Bill Clinton documentary "I screwed up with this girl"

**Novice** · February 13th, 2012, 10:27 AM

'I screwed up with this girl': How Bill Clinton broke the news of Lewinsky affair to former aide and how he was besieged by '25 adoring women a day'

By Daniel Bates

Last updated at 12:03 PM on 13th February 2012

Bill Clinton was besieged by 25 women a day who flocked to see him before he even got to the White House.
A TV biography of the former U.S. President claims that he was already a huge hit with the ladies during his initial bid for governorship in his home state of Arkansas in the 1970s.

Former senior aides said that women were 'literally mesmerised' and swarmed around him 'like flies to honey'.

Sparks flew: A photo taken in 1995 shortly after Clinton and Lewinsky began their affair when she came to intern at the White House

His appeal only grew by the time he became president - during which time he admitted he had been forced to' shut down my body' to avoid multiple indiscretions.

The disclosures were made in the forthcoming PBS documentary Clinton in which his former staffers speak for the first time about their sense of betrayal over his affair with Monica Lewinsky in 1998.

Long before that, however, Mr Clinton’s sexual appetite was causing problems. According to the documentary, his political team realised it was a stumbling block during his failed run for Congress in 1974 in his home state of Arkansas.

All in the past: Monica Lewinsky (left) now lives in New York and Bill Clinton (right) at a public speaking engagement last week

Campaign manager Paul Fray said: 'You got to understand that at one time there was at least 25 women per day coming through there trying to find him and I’d tell them he was out on the road.

‘Lord it was bad. Bad, bad bad, bad bad.'
Marla Crider, who worked with Mr Clinton in Arkansas and had an affair with him, describes women as being ‘literally mesmerised’.

It was like flies to honey. I don't think there is any question Hillary was hurt.'
- Marla Crider, Former advisor

She says: ‘It was like flies to honey.

‘He needed that, he needed that kind of adoration. I don’t think there was any question that Hillary was hurt whether it was me, or anyone else’.
Among those interviewed is Betsey Wright, Mr Clinton’s trusted political aide, who made a crucial intervention in his career in 1987 the day before he was due to announce his run for presidency.

She confronted Mr Clinton with a list of his previous girlfriends who he had to deal with.

Writer Gail Sheely said: ‘Just the day before the press conference he was going to announce that he was going to run, Betsey Wright, his ferociously protective campaign manager, sat him down with a list of names of women and went through one after the other

Explosive: A four-hour documentary, set to air next week, about former president Bill Clinton will dedicate a full hour to his affair with intern Monica Lewinsky

Close encounter: President Bill Clinton goes into hug 23-year-old Monica Lewinsky with whom he had an affair during his first-term in the White House

'How many times? Where did you meet her? How likely is she to talk?'
Clinton said for each name that ‘she’ll never say anything’, but Miss Wright replied: ‘But you don’t know that!’

'You got to understand that at one time there was at least 25 women per day coming through there trying to find him and I’d tell them he was out on the road. Lord it was bad. Bad, bad bad, bad bad.'
- Paul Fray, Former Clinton campaign manager

Miss Wright supposedly told Clinton: ‘The problem is we’re not just talking about you, we’re talking about your wife, we’re talking about your child.

'She said I don’t think you can run'.

Miss Wright tells the documentary: ‘It became clear it was not the time for him to do it. This was not the time.’

By the time he got to the White House in 1992, however, Mr Clinton appeared to be having even more difficulty controlling himself.
And when Miss Lewinsky arrived as one of his interns, his self-control evaporated completely.
Ken Gormley, a legal expert working in the White House, tells the documentary that there were 'almost these sparks flying between them from the first moment when they saw each other'.

And when the affair became public Miss Wright says that his staff were deeply upset because he had lied to them and lied 'to a lot of people'.

