Do The Clintons Owe Monica Lewinsky A Thank You Note?

The Monica Lewinsky scandal is well known for humiliating former President Bill Clinton. But the effect it had on Monica Lewinsky herself is less spoken about—she’s speaking up now for the first time in ten years.

She told Vanity Fair “I’ve decided, finally, to stick my head above the parapet so that I can take back my narrative and give a purpose to my past.”

Lewinsky also writes that while she was humiliated by the aftermath of the affair, and “regarded Bill as having engaged in ‘gross inappropriate behavior,’ the affair was, nonetheless, ‘consensual (was not a power relationship).’”

What effect this may have on a potential Hillary 2016 run is unclear—but as Ruth Marcus put in in the Washington Post, because these revelations are happening now, “if and when a Clinton presidential announcement comes, Lewinsky will be old news.”