think I'll leave it at that.
Hold on. He has just written a book partly about his personal life and is sitting down for an interview and now he won't discuss it?
RATHER: Well, tell me at least the highlight of what you wrote in the book about that, because I think the central question is, if I may--and I know this is difficult--the central question is "Why?"
CLINTON: I think I did something for the worst possible reason, just because I could. I think that's the most--just about the most morally indefensible reason that anybody could have for doing anything, when you do something just because you could. And, as I said in the book, I think that's part of the problems of the people I faced and combatted with.
A very strange response. "Because I could" is not "the most morally indefensible reason" for doing something wrong. It's a trivial, superficial reason for doing something. It seems like candor, but isn't. Clinton "could" have ignored Monica. He "could" have divorced Hillary. He "could" have had an affair with someone who didn't work for him. He "could" have settled the Paula Jones suit years before it became toxic. There are any number of things that a president simply could do. But the reasons for actually doing something are different. Perhaps what Clinton really means is that, as president, he felt so powerful as to be immune. But he cannot believe that. He already had a horde of enemies trying to bring him down and a long history of sexual harassment and compulsion. He knew he couldn't get away with it--or, at the very least, that he was risking a huge amount in doing what he did. So the real answer has to be either that he simply couldn't control his impulses (in which case he opens up the question of whether he was too psychologically damaged to carry such immense responsibility); or that he had become drunk with his own power and felt he could get away with anything (which raises the question of whether he was ethically capable of leading the United States). In any case, this is an evasive answer. Imagine if he'd said: "Because I thought I could get away with it." Or: "Because I couldn't help myself." Those would be honest answers. Instead we have this faux honesty that tells us nothing much. And it's telling that, even here, he immediately ascribes the same compulsions to his enemies. He finds it very hard to take real responsibility without deflecting it in some way.
RATHER: (Voiceover) Later, when he entered politics and was elected attorney general and governor, there were rumors about his personal life. When he ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 1992, a storm broke over stories of his relationship with cabaret singer Gennifer Flowers.
GENNIFER FLOWERS: Yes, I was Bill Clinton's lover for 12 years.
(Footage of Gennifer Flowers; Bill and Hillary Clinton)
RATHER: (Voiceover) Candidate Clinton plummeted in the polls, so, in an effort to salvage his campaign, he took the risky step of doing an interview on "60 Minutes" in front of a huge audience right after the '92 Super Bowl. Bill and Hillary Clinton were questioned by correspondent Steve Kroft.
(Begin file footage)
STEVE KROFT: She's alleging and has described in some detail in the supermarket tabloids what she calls a 12-year affair with you.
CLINTON: That allegation is false.
KROFT: I'm assuming from your answer that you're categorically denying that you ever had an affair with Gennifer Flowers.
CLINTON: I've said that before, and so has she.
(End of file footage)
(Footage of Kroft, Bill and Hillary Clinton)
RATHER: (Voiceover) It took years for Mr. Clinton to admit that he was lying in that interview and that he had had a relationship with Gennifer Flowers. Even though the interview rejuvenated his campaign, he writes in his book he was so furious at correspondent Kroft for prying into his personal life that he wanted to, quote, "slug him."
Directly put, how in the world did you ever get Mrs. Clinton to go with you on that television program?
What a craven question after that segment. Rather has already conceded that Clinton directly lied on "60 Minutes." Now Clinton is on the same show and Rather doesn't follow up. The first interview was years before Kenneth Starr or any of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. But it's the same Clinton. And that suggests that his entire excuse--that he was lying because of the nature of his enemies--is phony. Notice also the brilliant parsing: "That allegation is false." It could refer to any aspect of the previous statement. So Kroft follows up with a more direct question, and Clinton again indirectly refuses to answer it, merely referring to things he has said in the past. At the time, we barely noticed. We later learned to read the Clinton lies. But this one was at a critical moment in an election campaign, enabled by his wife (you think she didn't know about Gennifer?) and deceiving the American public he was seeking to represent. The obvious follow-up question is: Do you regret lying in that interview? The obvious subsequent question is: Why should we believe anything that you are saying now? But Rather punts. Pathetic.
RATHER: Well, in the book, you make it clear that you compounded your mistake by lying about it, lying to your wife, child, Cabinet, the country.
