Barack Obama this week seemed amazed and befuddled when former President Bill Clinton blatantly lied about various remarks the Democratic senator and presidential aspirant made on the campaign trail. His befuddlement may give evidence of Obama’s inexperience. Afterall, it was 10 years ago tomorrow that Clinton looked right into a TV lens — thus looking every American in the eye — and told us a bold-faced, despicable lie, the same one he had told under oath in a court case nine days earlier. The earlier recitation of the lie led to Clinton being impeached, fined by trial court and stripped of his law license. But it was the public lie, in its brazenness, that ought to make every American skeptical of every word Mr. Clinton says.
On Jan. 26, 1998, at a Roosevelt Room announcement of a new education initiative, nobody asked Clinton about Monica Lewinsky. Nobody put him on the spot. But he brought up the topic anyway: “I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I’m going to say this again. I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time — never. These allegations are false.” It was a coldly calculated, finger-wagging lie.
He had already perjured himself in court, but almost nobody knew that at the time. Even if they had known, this lie, although legally meaningless, seemed worse. It broke trust with the American people – people who, polls then showed, were somewhat inclined to forgive him if he came clean about his actions and moved on. The incorrigible Clinton, of course, had lied before and would lie again, on matters small and not so small. But this lie, so blatant and unnecessary, should have soured the public on him forever. What resulted from the lie was a yearlong impeachment battle that would lastingly poison the American political system. It should make Americans wary of letting Bill Clinton anywhere near the White House ever again.
Clinton’s lies about Obama this week show that he has not changed one bit. Former Clinton aide Gregory Craig, who was at his side during most of the Lewinsky scandal, now is an adviser for Obama. This week, he put it best about the man he knows so well: “Events raise the question, if Hillary’s campaign can’t control Bill, whether Hillary’s White House could.”
