Do you think Clinton truly thought in his mind he was lying when he said

[Toots]

"I did not have sexual relations with that women Monica Lewinski". I believe he felt because of the definition of sexual relations given to him by the independent council that excluded oral sex from sexual relations that the Big Dog actually felt like he was being completely truthful. Do you believe he is so stupid as to believe he could stand there in front of America and tell a bold faced lie and not be caught in it? As for me I don't care two squats about him stretching the truth about things, all politicians do it, but what I dislike about his strong sexual appetite is that it involved cheating on his family. For that I was and am pissed at him but I still feel he was one of the savviest men we have had as President since the founding fathers or at least Lincoln, not to mention the smartest and best all around. I think he was also one of the most truthful at least in his own mind..

[Loonman]

1. If he had just said "sex"

Which implies intercourse, yes, he would not have been lying, but "sexual relations" is vague enough to include "fooling around", I suppose.

[madokie]

14. What is your definition of SEX

when it comes right down to it. Isn't that the real question
:toast:

[Loonman]

18. Sticking it in

Penetration with the ol' heat seaking moisture missile, man! That's my definition of sex.

[madokie]

22. my bad, didn't mean to direct that to you, sorry

The words sexual relations encompasses a myriad of definitions.:shrug:

[acmavm]

2. Let's see...Rhodes Scholar, sexual relations, did not.

Yep, he was lying.

About something that was none of our business, but all the same.

[Ex Lion Tamer]

28. Agreed . . .

He was lying. And it was stupid. And he shouldn't have done it. Nor should he have had ANY kind of intimate relation with Lewinsky.

Dumbass completely pissed me off by playing right into the hands of his haters.

But by no means did it justify impeachment! And by no means did it justify the press frenzy.

That was the real crime.

[Yupster]

48. Lying his ass off

the worst that would happen is it would be his word against hers and he could lie his way through that.

If there wasn't a blue dress, he'd still be lying about it today too.

[Straight Shooter]

3. He was being disingenuous and he knew it.

I don't blame him for not wanting to reveal his sordid shenanigans with Ms. Kneepads, but he took a risk and lost. The ultimate decision was his to make as to whether to reveal the truth, or not.

I remember reading about a survey where a vast majority of high school students do not believe oral sex is actually "sex." A friend of mine used to say, "Eatin' ain't cheatin'." Who knows what was going on in his mind. But I disagree with his decision to hide the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Too much was at stake.

edit typo

[Vanje]

4. The correct answer to the question would have been....

"My private life is none of your damn business."

[merbex]

39. Or, yes I did have an illicit relationship with a woman other than my wife

AND I don't think it's anyone's business

[Yupster]

49. But when you're a boss

you do need to keep your hands off the help. That's only good sense.

[eallen]

5. He knew he was lying, BECAUSE he relied on lawyerly semantics.

Let's be honest, here. In any other context, when someone uses a narrow and strained sense of a phrase to say something that fools his audience, but that later gives him a purely technical out, we recognize it as deceit. And should. Clinton was too clever by half.

It's also the case that that deceit did not bother me nearly as much as Bush's deceits about the war. A man lying about his extramarital affair does not shake our polity in the same way as a president lying about core foreign policy.

And in any case, Clinton is no longer president. I don't have to believe Clinton was honest, to condemn Bush as corrupt.

[etherealtruth]

16. Exactly ...

I certainly do not believe that Clinton's affair(s) or his disingenuous testimony were his highest points in office. I also clearly understand that he did not endanger my life (and way of life)or that of others with his personal failings. Where as Chimpy and the evil cabal's lies ...

[EstimatedProphet]

6. Wouldn't a better question be:

"Do you think Bush knew he was lying when he said the 16 words in the SOTU speech?"

Yes. Yes, I think he knew he was lying at the time.

[calico1]

7. Yes, he was lying and he knew it.

He should have said his personal life was none of anyone's business instead of thinking anyone would buy that ridiculous lie.

[karynnj]

8. I think, at minimum, he was trying to create a false impression

At the time, I don't think he thought he would be caught. It was he said, she said and Lewinsky had enough flakiness in her background which was published that a reasonable person would think that there was no sexual contact. That Monica kept a certain blue dress unlaundered is beyond weird.

