Bill Clinton: I Misled People

• Share

(8 of 11)

With prosecutors pressing for answers and Clinton balking, the tone started out tense and got worse. Starr's team reminded Clinton of his obligation to answer, implicitly threatening that they could issue a new subpoena at any time. At one point, Clinton told the grand jury members that they and Starr had done their homework, but he was not going to change his story no matter how long they asked. Starr himself asked a few questions, but most of the grilling was left to his more seasoned deputies. Nearly the entire session focused on the Lewinsky affair, with questions also coming up about Kathleen Willey's allegation of being groped in the Oval Office. When the agreed time of four hours had elapsed, Starr asked to extend the session. The President declined.

The meeting broke up at 6:25, and attorney Kendall appeared outside the diplomatic entrance to say there would indeed be a speech that night. He then invoked the "four years, $40 million" mantra against Starr. That was a sure sign that the olive branch hadn't worked.

The last part of Clinton's triathlon was always supposed to be the easiest; at the very least, he is usually a good talker. Public opinion hadn't budged in seven months: we know you did it, we like you anyway, please just make it go away. He never had to offer much more than a simple explanation and a genuine apology, and in the final days leading up, people competed to lower the bar for him. Yet the greatest irony in a year of ironies would be that the speech in which he had to admit he had been lying went bad because, for once, he said what he honestly thought.

No one even wanted to confirm that there would be a speech at all, just in case things went too late or horribly wrong, or Clinton just couldn't pull it off after wrestling with Starr. Begala had begun working on a draft at home on Saturday. He tapped away on Sunday on a White House computer, without knowing anything about what the President was going to say under oath. He knew that an important element of the speech would be to say something about Hillary, but he had to leave that section blank for Clinton to fill. Begala's version centered on the President's own contrition, with no attack on Starr. Various friends sent in suggestions. Linda Bloodworth-Thomason helped with the language.

The next morning, Clinton turned over his draft to Begala to hone through the afternoon. After Clinton entered the Map Room to begin his testimony, longtime adviser Mickey Kantor convened a meeting in White House counsel Charles Ruff's office that included Clinton's top political aides. At this point, the phrase "legally accurate" as a way of describing a lie that does not count as perjury had not yet entered the lexicon.

Clinton's proposed draft was circulated, and his advisers were alarmed at the language and the fury he directed at Starr. Though Starr is unpopular, if the polling had made anything clear at all, it was that public forgiveness was conditioned on an apology. To try to skip that step seemed an unnecessary risk: it might cost Clinton a lot to say that he was a liar, but it would only help to say he was sorry for it. Kantor, chairing the meeting, was clear about where the boss stood. Everyone who was trying to keep the President from going after Starr was wasting his time.