I had given an evasive answer

On March 29, I was back in the soup again, with a problem of my own making. Jerry Brown and I were in a televised candidates forum on WCBS in New York when a reporter asked me if I had ever tried marijuana at Oxford. This was the first time I had ever been asked that specific question directly. In Arkansas, when asked generally if I had ever used marijuana, I had given an evasive answer, saying I had never broken the drug laws of the United States. This time, I gave a more direct and answer: When I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time or two and I didnt like it. I didnt inhale and I never tried it again. Even Jerry Brown said the press should lay off because the issue wasnt relevant. But the press had found another character issue. As for the didnt inhale remark, I was stating a fact, not trying to minimize what I had done, as I tried to explain until I was blue in the face. What I should have said was that I couldnt inhale. I had never smoked cigarettes, didnt inhale with the pipe I occasionally smoked at Oxford, and tried but failed to inhale the marijuana smoke. I dont know why I even mentioned it; maybe I thought I was being funny, or perhaps it was just a nervous reaction to a subject I didnt want to discuss. My account was corroborated by the respected English journalist Martin Walker, who later wrote an interesting and not altogether flattering book on my presidency, Clinton: The President They Deserve. Martin said publicly that hed been at Oxford with me and had seen me try but fail to inhale at a party. By then it was too late. My unfortunate account of my marijuana misadventures was cited by pundits and Republicans throughout 1992 as evidence of my character problem. And I had given late-night TV hosts fodder for years of jokes. As the old country song goes, I didnt know whether to kill myself or go bowling. New York was suffering from severe economic and social problems. The Bush policies were making things worse. Yet every day seemed to be punctuated by television and print reporters shouting character questions at me. Radio talk-show host Don Imus called me a redneck bozo. When I went on Phil Donahues television show, all he did for twenty minutes was ask me questions about marital infidelity. After I gave my standard answer, he kept on asking. I rebuffed him and the audience cheered. He kept right on.