Hillary Clinton On Monica Lewinsky Affair: ‘Forgiveness Is A Choice’
Hillary Clinton may be pushing for a 2016 presidential run, but the former Secretary of State still can’t escape questions something that happened nearly two decades ago — her husband’s affair with Monica Lewinsky.
This week the likely 2016 Democratic candidate was doing an interview with the BBC’s Woman’s Hour host Jenni Murray when the topic of Lewinsky came up. Murray asked Clinton for her thoughts on the scandal, to which Hillary very diplomatically ducked.
“Well that is something we have certainly moved beyond and our country has moved beyond. I have wished her well but it’s important to stay focused on what’s happening in the here and now,” Clinton said. “For us back in the United States, we still have a lot of work to do. Our people are not recovered from the great recession, there’s enormous about of anxiety and insecurity, our politics is dysfunctional, as you can see from over here. So I am looking at the here and now. ”
But Murray pressed further, asking how Hillary Clinton was able to forgive Bill Clinton for the infidelity.
Hillary replied:
“Forgiveness is a choice. And I fully respect those who don’t make that choice, for whatever reason, in their personal or their professional lives but for me it was absolutely the right choice,” Clinton responded. “For me, it is something that is incredibly difficult but I am grateful everyday that that’s the choice that I made and I’ve counseled others to see if in their own hearts they can also do that.”
“But it’s not by accident the great religions, the great writers talk about how the person who forgives is liberated, maybe even more than the person who is forgiven.”
Monica Lewinsky has not shied away from talking about the affair. In a recent interview, she told National Geographic that it was an “alarming, frightening, confusing and excruciating” time.
“I was a virgin to humiliation of that level,” Lewinsky said.
While Hillary Clinton may be tired of questions about Monica Lewinsky, as she gears up for a run for the presidency in 2016 she’s likely to continue encountering them.
