Title: Bill Clinton 15 Years Ago: 'I Did Not Have Sexual Relations With That Woman' | National News | US News
Headings: Bill Clinton 15 Years Ago: 'I Did Not Have Sexual Relations With That Woman'
Bill Clinton 15 Years Ago: 'I Did Not Have Sexual Relations With That Woman'
The "girl"
The floater
The fixer
The prosecutor

Content: This story originally appeared in the Feb. 2, 1998, issue of U.S. News & World Report. Starr Struck
By Ronald Brownstein and Kenneth T. Walsh
In some ways, Bill Clinton's career in national politics amounts to a sustained test of public tolerance for ethical controversy. So far, the limits of that tolerance have proved very broad. He has survived—even at times thrived—despite a steady procession of controversies that trace all the way back to the celebrated 60 Minutes interview, exactly six years ago this week, in which he introduced himself to the American public by in effect admitting that he had been unfaithful to his wife. But the case of Monica Lewinsky, the 24-year-old former White House intern who has claimed in taped recordings to have conducted a sexual affair with the president, may test those limits like never before. If the allegations are true, the woman—the "girl," her lawyer keeps calling her—was only a few years older than Chelsea Clinton is now when she began a sexual relationship with Clinton. If the allegations are true, the affair began while he was president, not before; after he began a life in which every action was scrutinized, not before; with someone who worked for him, not with him—with someone described by friends as gushy and giggly. If the allegations are true, he didn't encourage her merely to fib to the press (as he once seemed to urge Gennifer Flowers) but actually to lie under oath.