American Morning

“My Life” went on sale yesterday. And we’re going to debate this morning the 957-page tome and its impact on the Clinton legacy with two of our favorite guests. In Washington, D.C., this morning, Democratic consultant Victor Kamber with the Kamber Group. And also this morning, Cliff may, former RNC communications director, now with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Gentlemen, good morning.

VICTOR KAMBER, DEMOCRATIC CONSULTANT: Good morning.

CLIFF MAY, FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: Good morning.

O’BRIEN: Let’s start by listening to a little chunk of what President Clinton had to say to the interviewer from the BBC.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: One of the reasons he got away with it? Is because people like you only ask people like me the questions. You gave him a complete free ride.

Any abuse they want to do, they indicted all these little people from Arkansas. What did you care about them? They’re not famous.

Who cares if their lives were trampled? Who cares if their children were humiliated? Who cares if Starr sends FBI agents to their school and rip them out of their school to humiliate them to force their parents to lie about me?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O’BRIEN: He’s talking about the independent counsel Ken Starr, and he says you gave him a complete ride, back to blaming the media.

Let’s start with you, Cliff, this morning. What do you make of that accusation? We gave him a free ride.

MAY: Well, that’s just clearly not true. I mean I have complaints about the media. Bill Clinton, I guess, has — But really, I mean that’s simply not true.

O’BRIEN: How about you, Vic? You know, at one point you see the president…

MAY: Take on the BBC.

O’BRIEN: … former president talking on “Oprah.” And he says one of the reasons he wasn’t straightforward — this is one of his justifications — is that the media was hysterical and that’s why he didn’t tell the truth sooner.

Doesn’t quite explain why he lied to his wife and his kid and the countries, but that’s his explanation. What do you make of that?

KAMBER: Well, you have two questions here. What he said on “Oprah” and what he talked about with regard to his family and then what he felt about Ken Starr.

Ken Starr clearly was on a vendetta. I don’t think there’s any doubt. And he got nowhere. I mean, the bottom line, the media and — and I’m not a media basher. But the media and Ken Starr have to be blamed. Ken Starr accomplished nothing in his whole pursuit.

Whitewater wasn’t real. All the things Ken Starr dealt with weren’t real except Monica Lewinsky and sex. And the country wasn’t concerned about sex.

With regard to his family and the lies to his family, I can’t speak to his motives of why or what was in his mind at the time. I think like a lot of men — and I hate to be sexist here — he’d liked to have hid his indiscretions and not dealt with them with his family.

MAY: Vic, you’ve changed the subject entirely. He lashed out at the BBC and the media.

KAMBER: Over Ken Starr and Ken Starr’s treatment.

MAY: Go ahead. Another question. I don’t want to talk about Ken Starr any more for the rest of my life.

O’BRIEN: You guys are ready to move on. You know what? I’m ready to move on off of this topic, too.

Let’s talk about the $70 million that was — that’s the figure that the former president estimates was spent. Nothing proven at the end in Whitewater. He’s got a point there. Right, Cliff?

MAY: Look. I think that what — Bill Clinton’s behavior and the Republican reaction to it and the media reaction to it distracted us during the 1990s from serious problems that were brewing on the world stage, not least the problem of terrorism.

The 1990s was a period when 20,000 terrorists were trained in Afghanistan. I think if Bill Clinton hadn’t been so distracted, he’s to blame for that. We in the media are to blame for that.

KAMBER: Wait.

MAY: Republicans are to blame for that. He might have been able to connect the dots and do something about al Qaeda.

KAMBER: How…

MAY: If you read the book on al Qaeda, you see that he didn’t do very much about it.

KAMBER: You know…

O’BRIEN: Are you saying Monica Lewinsky is in some way responsible for the rise of Osama bin Laden?

MAY: I hadn’t thought of it quite that way, Soledad.

O’BRIEN: It’s kind of how you’re putting it.

KAMBER: Wait a second. You know, we can have fun and laugh at it. The fact is he didn’t bring about Whitewater. He didn’t bring about Vince Foster’s death. He didn’t bring about all the allegations and charges that Republicans made.

They — Republicans decided, as parties out of power do, that this is the enemy and we’ve got to get him.

And so when you say he was distracted, he dealt with the political realities. He was under attack, he was under siege, and he dealt with those political realities and ended up accounting himself quite well, except with the fact that there was sex and Monica Lewinsky.

But in terms of all the other charges, he was innocent.

O’BRIEN: The sales are going through the roof for this book. Do you think this is only going to help his legacy? Both of you weighed in on this before, and we’ve run out of time.

MAY: If you’re asking me about his legacy, I think, look, the reason presidents write memoirs, whether it’s Grant or James Buchanan or Clinton, is to try to spin history. Usually if you look at past experience, it doesn’t necessarily work.

Fifty years from now the historians will take a very different view, a disinterested view that neither Vic nor I can do at this point. And they will look at him. They’ll look at his involvement in Whitewater. They’ll look at Monica Lewinsky. They’ll look at his legacy in general, and who knows what they’ll come up to?

Look, but memoirs are an attempt to spin history. And I don’t blame him for trying to do that.

KAMBER: And I won’t disagree in the sense that I don’t call it spin history. This is his view. It’s his perception of his life, his times, his career, and he’s telling the American public what he sees and how he understands it.

I think a vast number of the public is going to say, were we better off with him as president for eight years? There is no question, he was a great president.

O’BRIEN: Victor Kamber and Cliff May, nice to see you guys as always, thanks.

MAY: Thanks.

O’BRIEN: They get all hot and bothered under the collar on that one. Thank you, guys.