CLINTON: Basically what happened is, at the end of '95, I was involved in a--as I tried to say in the book, two great fights, a struggle with the Republicans over the future of the country, which I won, and a struggle with my old demons, which I lost. And if there had been no Kenneth Starr--if we had different kind of people, I would have just said, "Here are the facts. I'm sorry. Deal with it however you please."
RATHER: We all know what's said correctly about hindsight, but do you wish you had done that?
CLINTON: I'd like to say yes, but I can't. I don't know. Because the moment was so crazy. It was a zoo. It was an unr--it was--it was like living in a madhouse.
Again, notice that Clinton has not conceded that he lied. All he has conceded is what the DNA evidence proved. And there's absolutely no reason to believe that he would even be admitting the Monica affair if he hadn't dropped some critical material onto her dress. Notice also that he basically blames his lying on Kenneth Starr. If Starr hadn't been such a priggish inquisitor, doing the work of the VRWC, Clinton might have told the truth. Which is to say: Clinton would commit perjury if he didn't like the judge. No wonder he had his law license revoked.
RATHER: (Voiceover) Mr. Clinton says in his book he is haunted by the deaths of 18 Americans in Somalia and calls the 1993 raid there a mistake. He also told us he's had second thoughts about his controversial last-minute presidential pardon of financier Mark Rich.
Looking back on that, if you had to do over again, would you still do it?
CLINTON: No, but mostly because of all the grief I got that came out of it. But on the merits, nobody's yet made a case to me that it was a wrong decision.
Here we go again. I know of no one who thinks that, of all the people deserving of pardons, Marc Rich--a fathomlessly wealthy international oil-dealer, who had fled the United States rather than face justice--was high on the list. Clinton does not regret the way in which this devalued other pardons, corrupted the process, undermined his political friends and allies, and soiled the presidency. He regrets "all the grief I got." The inability to see any standards of ethics beyond his own self-interest is close to sociopathic behavior.
RATHER: (Voiceover) The former president writes in his book he was seething at Starr's efforts to turn the videotaped testimony into a, quote, "pornographic home movie." But he also knew that Starr's videotape might cost him his presidency, and could be the final straw in his relationship with Hillary. She and Chelsea barely talked to him. And, he writes, he spent months sleeping on the couch.
I hate to be petty but I cannot believe that the president of the United States spent months sleeping on a couch. Which couch? Where? Did no one notice? Was the Lincoln bedroom always booked? With anyone else, I might just believe this piece of flim-flam. But, er, well, do you?
RATHER: How did you and Mrs. Clinton and Chelsea get through this?
CLINTON: The first thing we had to do is just get through the days, a few days. We had to let some time pass. And Hillary had to decide whether she wanted to stay married to me. And then, when she decided she was willing to try, that's when we agreed that we would work together. 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--and did counseling. And we--we did together, we did it individually, did family work. It was hard and interesting. And I would say to people who have invested a lot of time in a relationship that, before they give up on it, it's worth trying.
This is classic Clinton. His willingness to share this personal agony is laudable. His endorsement of therapy is also, to my mind, a great way to destigmatize psychiatric and psychological counseling. But I still don't believe it. I don't believe that the president spent at least one day a week during the last year of his presidency in counseling. I guess someone could check his schedule. Was there always one blank day a week for the remainder of his presidency for counseling? Maybe after he left office. But before? Sorry, Bubba, I think you're having us on again.
RATHER: Perhaps more than most presidents, you have accumulated nicknames as the years have gone by. Some of them you like, Bubba, Elvis, Comeback Kid. You like all those. And some that you haven't liked so much.
CLINTON: Yeah. Well, if you--if you stay out there and you fight long enough, you make enough enemies, you'll get some of those nicknames, too.
RATHER: Which one do you like the least?
CLINTON: Slick Willie. I like that the least for a very good reason. No one could fairly look at my political life and say I didn't believe in anything.
Fair enough. I think it's unfair to say that Bill Clinton has no deep feelings or wasn't and isn't motivated by some fundamental values. But the point about "Slick Willie" is not that he didn't have values. It's that he was prepared to sacrifice those values at a moment's notice, if it suited his self-interest. It's that he could lie his way out of trouble, parse words like a lawyer to deceive others, say one thing to one person and another to another person. It may be that his early life made this a deep pattern of behavior and that, in his heart, he meant well. I hope he does and did. But if this interview is any indicator, he has still failed to achieve that realization. We're all human. And if Bill Clinton's only sin was sexual compulsion, no one would have worried too much. He was right that some of his opponents were unscrupulous, extremist, hateful people. But he is still wrong about his own real flaws. And they are not ameliorated by confessing to some superficial ones.
