August 4, 1999
Web posted at: 6:08 p.m. EDT (2208 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, August 4) -- President Bill Clinton said Wednesday that his childhood was not "a bed of roses," but he made no excuses for his marital infidelity.

Responding to a question about Hillary Rodham Clinton's interview with Talk magazine, in which she suggested her husband's behavior was shaped by childhood emotional trauma, the president said: "I haven't made an excuses for what was inexcusable and neither has she - believe me."

During a stop on her current listening of New York state, Mrs. Clinton also responded to the controversy about the interview, indicating as her spokeswoman did on Tuesday that she does not blame her husband's marital infidelity on the difficulties in his childhood.

"Everyone one of us comes out of our own childhood and I believe we're all responsible. And as I said in the article and as I believe, everyone is responsible for his or her behavior, including the president and all the rest of us," Mrs. Clinton said.

"She did not say the president's childhood in any way caused his behavior, nor does she believe that," spokeswoman Marsha Berry said Tuesday. "I think that she was basically stating some feelings about his childhood, but that they do not excuse his behavior."

On Wednesday at the Crawford Furniture factory in Jamestown, New York, Mrs. Clinton also expressed a desire to put the controversy behind her.

"My husband and I love each other very much and we are very committed to one another and we've been through a lot, like most marriages I'm aware of, and I really believe strongly that this is an issue that the country has put behind us and I have as well," the first lady said before refusing to answer anymore questions on the subject.

In the interview with Talk, Mrs. Clinton talked of tension between the president's mother and grandmother over his living in a home with an alcoholic stepfather.

The president, speaking at a Rose Garden event, said: "I didn't have a bed of roses as a kid."

He also said his childhood had "some really tough moments," but added that he felt loved as a child and that he believes he had it better than many children in the United States and around the world.

"Every child needs to know, growing up, that he or she is the most important person in the world to someone, and I knew that. So I knew, and I have no complaints," Clinton said.

The Talk magazine article quotes Mrs. Clinton as saying she stood by the president because his infidelities were a "weakness" caused in part by the emotional upheaval of childhood abuse.

"He was so young, barely four, when he was scarred by abuse," she said. "There was terrible conflict between his mother and grandmother. A psychologist once told me that for a boy being in the middle of a conflict between two women is the worst possible situation. There is always a desire to please each one."

Lucinda Franks, the article's author, told CNN she believes the first lady was referring to an incident described by Clinton's mother in her autobiography.

"She (Virginia Kelley) describes the chaos ... She describes an incident in which Bill's grandmother and she literally were pulling him apart," with one tugging on a shoe and the other on an arm in a disagreement about who would raise the boy, Franks said.

CNN's John King and Frank Buckley contributed to this report.

Wednesday, August 4, 1999

• Showdown appears likely over tax cuts
• Final 'hold' lifted on Holbrooke nomination
• Court postpones sentencing for Trie
• Clinton says his childhood not 'a bed of roses'
• Conflict within House GOP leadership leads to resignation threat
• Presidential candidates propose farm remedies in Iowa
• Treasury explores bond buyback plan
• Musgrove, Parker win Mississippi gubernatorial primaries
• House panel votes to subpoena records on immigrant crimes
• House eases cuts in legal aid for poor
• Welfare to work group plans moving into trenches
• Russians: Jackie Kennedy wrote Khrushchev after JFK assassination
• Committee chairman calls for more study of vaccine safety
• House passes bill to protect inventors
• Backers of hate crimes bill buoyed by Senate vote, House hearing
• Customs to change policy on passenger searches
• House votes to delay federal rules on workplace injuries
• Rep. Brown's widow seeks congressional seat
• Nethercutt ally may now be foe
• Black and Hispanic leaders announce coalition
• Ex-congressman Robert H. Mollohan dies

ARCHIVES