Bill Clinton with Reverend Jeremiah Wright at the White House

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[Hat Tip Daily Kos]

Two days after Ken Starr sent his report to Congress on September 9, 1998 President Bill Clinton told a room full of clerics at the White House: "I have sinned". Amongst those invited to hear Bill Clinton confess his sins was the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. The New York Times reports:

With tears in his eyes, President Clinton told a roomful of clerics this morning that he had sinned, speaking just hours before the world was presented a painstaking account by prosecutors of when, where and how.

Addressing an annual prayer breakfast at the White House, Mr. Clinton drew on the New Testament, the Yom Kippur liturgy and Ernest Hemingway as he made his most abject confession yet of personal failure, while declaring that he would defend and redeem his Presidency.

‘’I don’t think there is a fancy way to say that I have sinned,'’ he admitted softly, saying that after resisting expressions of contrition he had reached ‘’the rock-bottom truth of where I am.'’

For the first time, Mr. Clinton also asked for forgiveness from Monica S. Lewinsky, on the day that the details of their intimate relationship — details that he had denied and struggled to suppress — poured out through the Internet, whose wonders as a tool of communication he has so often extolled.

‘’It is important to me,'’ the President told the prayer meeting, ‘’that everybody who has been hurt know that the sorrow I feel is genuine: first, and most important, my family; also my friends, my staff, my Cabinet, Monica Lewinsky and her family, and the American people. I have asked all for their forgiveness.'’

 Hillary Clinton was in attendance.