Andrew Sullivan is a senior editor at TNR.
Gawd, will it ever end?
Ken Starr spent $70 million of taxpayer's dollars to ultimately exonerate Clinton on Whitewater, Foster, Travelgate, Filegate, and every other false accusation of impropriety.
Yet most Bushinistas have never bothered to read the official report their tax dollars paid for because they would be forced to stop spouting this nonsense about Clinton.
And then Starr and his cronies stumbled across a consenting adult getting three hummers from another consenting adult and you'd think they died and went to heaven.
In typical adulterous fashion, he first attempted to hide the affair.
B.F.D.
Clinton said on Oprah today his first approach of denial was wrong. He should've said I didn't commit a crime, and I didn't ask anyone else to commit a crime. Period. And left it at that. The rest should've been handled within the family.
Clinton tried to hide a blow job or three under oath. Considering Washington died of syphillis (and not from good ole Martha) and practically every other president was unfaithful at some point including Cleveland who even had a baby out of wedlock .... sidebar poontang was not what the founding fathers had in mind when they considered High Crimes and Misdemeanors.
In the meantime, Bush and Cheney lie every day. They just have the benefit of not being under oath. Which included the handholding chaperoned session with the 911 commission.
How many lives have Bush lies cost vs a lie about oral sex?
Hands up who has never lied about sex.
UNfortunately , we must, as adult citizens, recognize that the lie was under oath. We do frown upon flaunting the law. that was the high crime and/or misdemeanor .
PS, Ive never heard the story about G washington and syphylis. He died of an acute attack . He was a relatively healthy 67 year old who became ill from an infection he caught while moving a stuck carriage during the winter. This site sez that he was probably afflicted with an acute bacterial epiglottis infection. then we knew that he was just about bled todeath by his mideival doctors
http://www.doctorzebra.com/prez/index.htm
He did not lie under oath.
He said that he did not have sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky and he didn't according to his and the Paula Jones court definition of sexual relations.
Clinton is one of those rare politicians who polls perpetually better job than favourability ratings ...
Code:ABC News/Washington Post Poll. June 17-20, 2004.
"Thinking back to when Bill Clinton was in office, would you say you approve or disapprove of the way Clinton handled his job as president?"
Approve Disapprove Unsure
June 2004 62% 37% 1%
June 2003 55% 43% 2%
"Do you have a favorable or unfavorable impression of Bill Clinton as a person?"
Favorable Unfavorable Unsure
June 2004 50% 49% 2%
January 2001 44% 51% 5%
January 2000 34% 61% 5%
I don't think Clinton is handling these interviews very well.
He seems to be stuck a little.
I've heard and read five or six interviews and he says the exact same thing at every stop. Then we get the inevitable, "Why did you risk your presidency by messing with Monica?" and every time he answers, "Because I could."
He's had three years to think about the best way to answer that question, and that's the best he could do?
I have a better answer, Bill.
How about:
"Because people, mostly men, do things every day to make their life easier, to get some quick, cheap thrill or just for some dumbass, testosterone-poisoned, I-just-wanted-it reason."
We men are pigs; we want what we want.
We know it's wrong, but so is smoking, drinking, gambling, speeding, cursing and other things that people do every day just because they figure the fun will probably outweigh the chance of being caught.
It's a stupid question to ask: why did you nearly have sex with her?
It's like, "Why did you drink that beer? Why did you watch that ballgame at the strip bar? Why did you bet on it? Why did you smoke that joint? Why did you go to Vegas? Why do you play poker?"
OK, maybe all men aren't dogs... maybe we're all just three years old. We see something we want and we grab it, like a baby grabbing a hot iron or a pair of scissors.
The question might as well have been, "Why did you stare at that pretty woman's cleavage?"
Clinto screwed up getting a hummer on the sly and there's really no excuse for it, but that still doesn't justify Ken Starr's $70 million dollar witch hunt and the Repukelicans' impeachment proceedings.
The moral of the story is: some questions aren't worth the time spent listening to the answer.
And BTW, don't ever ask Adrian Brody, "Why did you kiss Halle Berry that way during the biggest moment of your life?"
...because he just might answer, "because I could."
PDiddie wrote:I don't think Clinton is handling these interviews very well.
He seems to be stuck a little.
