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Clinton: Impeachment fight a 'badge of honor'
Wednesday, June 16, 2004 Posted: 9:18 PM EDT (0118 GMT)
source: cnn.com
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Former President Bill Clinton 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 to air on CBS' "60 Minutes" on 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 957-page memoir, published by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Bertelsmann AG's Random House unit, hits bookstores next Tuesday. He was reportedly paid a $10 million advance for the book.
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 Rodham Clinton, and daughter, Chelsea, were able to overcome the effect of the revelation of the affair through counseling.
The former president said his wife, now a Democratic senator from New York, 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 cited the record economic expansion during his eight years in the White House as his greatest domestic achievement.
"I kept score, how many people's lives were better off," he said, "the fact that we were able to have 22 million (new) jobs and record home ownership and lower interest rates."
He cited the day the war in Kosovo ended as one of the high points of his foreign policy. "The day that Kosovar war ended and I knew (former Yugoslav President Slobodan) Milosevic's days were numbered was a great day," he said.
The inability to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal in his final days in office was a big disappointment, he said.
Interest in Clinton's book has been intense.
Bookstores in Washington and New York are considering staying open next Monday until after midnight to be able to make the first official sales of the $35 book.
His book is being pre-ordered at a record pace on Amazon.com in its autobiography and memoir category, outpacing pre-orders of his wife's hugely successful book, "Living History," by 7-to-1, a spokeswoman said.
Wednesday, June 16, 2004 Posted: 9:18 PM EDT (0118 GMT)
source: cnn.com
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Former President Bill Clinton 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 to air on CBS' "60 Minutes" on 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 957-page memoir, published by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Bertelsmann AG's Random House unit, hits bookstores next Tuesday. He was reportedly paid a $10 million advance for the book.
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 Rodham Clinton, and daughter, Chelsea, were able to overcome the effect of the revelation of the affair through counseling.
The former president said his wife, now a Democratic senator from New York, 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 cited the record economic expansion during his eight years in the White House as his greatest domestic achievement.
"I kept score, how many people's lives were better off," he said, "the fact that we were able to have 22 million (new) jobs and record home ownership and lower interest rates."
He cited the day the war in Kosovo ended as one of the high points of his foreign policy. "The day that Kosovar war ended and I knew (former Yugoslav President Slobodan) Milosevic's days were numbered was a great day," he said.
The inability to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal in his final days in office was a big disappointment, he said.
Interest in Clinton's book has been intense.
Bookstores in Washington and New York are considering staying open next Monday until after midnight to be able to make the first official sales of the $35 book.
His book is being pre-ordered at a record pace on Amazon.com in its autobiography and memoir category, outpacing pre-orders of his wife's hugely successful book, "Living History," by 7-to-1, a spokeswoman said.
