Bill Clinton on Monica Lewinsky: “I Screwed Up With This Girl”

Monica Lewinsky in 1997

Monica Lewinsky has been getting a lot of page views lately. Why?

Turns out PBS is about to release Clinton, a new four-hour documentary about the presidency of Bill Clinton. So naturally, Monica Lewinsky is getting nearly all the press.

Many of the stories focus on a phone call Clinton made to pollster/Svengali Dick Morris early on:

“When the Lewinsky scandal broke the President paged me and I returned the call. And he said, ‘Ever since I got here to the White House I’ve had to shut my body down sexually I mean, but I screwed up with this girl. I didn’t do what they said I did, but I may have done so much that I can’t prove my innocence.'”

Well, it’s a juicy quote.

The timing is also extra-good, with Newt Gingrich running for president and everyone reminding each other that back in 1998, Gingrich was cheating on his wife while condemning Clinton for doing the same.  Fans of the sexual antics of politicians will enjoy this quote from the transcripts of Lewinsky’s phone confessions to Linda Tripp:

LEWINSKY: The truth is if I felt — and I know this is going to sound really hokey, but —

TRIPP: What?

LEWINSKY: To me a little bit of — it’s for the country. Every president, every (REDACTED) president we have ever had has always had lovers because the pressure of the job is too much. Too much.

TRIPP: Mm-hmm.

LEWINSKY: Too much to always rely on your wife, with whom you have too much baggage — which you inevitably will if you got to that point. And I think it’s bad for the country.