Lewinsky says it's all a lie

2006-06-25 21:39

London - Monica Lewinsky is the subject of the most-discussed bits of Bill Clinton's new , but she's not happy with what he's written about her.

In an interview with the Daily Mail tabloid, Lewinsky called the former president's account of their relationship dishonest and said he was a "revisionist of history", who has missed an opportunity to undo some of the damage their entanglement caused her.

"He could have made it right with the book," the newspaper quoted her as saying. "But he hasn't. He is a revisionist of history. He has lied."

Lewinsky, the one time White House intern whose affair with Clinton led to his near-impeachment, said his description of their relationship in his just-published book My Life made it sound like the dalliance came only at her initiative and was purely physical.

"I really didn't expect him to go into detail about our relationship" in the memoir, she said.

"I was the buffet"

"But if he had and he'd done it honestly, I wouldn't have minded.

"I did at least expect him to correct the false statements he made when he was trying to protect the presidency.

"Instead, he talked about it as though I had laid it all out there for the taking. I was the buffet and he just couldn't resist the dessert," she said.

"That's not how it was. This was a mutual relationship, mutual on all levels, right from the way it started and all the way through.

"I don't accept that he had to completely desecrate my character."

Clinton wrote that his affair with Lewinsky revealed "the darkest part of my inner life" and led to his temporary banishment from the White House bedroom to a nearby couch.

He said on CBS's 60 Minutes that he became involved with her "for the worst possible reason. Just because I could.".

Monica staying in seclusion

Lewinsky, 30, noted that when prosecutors began pressuring her to discuss her affair with the president, she was the same age that his daughter, Chelsea, was now.

"How would he feel if she was trashed by the person she had had the relationship with - a person who has denied it to save himself - if she was called a liar, a stalker, crazy, stupid?"

The Daily Mail said it had interviewed Lewinsky, who lives in New York, at an undisclosed location in the United States where she was staying until the wave of Clinton publicity subsides.

The newspaper did not immediately respond to a query about whether it had paid Lewinsky for the interview, a common practice in the British press.

Buy Bill Clinton's book, My Life, at Kalahari.net

- AP