WASHINGTON – President Clinton yesterday wished ex-squeeze Monica Lewinsky ”a good life” and said he feels ”badly” for her yearlong ordeal.
”What I hope is that she will be permitted to go on with her life, and I hope it will be a good life,” a pensive-looking Clinton said softly when asked about Lewinsky’s televised tell-all with ABC’s Barbara Walters on Wednesday night in which she bashed the president as a cad and a liar.
”I wish her well,” he said.
Clinton, asked about Lewinsky at a joint news conference with the Italian prime minister, said he didn’t watch the show and ”so I can’t really comment on that.”
It was a kinder, gentler Clinton, who just a year ago jabbed his finger at the TV cameras and denied having an affair with ”that woman.”
He said the sex-and-lies scandal ”was a pretty tough thing for everybody involved,” including Lewinsky, the ex-White House intern whose Oval Office hanky-panky with him led to impeachment charges and almost cost him his job.
In her girl-talk with Walters and in her newly released book, Lewinsky said Clinton’s cold public statements about her made her feel like dirt.
She also said she considered suicide after Sexgate investigator Ken Starr began probing the scandal, and that she can’t look at Clinton without feeling sick.
Polls showed public sympathy for Lewinsky rising and Clinton’s image plummeting after the show aired.
Lewinsky stands to make big bucks off her book deal and has been selling interviews to European TV.
Clinton shrugged off the idea that she’s making money off their affair:
”That’s not a decision for me to make,” he said. ”She paid quite a high price for a long time, and I feel badly for that. So I just hope it works out all right.
”All I can control in life is what I do and what I say … I don’t wish anyone ill who was caught up in this.”