Although Bill Clinton?s reputation as a statesman has long since recovered in most quarters following personal scandals in the 1990s, a new, four-hour documentary portrays the arc of his career as one littered with sexual dalliances and foibles.
That?s doubly surprising when you consider the source: not a conservative production company but PBS.
Continue Reading?Clinton? is the latest installment in PBS?s ?American Experience? series and is set to air in February. A half-hour sneak peak is being previewed Thursday evening at the National Press Club.
The film covers Clinton?s life in its entirety ? from his childhood in Arkansas to his first runs for office to his election as governor of Arkansas to his presidency ? but almost a full hour of the documentary focuses on Clinton?s personal struggles with fidelity, coupled with harsh, blunt language from many of his colleagues and chroniclers. In fact, the film?s introduction, a quick summary of the entire documentary, opens with the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Eight minutes in, the topic of Gennifer Flowers surfaces.
?There was this growing skepticism in the press that this guy was just a big phony,?? Time?s Joe Klein said, discussing Clinton?s reaction to the allegations. ?He was too slick. He was too smooth. And he would lawyer answers to questions.?
When discussing the Clintons? years in Arkansas, narrator Campbell Scott said, ?Hillary had to deal with Bill?s constant womanizing.?
?You?ve got to understand, at one time, there [were] at least 25 women per day coming through there trying to find him,? sais Paul Fray, Clinton?s campaign manager during his unsuccessful congressional run in 1974. ?I?d tell them, 'He?s on the road, get out the door.' But, Lord, it was bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.?
?He draws women in, and they are literally mesmerized by this man,? said Marla Crider, who was a congressional campaign aide to Clinton. ?It was absolutely like fly on honey. And he needed that. He needed that kind of adoration.?
The Lewinsky scandal occupies a nearly 40-minute stretch toward the end of the film and is largely used as the coda to Clinton?s time in office.
?There were almost these sparks flying between them from that first moment when they saw each other,? said Ken Gormley, a law professor at Duquesne University and the author of ?The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr.?
?It?s almost as though there was a part of Bill Clinton that he had no control over,? said William Chafe, a history professor at Duke University. ?That whenever it had the opportunity to come out, it was going to come out and with no forethought, with no calculation, with no sense of the consequences; it was simply going to happen. And that?s terrifying.?
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