Advisor: Dick Morris, former aide to Bill Clinton, said the former president did not take his advice to tell the American public the truth

On of Mr Clinton’s closest advisers, Dick Morris, tells the documentary: ‘When the Lewinsky scandal broke the president paged me and I returned the call.
‘He said: "Ever since I go 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."

'I said to him that the problem that presidents have is not the sin, it’s the cover-up and you should explore just telling the American people the truth.

'He said: "Really, do you think I could do that?"

'I said let me test it, let me run a poll, so I took a poll... and I called him back and I said they will forgive the adultery, but they won’t easily forgive that you lied.'
Clinton, now 65, disregarded his advice and continued to conceal his relationship with Lewinsky.

In the end he was impeached but acquitted.
He did however remain very popular and left office with a 65 per cent approval rating, the highest exiting poll out of any U.S. President.
The documentary also features fascinating colour about the Clinton White House with aides describing his first year as 'chaos'.

The West Wing resembled a fraternity house with pizza boxes littering the floor as bullish young aides who did not even wear ties wandered in and out of meetings as and when they liked.

Troubled: President Clinton and first lady Hillary walk outside the Oval Office in 1998 after the details of his extra-marital affair with Lewinsky were made public

'Mastermind': Then-First Lady Hillary Clinton, pictured at the White House in 1995, features prominently in the film and she is credited with reviving Bill Clinton's career in its early days

Summing up Mr Clinton’s presidency, U.S. journalist David Maraniss, tells the documentary: 'People always try to separate the good from the bad in Clinton and say that, if he had not done certain things, he would have been a great president.

'But you can't do that. Those were his major characteristics'.

Clinton’s former press secretary Dee Dee Myers adds: 'How many second chances does a person deserve? Clinton’s view is as many second chances as a person is willing to take.'
Hillary Clinton also features prominently in the film and she is credited with being the ‘mastermind’ of reviving his career in its early days.
When Penthouse model Gennifer Flowers claimed to have had a 12-year affair with her husband, Mrs Clinton' brought him back from the dead' with a robust TV interview in which she famously said she was not going to 'stand by my man' like the Tammy Wynette song.

Hot water: Clinton was impeached while he was president but acquitted of perjury charges and obstruction of justice

Clinton political advisor Carol Willis says: 'Bill Clinton is a smart guy, a very smart guy but he will tell you that Hillary is much smarter than he is, she’s much tougher than he is, she’s more of a pragmatist.'

The documentary comes days after the publication of a book by former White House intern Mimi Alford which detailed her 18-month affair with former American president John F Kennedy in the 1960s.

In her book Miss Alford alleges that Mr Kennedy took her virginity in his wife’s bedroom as colleagues drank cocktails down the hallway.

She also claimed he once asked her to perform a sex act on a senior aide whilst he looked on.

Clinton premieres on four consecutive nights from Monday, February 20 at 10.15pm on PBS (Sky channel 166 & Virgin Media 243)

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz1mHP6WW8p

**greysfang** · February 13th, 2012, 10:35 AM

Its called Clinton: American Experience. I just set my DVR from my phone, because I'm young and cool and techie like that.

**sputnik** · February 13th, 2012, 10:42 AM

i'm still mystified and fascinated by how extramarital affairs can ruin a politician's life in the US. and i want to watch this documentary.

**gas_chick** · February 13th, 2012, 11:45 AM

Pretty ridiculous the big deal of it all isn't it. I don't care who the president is screwing as long as it isn't me.

**BBDSP** · February 13th, 2012, 11:47 AM

I would have him back (as president) in a heartbeat.

**BITTER** · February 13th, 2012, 12:23 PM

When they talk about term limits, do they mean consecutive terms, or total amount?
So he'll never be able to run again? Not that he could really, having had triply bypass and all.

**Novice** · February 13th, 2012, 12:37 PM

Originally Posted by BITTER

When they talk about term limits, do they mean consecutive terms, or total amount?
So he'll never be able to run again? Not that he could really, having had triply bypass and all.

Doesn't he go every day?

