From the Lord It’s Bullshit satire newswire
“I think I did something for the worst possible reason — just because I could,” a contrite former President William Jefferson Clinton tells 60 Minutes as his soon-to-be best selling autobiography My Life hit the shelves. The “something” he references is an ambiguously quantified collection of affairs and trists spanning an amazing political career, from his first term as Governor of Arkansas, where he risked his political reputation to champion an unpopular motor vehicle tax, to his second term as President of the United States, where he risked his political reputation to hold a federal court in contempt.
Four of the women he encountered along the way share their retrospective musings with reporters.
“I was really upset when I first heard it,” Monica Lewinsky tells Britain’s ITV, referencing the president’s just-because-I-could defense. “It has been so difficult because of so many of the lies that he has told.” When asked whether she believed he had taken advantage of her, she expresses the anguished contradictions of her emotions, “It’s hard to not think that when you hear someone say [mocking tone] ‘because I could’.”
But is Ms. Lewinsky bitter? No, and in fact, she expresses her admiration for her former boss’s success as a family man and father. “He has a daughter that is only six years younger than me. She is now the age that I was when this investigation started.” Reflecting fondly on her memories, she hopes that he can experience their love again vicariously through his daughter, “How would he feel if this happened to her?”
Jennifer Flowers had announced during the presidential primaries that she and Mr. Clinton had had a twelve-year affair. Then candidate Clinton denied the affair with his wife by his side on a nationally televised interview. But in his new book, he admits that there was “an incident”, denying only that it lasted for twelve years. And in fairness, it may in fact have lasted only eleven years, ten months, and twenty-four days.
Ms. Flowers has responded by issuing a statement of reconciliation, recognizing the former president as a figure of national importance. “I am sickened by his continued disregard for the truth,” she writes. “He is a national disgrace.”
In his book, for which he received an advance of $10 million dollars, President Clinton says that Paula Corbin Jones was interested only in money. The woman who sued him for sexual harrassment holds no grudges, and in fact speaks cheerfully of his success. “Oh, it’s funny. You can laugh about it. You know, I didn’t hardly get any money out of that, and he’s the one that’s gotten all the money. He’s the one who’s profiting off of all of this at the moment, and he’s continuing to do so.”
Ms. Jones says that she looks forward to seeing the former president again some day. “Oh, I would like to debate that man. And I would love to look him in the eye and say, ‘Can you honestly tell me that you never remember meeting me, and never remember doing what you did to me’?”
What Kathleen Willey remembers most fondly is Mr. Clinton’s tenacity, and his never-give-up courage and determination. “What a shame for what he put this country through because he couldn’t control himself. Because he was always out there looking for the next one.”
Perhaps Ms. Willey’s only regret is that she did not cash in on her affair. “I said no to Bill Clinton, and I said no to money. I haven’t made one dime off of this story, and it’s been hard. And I’m proud that I didn’t do that.”
Pride goeth before a fall, they say. Supporters point out that it is remarkable how President Clinton endured what these women put him through with their promiscuity and their reckless disregard for protocol and decorum. Others say that the former president might share a portion of the blame since, after all, he did allow himself to be overpowered by their advances. No one really knows what history will say, but now that Mr. Clinton has confessed all, perhaps history will be kind, and record that in the end he said, “I cannot tell a lie. I did pop those cherries.”