I've heard and read five or six interviews and he says the exact same thing at every stop. Then we get the inevitable, "Why did you risk your presidency by messing with Monica?" and every time he answers, "Because I could."
He's had three years to think about the best way to answer that question, and that's the best he could do?
I have a better answer, Bill.
How about:
"Because people, mostly men, do things every day to make their life easier, to get some quick, cheap thrill or just for some dumbass, testosterone-poisoned, I-just-wanted-it reason."
We men are pigs; we want what we want.
We know it's wrong, but so is smoking, drinking, gambling, speeding, cursing and other things that people do every day just because they figure the fun will probably outweigh the chance of being caught.
It's a stupid question to ask: why did you nearly have sex with her?
It's like, "Why did you drink that beer? Why did you watch that ballgame at the strip bar? Why did you bet on it? Why did you smoke that joint? Why did you go to Vegas? Why do you play poker?"
OK, maybe all men aren't dogs... maybe we're all just three years old. We see something we want and we grab it, like a baby grabbing a hot iron or a pair of scissors.
The question might as well have been, "Why did you stare at that pretty woman's cleavage?"
Clinto screwed up getting a hummer on the sly and there's really no excuse for it, but that still doesn't justify Ken Starr's $70 million dollar witch hunt and the Repukelicans' impeachment proceedings.
The moral of the story is: some questions aren't worth the time spent listening to the answer.
And BTW, don't ever ask Adrian Brody, "Why did you kiss Halle Berry that way during the biggest moment of your life?"
...because he just might answer, "because I could."
Isn't "because I could" just a simpler way of saying all that?
Hands up who thinks anyone had a right to be asking Bill about sex with Monica, except Bill, Monica and Hillary (depending on what their marital agreement about such things was).
And - who can demonstrate that the affair - SANS all the stupid fuss made about it - affected Clinton's work as president of the United States?
Well, it was a question that should never been asked. But I think a better answer would have been, "because I felt the need at the time." On second thought maybe dlowan is right and "because I could" says it all.
I imagine that he is already tired of that question and would like to talk about something else for a change. But like they dominated him with this silly stuff then, they are doing it now.
It might of affected him doing an greater job but still he did do well as an actual elected President of the United States.
I think the question may be asked, post book, because Clinton DOES address it in the book.
I just think the answer is not unreasonable.
Kinda like those saddest words in the language: "It seemed like a good idea at the time".
To my joy and sincere approbation, such matters almost never come up in Australian politics - politician's personal lives tend to be seen as off limits, unless they clearly impinge on the job.
There was a recent exception, when Cheryl Kernow, who had been the leader of a minor party, the Australian Democrats (made major because they ended up holding the balance of power in the Federal Upper House - which meant they could pass, or not pass, crucial governemnt legislation) wrote her autobiography.
Kernow had made a huge political splash, by leaving her own party, when she was its leader, and joining the Australian Labor Party - which was seen as a great coup by many of that party's leaders, because of her "star power".
At the time, I recall commenting that the two Labor leaders (then opposition leader, Kym Bazley, and former Foreign Minister, and then shadow Foreign Minister, Gareth Evans) looked more as though they had just made a sexual conquest, rather than a political one - and that Kernow (who I had always found annoyingly flirtatious) looked more like a blushing, triumphant Lady Di at the engagement announcement, than a political leader announcing a grave decision to change her allegiances.
Anyhoo - AFTER her book was published, in which was a detailed account of the processes by which she made the decision to move parties (which all ended in tears, as she was a liability, rather than a bonus, for labor - and was unceremoniously booted out of her seat in the last federal election) - a gutter press journo used the fact that she had not mentioned it in the book (hence lying - in his view - by omission) to announce that at the time of the decision, Kernow and Gareth Evans had been in the midst of a long affair. Somewhat explaining the looks of skittish excitement at the announcement of the move.
Actually, she was the target of some other scurrilous personal revelations.
But - many felt that the invasion of her personal life was justified by the fact that she purported to tell the full story of the political event, and not include the alleged personal motivator.
I think that made it a tad more understandable, but was still an unwarranted intrusion - that harmed a number of folk.
However, i do not think anyone alleged that Clinton made any political decisions on the existence of a blowjob.
Unless you count the "wag the dog"-like events of the missile strikes - which are moot - and - if they occurred for unforgiveable personal reasons, occurred because of the ridiculous persecution - not that - IF thta was the motivation - that makes it any better....
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