My guess would be Clinton thought he could get away with lying or at least not being totally honest and justified it to himself because he felt there were important things he had to do that could suffer if he told the truth on a matter he considered insignifficant and he likely didn't want Hillary and Chelsea hurt. (Though he could have prevented that hurt by acting morally in the first place.)

[Child_Of_Isis]

19. Monica kept a certain blue dress unlaundered

I think he was set up. The right wing knew his weakness and pounced on it. That being said, I think he should have been politically savvy enough not to fall for it.

[patrice]

27. Exactly! Linda Tripp, Lucian Goldberg et al . . . . Entrapment!!!

[Mr_Spock]

9. Is it 1999 all over again?

Whoa! I musta slept really poorly last millenium!

[madokie]

10. I find his sexual desires of no concern to me.

It goes both ways, it takes two. So I'm pissed about the 8 year 70+ million dollar witch hunt, that's what I'm pissed about. There's lots of promiscuous people of both sex's but they have no effect on me. I Apologize if out of line here. peace

[afdip]

11. nabokov said, "we sometimes don't realize when we've done right

but we always know when we've done wrong." he knew he was lying. as a former philanderer, i convinced myself long ago there were varying degrees of lying. lying about sex does not even make the needle on the "lie meter" quiver.

[Botany]

12. So what!

I hope he had a great time and she talked to him before
and after she she did it and he had a huge O.

It is none of my biz or your biz the only people it should
affect is Clinton, Monica, and their families.

And yes it should have wound up in court ..... divorce court ....
if Hillary had thought it was the right ting to do.

I wonder if all the dead people as a result of bush's lies
would want to back history up and forget that said
chapter of an American political witch hunt ......
which by the by got started after Clinton turned down the
PNAC war idea.

[Skinner]

13. He knew he was being misleading.

He is a smart guy. He knew exactly what he was doing.

It was a calculated choice of words which was *technically* not a lie, but was intended to deliberately give the wrong impression.

He chose the phrase "sexual relations" because in the actual legal case there was a loophole in their definition of sexual relations. Paraphrase here: According to the definition provided, a person engaged in sexual relations if that person touched another person on certain parts of the body defined as sexual. Since Bill Clinton did not do the touching, but rather received the touching, he was (according to the definition provided) not engaging in sexual relations.

So, I think he justified his statement to himself as being *technically* not a lie. But the clear intent was to deceive. This is a skill that (IMHO) most successful politicians are very good at: Misleading people without actually lying.

[Don Claybrook]

15. If he didn't think he was lying

then he was deluding himself. Yeah, I believe he knew he was lying, even if he could parse his way around the definitions.

[antonialee839]

17. Yes, he truly knew he was lying. I would have lied too if

I knew my spouse was listening and I had to admit to an affair publicly.
As far as his cheating, I'm not pissed at him, I'm not his wife, it's none of my business. I also think Hillary knew what she was getting when she married him. This was not the first or even second affair.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

20. If he had shown some backbone it would have died a quick death.

"My personal life is not open to questions."

[Yupster]

50. That's a tough thing to say though

when the affair is at work with someone on the payroll.

General rule to all bosses.

Keep your hands off the help. Period.

[mmonk]

21. He was parsing the meaning of what he had done.

Doesn't matter because it wasn't a matter of state.

[Sgent]

23. Easy answer

Would your wife/husband/SO consider what he did sexual relations AKA cheating?

Of course he was misleading people. He should have said its between me and Hillary -- and I think most people would have respected that, although there would ahve been some who assumed the worst (if not msot). Him having an affair isn't exactly the end of the world -- he isn't the first man on this earth, nor the last.

[chaumont58]

24. I think Clinton trusted people too much

I think he trusted Monica so much so that he didn't think she would do anything to harm or hurt him. He just couldn't imagine that she had kept that blue dress in pristine condition and made it available to ole PornStarr.

