Washington (CNN) — A new report claims that Hillary Clinton told a close friend that Monica Lewinsky was a “narcissistic loony toon,” and also discussed in detail why she decided to forgive her husband for having an affair with the White House intern.
The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website which posted its story late Sunday evening, said it based its reporting on the writings of Diane Blair, a now-deceased friend of the Clintons. Blair’s papers are housed at the University of Arkansas, where she taught political science.
“It was a lapse, but she says to his credit he tried to break it off, tried to pull away, tried to manage someone who was clearly a ‘narcissistic loony toon’; but it was beyond control,” Blair wrote, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
The website noted that Blair wrote that Hillary Clinton had suggested her husband had made the mistake with Lewinsky because of the personal toll the deaths of his mother, her father, and their friend Vince Foster had taken on him while “the ugly forces started making up hateful things about them, pounding on them.”
CNN was unable to reach a university spokesman late Sunday evening to authenticate the content of the writings, but the school does highlight on its website what appears to be an extensive collection from Blair including an entire subsection on the Clintons.
The story comes as speculation is heating up that Hillary Clinton is eyeing a second run for the White House. The Blair papers were not made public until 2010, well after her 2008 presidential bid.
In addition to Hillary Clinton’s private thoughts on the Lewinsky matter, the Washington Free Beacon reported that Blair’s writing talks about Clinton’s support for a single payer health care system, as well as her thoughts on foreign policy, among other subjects.
Blair, a political science professor from Arkansas, joined Gov. Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign as a senior researcher and worked as a senior adviser on his successful 1996 reelection bid. She died in 2000 at the age of 61. At the time, The New York Times reported that Hillary Clinton eulogized Blair as “the best person that one could have as a friend.”
The documents portray Blair’s relationship with Clinton as both professional and personal. While they appeared to talk extensively about policy and politics, they also discussed books, travel and family, the website reported.
The Clinton-Lewisnky affair captivated the nation’s attention as the sordid details became international news. The relationship and grand jury investigation led the House of Representatives to impeach Clinton on two charges in December 1998. In February 1999, the president was acquitted by the Senate.
The Washington Free Beacon’s report said that Hillary Clinton sought to downplay the relationship.
“HRC insists, no matter what people say, it was gross inappropriate behavior but it was consensual (was not a power relationship) and was not sex within any real meaning… of the term,” Blair wrote.
The website said the documents showed that days after Clinton’s 1998 impeachment, Blair and Clinton spoke at length about her reaction.
“She sounded very up, almost jolly,” Blair wrote about Clinton. “Told me how she and Bill and Chelsea had been to church, to a Chinese restaurant, to a Shakespeare play, greeted everywhere with wild applause and cheers–this, she said is what drives their adversaries totally nuts, that they don’t bend, do not appear to be suffering.”
According to Blair, Clinton said that “most people in this town have no pain threshold.”
CNN was unable to reach a spokesman for Hillary Clinton late Sunday night for comment.
The Blair documents were donated by her husband, James, in 2005. The documents were processed and completed by 2010 and contain 109 boxes of information that range from Blair’s professional materials to her correspondence with the Clintons. James once helped Hillary Clinton make $100,000 in commodity futures trading, which drew scrutiny for its timing.
According to the Free Beacon, Hillary Clinton was a supporter of making the Blair records public in 2010.
“With this collection, [Diane Blair’s] contributions will grow and live on, enlarging our understanding of history, politics and culture,” Hillary Clinton reportedly said, according to the Free Beacon. “I hope also that some young scholar will come along and write the story of Diane.”
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