A&E series examines effect of ‘Clinton Affair’
No matter how you may feel about the situation with our current administration, presidential scandals are nothing new to this country. Be it Warren Harding with Teapot Dome, Richard Nixon with Watergate or Ronald Reagan with Iran-Contra, this country has a long and not-so-proud tradition of misbehavior in the Oval Office, and one of the most recent is the subject of a documentary series premiering tonight on A&E Network. In “The Clinton Affair,” a six-part series starting tonight at 9 and airing through Tuesday, awardwinning producer Alex Gibney and director Blair Foster (“Rolling Stone: Stories From the Edge”) examine the series of events that led to the impeachment of Bill Clinton — including Whitewater, the Paula Jones lawsuit and Monica Lewinsky — and the lasting effect the scandal has had on the country, exploring broader topics such as media, feminism, politics and power. Through interviews with some of the players involved — including Lewinsky, for- mer Clinton adviser James Carville and former independent counsel Ken Starr — as well as never-beforeseen archival footage, the series endeavors to untangle the twisted sequence of events that led to the impeachment trial that arrested the nation and set our political system on its current partisan path. “I was just genuinely surprised at how relevant it all feels now,” said Foster of what she found in her research. “I mean, it wasn’t long before Paula Jones’ lawsuit that we had experienced Anita Hill and the Clarence Thomas hearings, and that obviously became very relevant during this project. So on the one hand, I sort of felt like, oh, as a country maybe we had progressed in a lot of areas, and in other ways, I thought, oh, we haven’t really progressed as far as we might think we have.” Of course, central to Clinton’s impeachment was his “inappropriate relationship” with Lewinsky, a White House intern in 199596, and that he lied about it to a grand jury in 1998. Here, Lewinsky, now 45 and a fashion designer and activist, gives an in-depth reflection on a chapter of her life that most would just as soon forget. “I think she is remarkably composed and she’s remarkably sane and well-adjusted given all of the things she experienced.” Foster said. “And I was just really struck by both how smart and just how grounded she seemed. “I was fortunate to interview her parents and they both described her as stubborn,” she continued with a laugh, “in a very loving way, and I think she is very tough. I think she was always very strong and very tough. And then talk about the ultimate trial-by-fire experience and that, for someone like her, it only made her stronger. You know, it’s interesting because she’s very charming and she’s just someone you like immediately and you can’t help but think what would have happened to her life had these events not become public.”