**Lobelia** · February 13th, 2012, 12:39 PM

Is this a 4-part documentary or is it just going to be shown 4 nights in a row?

**greysfang** · February 13th, 2012, 12:41 PM

4 Hours. The article says four parts, but my DVR schedule is only showing two parts at the moment. I'm guessing it will either be four one-hour eps or two 4-hour eps.

**Novice** · February 13th, 2012, 12:44 PM

Originally Posted by Lobelia

Is this a 4-part documentary or is it just going to be shown 4 nights in a row?

2 part I think - but I think tht its different in the US & the UK.....

US info below.....

PBS and AMERICAN EXPERIENCE Announce Clinton | Business Wire
PBS and AMERICAN EXPERIENCE Announce Clinton

Newest Entry in the Acclaimed AMERICAN EXPERIENCE Presidents Collection Profiles the 42nd President
Part 1 premieres Presidents Day, Monday, February 20, 2012
9:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m. ET on PBS
Part 2 premieres Tuesday, February 21, 2012
8:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m. ET on PBS

ARLINGTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--PBS and AMERICAN EXPERIENCE announced today that Clinton, a four-hour, two-part miniseries on the 42nd President, premieres on Presidents Day, Monday, February 20, 2012 at 9:00 p.m. ET, and continuing on Tuesday, February 21 at 8:00 p.m. ET.

PBS’ new season to include a Bill Clinton bio and Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s ‘Finding Your Roots’

'American Experience' documentary series will take a two-part look at presidency

Comments By David Hinckley / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Published: Thursday, November 17, 2011, 6:00 AM

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JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty

PBS’ ‘American Experience’ will look at the presidency of Bill Clinton, who spoke alongside President Obama last December in the White House Briefing Room.

PBS is under no illusion it’s going to please everybody when it unveils a four-hour miniseries in February on the presidency of Bill Clinton.
“Whenever you have a subject people are passionate about, whether it’s a politician or Duke Ellington, you’ll have people who say you left out their favorite part, or included their least favorite part,” says John Wilson, senior vice president and chief of TV programming for PBS.
The Clinton project, to debut Feb. 20 on President's Day and conclude the next night, is part of PBS’ “American Experience” series, which means it will be structured more as a documentary than a dramatic miniseries.
There will be very little dramatic re-creation, says Wilson, with the show instead built on vintage film and interviews with friends, staffers, admirers and critics.
That will include, for instance, former presidential press secretary Dee Dee Myers and current Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.
It will not include either Bill Clinton or his wife, the current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, which Wilson says is “not unusual for an ‘American Experience’ project.
“It maintains an appropriate distance between journalist and subject. It certainly won't be an autobiography.”
“American Experience” has done similar profiles on Presidents like Theodore Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan, and Wilson notes there can be “a two-edged sword” when the subject and many of his colleagues are still alive.
“On the one edge, you can presume the audience has a little more personal knowledge, so you don’t have to fill in as much information as you would on, say, Andrew Jackson.
“On the other edge, because people know so much, or believe they do,” that they may look at it with more preconceptions.
Other new PBS winter and spring projects will include “Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr.,” a 10-part series that launches March 25.
Wilson says this is the latest extension of the highly popular genealogy programs Gates has been hosting.
“His shows have not only captured the tremendous interest in genealogy,” says Wilson, “I think they’ve taught us a lot about who we are as a people.”
The episodes in this series will be self-contained, with each case resolved within its hour.
PBS’ “American Masters” series will also finally get to Johnny Carson, with director Peter Jones’ production set to air May 14. This one has always been a natural, says Wilson, but it couldn’t be “done properly” until Lacy got access to the Carson family and archives.
Wilson also confirmed that PBS will air a second series of three “Sherlock” episodes, launching May 6. This 21st-century incarnation of the famous Arthur Conan Doyle detective Sherlock Holmes has been one of PBS’ breakout hits — alongside “Downton Abbey,” which, as previously announced, will launch its second season Jan. 8.

Read more: PBS