[freestyle]

25. Yes. He should have just said mind your f'ing business.

The only person entitled to the answer to that question was Hillary Clinton. Bill should have told everyone else to mind their damn business, that it was a family problem and naot a national issue. Instead he lied, which opened the door to those who had been after him all along.

Another response would have simply been the truth, with some needling thrown in. "Yeah. I did it. How the hell else do you think I got through phone calls with Bob Dole?"

[patrice]

26. It isn't Bill Clinton's fault Ken Starr left a hole in his inquisition

big enough to wiggle through. Our entire Legal, and Legislative, systems run on questions like "That depends upon what the definition of "is" is". His assumption that felatio is not the same thing as whatever Starr defined as "sexual relations" was consistent with WIDELY accepted rhetorical gambits common to both Republicans and Democrats.

As for his family: There are social economic classes in our country in which the married men and women delegate their intimate relationships with one another to convenient others. Whether that kind of understanding between a man and his wife is overt or covert is not the Public's responsibility, especially once the sexual delegatee is exposed.

That said, even if there were an "agreement" between Bill and Hillary about his extra-curricular escapades, you'd hope an intelligent honest man like Bill Clinton would notice the difference between sex with surrogates and how what he would have had, if he had been faithful, how fidelity can enhance his relationship to, not only Hillary, but to his Family. In other words, his relationship to Chelsea would be different IF, even though he had "permission" to wander from Hillary, he had not done it.

(Voice of experience here. This is not speculation. I am a child of the 60s . . . .)

[dogfacedboy]

29. I have always been a fan of the Big Dog.

To this day, however, I still believe he lied. I've always maintained that he lied, but he should have just come clean. He would have been forgiven. I'm not a lawyer; maybe there was a "lawyerspeak/lawyerthink" reason he did it.

[Norquist Nemesis]

30. Well...to tell the truth

I don't think about it. :shrug:

When it first started to break, it didn't suprise me that it might have occured and probably did. When he went on the defense and claimed he "didn't have sexual relations", I thought he looked like a married man who got caught in an affair.

It would be a rare case for any spouse who's having/has had an affair to simply come clean when first confronted. The first instinct is to deny. I'm not saying it's the correct thing to do...infidelity is not correct in my book. But I am saying it's human nature for most people to instinctively deny such behavior.

[seabeyond]

31. he was trying to say it so he was not lying. looked just like a child

i heard him that ight and husand and i looked at each other and both at same time said, blow job.

it was that easy to see

he was saying i didnt have intercourse, but we fooled around

i was raised with catholic girls that would go all around sex to be able to say they were virgins, wink

[TahitiNut]

41. I largely agree. I, too, thought "blow-job".

I am still left with two lasting impressions.
(1) I'm very doubtful that Bill Clinton really thought he was deceiving intelligent, sane listeners. While not a "wink and a nod" hypocrisy, I watched closely, listened, and heard "It's none of your business."
(2) Bill Clinton, even in carefully parsing his words, showed a far greater appreciation and comprehension of the factual truth than Reagan, Bush41, or Bush43.

I'm no rabid Clinton "fan." While possessed of the most remarkable political skills of any President since JFK, his accommodation of global corporatism was appalling. In using eager women for his libidinous gratification, he showed a chasm in good judgment a mile wide. I've been around political circles enough in the last 50 years to know that libido-run-amok is more evident in various political gatherings than any place outside of a whore house or strip club. Even as a fairly healthy male, it's always been remarkable to me how it feels like pheromones are as thick as a London fog at such gatherings. It's a close second to the remarkably superficial posturing and ego-trotting that's pervasive.

[seabeyond]

42. yep yep yep, i never wanted to be clintons friends, but

thought it was all pretty obvious and outrageous what the repugs and media did with it

[patrice]

45. You could add the Military in general to political

gatherings where phermones run like rivers.

