Bill Clinton on Lewinsky Affair: "I Cracked"

(CBS)

During a series of secret interviews in the White House with author and historian Taylor Branch, then-President Bill Clinton said his affair with Monika Lewinsky began because he "cracked" as a result of personal and political pressure.

"I cracked; I just cracked," Clinton said, according to Branch, USA Today reports. The former president reportedly blamed the death of his mother, combined with the Democrats' losses in the 1994 midterm elections and the Whitewater investigation, for putting him in a state of mind that left him open to the affair.

Branch has written a book based on the 79 interviews, the tapes of which he said Clinton kept in a sock drawer to keep them secret. Though the historian doesn't have access to those tapes, he would recap the interviews himself, on a fresh tape, following each visit he made to the White House.

The USA Today story includes two other interesting revelations from Branch's book. One involves Clinton's recounting of an argument with his vice president, Al Gore, shortly after Gore was not elected president in 2000. Clinton said he had felt he wasn't used enough in the campaign, and told Gore he could have brought Gore victory had he been sent to campaign in New Hampshire or Arkansas.

Gore responded that Clinton had been a "drag" on the ticket because of the affair, according to Branch's recollection of Mr. Clinton's comments. The pair then "exploded" at each other, blaming the other for the loss.

Perhaps the most startling story in the article, however, involves then-Russian president Boris Yeltsin. Clinton told Branch that Yeltsin had been staying at the Blair House, the White House guest residence, in 1995 when the Secret Service found Yeltsin standing alone on Pennsylvania Avenue, wearing only his underwear, trying to get a cab.

Yeltsin, slurring his words, told the Secret Service he wanted a pizza. The next night, Clinton reportedly told Branch, Yeltsin took back stairs to the basement of the Blair House, where a guard assumed he was an inebriated intruder. U.S. and Russian security forces soon arrived to assure the guard that the man in question was in fact the Russian president.

Branch said Mr. Clinton is "nervous" about his decision to write the book. The two men were roommates in Austin, Texas in the early 1970s, when they were running George McGovern's presidential campaign in Texas. Branch said the two men had been talking about the book but that he did not make the changes the former president requested.

[anti-global2]

he cracked when he took aff his glasses and realized he was fooling around with a fat chick. anyone who has seen pictures of that dog then or now should agree that he would not be human if he didn't crack. He was the Pres. he could have any woman he wanted and he banged a fat chick. YUK.

[MadJayhawk]

During the period in which Clinton said he 'cracked' he was making or should have been making critical decisions about terrorism. He failed to do anything meaningful about terrorism at the time and we all paid the price for that. When he was on his game Clinton was a decent, moderate Republican kind of a president who could run government with polls in one hand and an overweight almost teenage mistress in another without much trouble because his really stupid bunch of advisers from Arkansas had moved on or been jailed and he had replaced them with people who were actually competent and not just Arkansas state house butt kissers. It is a pile of possum manure that Bill Clinton was a 'great' president. His accomplishments, thanks to Dick Morris, suspiciously read like Newt Gingrich's Contract for America.

[jincstress]

Oral sex. gah. If thats still the big ***** in Clinton's armor then we had it GOOD. Not like GW - war criminal who shredded the Constitution.

[saturn05]

jarbles has marbles for a brain. Just where did he get his facts???

[Lawguy1234]

Wow, the leftist loons are out today... still bitter over the 2000 election! Keep blaming Bush for everything, it's a great strategy to ignoring the absolute failures of the current "president" Obama.

[USSAmerikan]

Lets leave Bill alone. He paid for his pecadillos long ago... I'd take 10 Clintons, with their promiscuity and all to one Obama, green and ready to screw up as badly as he has been so far this year. We are about the only country in the world that is aghast at a president's preference for variety in the opposite sex. France even had a dedicated spot for DeGaulle's mistress at his funeral.

[HisPrinceMichael]

Beyond the diversion of scandal, the TRUE Clinton "legacy"
can be described in two-words: Waco. Elian.
Justice, slick, awaits YOU.

http://www.all4webs.com/x/w/all4yahweh

[rexreddy]

On Clinton?s surplus.
Having a surplus means that the Government stole so much money from the taxpayers that they couldn't even spend it all!

Bush gave it back to the tax payers.
I had been laid of from my job as a Steelworker
I got a check that year.
It covered my mortgage.
It saved my house.
Then I got another job.

Times are getting hard again.
Obamas answer?

Cap and trade. = More expensive energy. =More money out of my pocket. =More jobs move over seas to get around it. =More lay offs in the US.

Health Care bill =More expensive heath care =More money out of my pocket. = More jobs lost.

And so on and so on.

[rexreddy]

Compared to his other transgressions the Lewinsky thing means nothing.
He declassified launch computer technology and then sold it to the Chinese.
It is amazing how many people don?t understand the seriousness of that action and can?t connect the dots to the possible ramifications.

The following are people who should never be (or never have been) a ?POTUS.?

1.Bill Clinton
2.Bush 2.0
3.Gore
4.Hilary
5.McCain
6.Edwards
7.Obama
8.Biden

[rexreddy]

Why did my "quotation" marks display as "Question" marks?
That's almost as weird as having a Communist become POTUS!

[TexGEOas]

Jennifer Flowers = I cracked
Paula Jones = I exposed myself and I cracked
Juanita Broderick = I raped and I cracked
Monica Lewinsky = I cracked and I....