Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Clinton: Affair a way to manage ‘my anxieties’
Former President Bill Clinton, recalling the sex scandal that led to his impeachment in 1998, says in a new documentary series that his extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky was a way of “managing my anxieties.”
The four-part documentary series, “Hillary,” which was released Friday on Hulu, focuses on Hillary Clinton’s life, her marriage to Bill Clinton and her unsuccessful campaign for president in 2016.
In the series, Bill Clinton is asked by the director, Nanette Burstein, why he engaged in an affair with Lewinsky, then a White House intern, and whether he weighed the risks.
“Nobody sits down and thinks, ‘I think I’ll take a really irresponsible risk,’ ” Clinton says.
Clinton says that he was under enormous pressure, but that his actions were inexcusable.
“You feel like you’re staggering around — you’ve been in a 15-round prizefight that was extended to 30 rounds, and here’s something that’ll take your mind off it for a while,” Clinton says. “Everybody’s life has pressures and disappointments and terrors, fears of whatever, things I did to manage my anxieties for years.”
Clinton’s explanation drew derisive reactions on Twitter, with some commenters suggesting that the president should have turned to Xanax, Valium or meditation.
The House impeached Clinton on charges that he lied to a grand jury about his affair with Lewinsky and obstructed justice, making him only the second president to hold that distinction until Donald Trump. Like the current president, Clinton was acquitted by the Senate.
Clinton initially denied the affair before eventually confessing. “I was just devastated,” Hillary Clinton says in the documentary. “I could not believe it.”
Bill Clinton says the most difficult part of the ordeal was facing the couple’s daughter, Chelsea.
He says he is a different person now. “You know, we all bring our baggage to life and sometimes we do things we shouldn’t do. It was awful what I did.”