[TahitiNut]

46. Yes, but there're interesting differences.

Gatherings at Officers' Clubs and officers' homes have a very interesting dominance/submissive 'dance' going on, but it's rarely clear who's playing for "tops". Enlisted gatherings are like cowboy bars - not much subterfuge. Political gatherings are more like rock band hotel rooms - with a veneer of erudition and distraction. The harnessed body language and posturing, however, is overwhelmingly contained ... and nearly explosive. I guess it's the tough membrane of pretense under which this explosive energy is wrapped that pretty much astonishes me. I have almost always attended, not as a "player" but as an adjunct of some kind - mostly as an interested 'outsider.' As such, I'm able to observe a bit like seeing a ballet from the wings - able to see the strain and effort and sweat that's not projected to the designated audience.

I must also note that coteries of close coworkers in political settings don't seem to exhibit the same tension and lek-like behavior. I've been to small house parties for former Gubernatorial and Senatorial cabinet/staffers/coworkers where the humor and relaxation were very evident and the (predatory) sexual tension nearly non-existent.

[patrice]

47. I was an "electronic news gatherer", i.e. videographer, in the ANG,

trained with regulars, from all branches of the Military, and routinely video-ed all kinds of gatherings. Your observations of the differences in the "dance" are true.

Freud (and others) were right: **Everything** is based on biology, no matter how much we "dress it up" (sublimate) it, its physical energy is still there driving behavior.

[DemExpat]

32. Oh, I believe he knew he was stretching the truth here

to avoid admitting his infidelity, but he did so in a manner that many smart people do and in so doing are not technically lying.

DemEx

[Arkana]

33. If he had just said "Yep. You got me. What are you gonna do?"

the Pubes would have had NOTHING.

[seabeyond]

34. maybe it wasnt political. maybe he didnt want truth out because

of wife and daughter. you think

[Arkana]

35. I didn't say that I didn't know why he lied about it...

I just was making the point that had he said "Yep. You got me. Now whatcha gonna do?", the Republicans would have been left clinging to less than nothing for 8 years.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

36. Yes, I felt he was lying & resented calling Monica That Woman.. this said

Why the heck does this matter now?????

[zbdent]

37. IIRC, that's the exact definition that got

Gingrich off scott-free . . .

[dave29]

38. he was compartmentalizing

as many sex addicts, and addicts in general do.

[LostinVA]

40. Nope -- I went to college with a lot of Baptists, and they thought

only sexual intercourse was sex -- anything else was technically not sex, so they were still virgins. Very bizarre to this then-Catholic women, let me tell you.

I think he was playing a very clever game, just like those SB "virgins" who would errrr.... service their boyfriends orally, but still think they were "pure"...

The whole thing is weird to me.

[patrice]

44. The exact same game churches around Tulsa Ok were playing

with high school students and silver chastity rings, when I taught Psychology to high school seniors. Psychology is about sex, drugs and rock-n-roll to teen agers, so I HEARD and observed a great deal. Believe me, vaginal intercourse was the ONLY thing that wasn't happening, and Many adults were going around patting themselves on the back, and creating jobs for themselves out of it while they were at it, knowing what was really going on, but those silver rings just looked oh so good in the Public eye.

[KG]

43. please, get over bill clinton. of course he knew he was lying

people need to stop assigning qualities to him that he does not posses. bill clinton is the reason george bush is in the white house.

[Tactical Progressive]

56. I have to disagree with that

Not the lying or that he knew he was. He used the truth to tell a lie. That's lying in my book. I concur.

No, I disagree that that's the reason George Bush is in the White House. Clinton's post-Lewinskigate polls were sky-high. We're here because of a malevolent right wing and a corrupt national media.

And even just specifically as to the Lewinski lying affair, I put far, far more blame on Democrats everywhere, not the politicians but regular Democrats like on this board, not sticking up for Clinton. I listened to alot of Democrats succumbing to the screaming right-wing treachery and bowing their heads, deferring to Clinton as immoral and taking his lie as something of import rather than the appropriate response to the depraved and un-Constitutional right-wing attack and unethical media assault that it was. Democrats wouldn't protect their own because Clinton embarassed them. As if they understood nothing about politics or what was at stake. Those 'Bush Democrats', those who allowed the right-wing to sway them with their phony morally-superior stance to a degree that it colored any of their political awareness, are why George Bush is in the White House, to the extent that the impeachment treachery had any effect. Hopefully, if something like this happened now, there would be a completely different attitude from Democrats as to what the real world is all about and what is really at stake.

