HOW HE SEES IT Clinton's excuse for sex makes sense

By ELLIS HENICAN
LONG ISLAND NEWSDAY
Among all the explanations that guys have given over the years, this one could very well be the greatest of them all.
"Just because I could," Bill Clinton said of his sweaty Oval Office encounters with the eager intern Monica Lewinsky.
Write that down to remember another day.
Really, it's perfect Clinton. Perfect perfect, too.
Simple. Straightforward. And who wouldn't believe an explanation like that?
Again, Bill Clinton, who taught us so much about getting into trouble, teaches us also how to respond to that trouble, no matter how sticky the trouble is. He's the president who keeps on giving to his country, three-plus years into Chappaqua-time!
The Monica explanation, delivered to Dan Rather for "60 Minutes" as part of Clinton's book-promotion campaign, has several things going for it, not the least of which is that it almost certainly is the truth. Part of the truth, anyway.
No, it wasn't just the eye-popping sexiness of the nubile Lewinsky physique packed inside a thong.
Clinton hooked up with her because she was willing and because she was there. And honestly, how many opportunities for cheap, casual frolicking does a married president really have? It's not like he can freely trawl the singles bars of Georgetown without somebody noticing him.
Ah, sipping on a strawberry margarita ...
Tossing off clever opening lines ...
Isn't that the president?
"Hi-ya, Sweetheart. How 'bout you and me go jump up and down on Abraham Lincoln's bed!" Even Clinton didn't use that kind of maneuver, not so anyone has been yet able to prove.
At last, "just because I could" throws a big, wet blanket over the relentless anti-Clinton hit squads, which seem not to have missed a trigger-pull lately. And did you notice how Clinton wrapped his explanation in the bright floral paper of earnest-sounding self-criticism and some professed rejection of the easy way out?
'The worst reason'
His simple explanation, Clinton said, is "the worst possible reason ... I think that's just about the most morally indefensible reason that anybody could have for doing anything. There are lots of sophisticated explanations, more complicated psychological explanations, but none of them are an excuse."
So there.
Beat yourself before your opponents start to beat you. A little self-flagellation goes a very long way.
People who know the Clintons on a more personal basis than I do have always said that, back in Arkansas, Hillary was pretty steamed about his famously frisky libido. But when they moved to Washington, D.C., and the fortress-fishbowl that is the White House, she figured, "Hey, how much trouble could he get himself into around here?"
Obviously, Hillary didn't adequately account for the intern pool.
None of this talk will do any damage to the Clinton legacy, which, given the recent troubles of George W. Bush, is actually looking shinier by the day. If anything, the Monica explanation and the pugnacious dismissal of the impeachment vote will let Clinton recapture lost ground in the war over his place in history. And it'll push the book, "My Life," out today, to the highest heights of the best-seller lists.
The publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, has ordered 1.5 million for the first printing alone.
And here's Bush, book-ended in the news this month by two great communicators -- and only one of them still alive.
He's hoping the comparison with John Kerry won't be as harsh.
Me? I'm sitting in awe, wracking my brain for things I should hurry up and apologize for to those I know and I love. God knows, the list is ancient and long.
Whatever the outrage, no matter how heinous or slight, no matter how old or new, I have the perfect answer now, an answer I learned from a master of self-made trouble, getting in and getting out.
You know why I did it, whatever it was?
"I did it just because I could."
Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service