So to any Democrat who sneers that Clinton is or was 'immoral' for either a personal infidelity or lying about it, I have only this to say: fuck you, you don't understand the first thing about morals. 3000 dead people under the WTC is immoral. Fifteen thousand crippled Americans in Iraq is immoral. A hundred thousand dead Iraqis is immoral. Dismantling Social Security is immoral. Anything else is just you (broad you, not you personally KG) still trying to grow up.

[Mike Daniels]

51. He knew he was lying

and his non-apology for lying once he knew he was going to be busted backfired on him so badly that he had to apologize again two days later.

[Blue_In_AK]

52. He was parsing words

and covering his ass. Don't get me wrong -- I like Bill and I don't think his sex life was anybody's business, but I'm sure he knew he wasn't being completely honest.

[WinkyDink]

53. "Sexual relations", according to

the American Heritage College dictionary = "sexual intercourse" as the number one definition.

Sure, he was being rather disingenuous; why not? It was nobody's business, as long as the NATION'S business was dealt with.
Also, it needs to be remembered that at the time Clinton knew NOTHING of what Monica may have said to the FBI. IOW, his Jesuitical denial can also be looked at as protecting the reputation of ML (i.e., what, a gentleman would say, "Her? Sure, I let her do me!" when the lady in question might be denying it? Hardly.).

Unlike the behavior of the leering pervert known as Ken Starr.

[Tactical Progressive]

54. I'll tell you exactly what he was thinking

"Relations" directly implies a two-way street. He planned and chose that word explicitly long beforehand as a strict legal truth to get out of the trap they were putting him in.

And he was absolutely telling the truth in that sense: he didn't have sexual 'relations' with 'that woman', Miss Lewinski.

And further I believe that beyond that he really felt that way in his heart, that is it wasn't just accurate legalese to cover up what he'd done. I think Bill Clinton didn't have full-on sexual relations with Monica at the start because he rationalized to himself that just getting a bj was only half-cheating. Alot of men feel this way.

He told a lie using a legal truth. And I believe he rationalized that it was the general truth when he chose to do it.

[slackmaster]

55. No, I don't buy that for a second

Maybe he said that on the advice of counsel, but it was an exercise in brinksmanship or hair-splitting.

[Fight_n_back]

57. Why do you care that he cheated on his family?

If he had been secretly running Canada then I would have been pissed. If he got phone calls during cabinet meetings from Canada (I told you never to call me here!) then it would be my business.

Plus the whole cheating thing is preposterous when you think about it. Was Hillary there? Was anything actually done to hillary? The people involved were Bill and Monica. Monica had issues with the way she was treated. Hillary wasn't involved at all except after the fact.

I asked someone this question and I thought their answer was kind of crazy.
Imagine you meet someone who is just perfect for you. You get along tremendously. they meet your needs in and out of the bedroom, physically, emotionally, mateirially. Nothing could be better for you. This person dies after 50 glorious years as your partner and then you find out they cheated on you. How would you feel?

Most people say they would feel betrayed, angry, dissapointed. But why really? It is a little nonsensical and clingy. Do you hate your parents because they loved more than one child? Probably, thats probably where it all starts. People aren't monogmous, stop expectinjg it and you will have a better time. If you think that people are monogamous then prove it.

As to your other question:
He knew he was misleading people. what he was doing was telling the Amercian people that he did not commit perjury. He is obviously in some sort of recovery program now, given the way he talks, "BEcause I can" is a giveaway. He says that part of his denial of that was denial in general but the man didn't commit perjury and didn't technically lie.

He just obfuscated the hell out of the question. Like saying "We don't torture" becuase you changed the definition of torture.

[Lilith Velkor]

58. 7 years later...I still don't give a fuck.

[bobbieinok]

59. read at the time in Newsweek that SoBapt convention in which Clinton

grew up did NOT view BJs as sex and so told the boys in the church (I asked my brother about this, but go no answer)

there was a quote from some retired official whose name I remembered from when I was a kid in the SoBapt church.....he confirmed that this is what the SoBapt convention taught at the time