. . . There's an old saying that "God protects drunks and fools," and I always figured that I have a double, double insurance policy. But what I was trying to say was "We've been through a lot, you've done a lot, you're lucky, and I'm happy for you." I'm a political guy. I had no interest in going to the government. Political campaigns are in my bones. It's what I know how to do. It's in my blood.

A few hours before the election, when the governor was sure he was going to win, Ted Koppel interviewed the Clintons. In that interview, Mr. Clinton says, " I'm going to keep this zone of privacy, even as president." Was that a naïve view at the time?

Frankly and honestly, yes. When you run for president, and become president, they just rip you apart. Every facade of privacy that you have is gone. I think everybody believes that, to some extent, you can maintain privacy. And I think in the end, everybody gets proven wrong. . . .

She was distraught. She said that things were dark. . . . And she said, "I don't know how we are going to get through this. Can you help me?" And I said, "Damn right I can help you." And then they start . . . railroading the whole thing. It was just another railroad job, over nothing more than a grown man acting stupid with a young woman and not wanting nobody to find out about it.

Investigating everything, FBI agents all over the place, squeezing people. You know something that has never been pointed out? In the last 78 indictments that Ken Starr handed down, he never got one conviction. Not one. Zero for 78.

. . . They were mustering people to vote for impeachment like it was going out of style. They politicized this thing to no end. They wanted to make it political? Fine. I'd be glad to jump in to a political fight with them. . . . This thing will never ever go away from me. Never, ever. This is one of the great injustices that has ever taken place. And I wasn't coy about it. I didn't try to hide it or anything else. I wrote a whole book about it.

Read the Independent Counsel's report.

On the day of the Senate acquittal, you said, "I did what I was asked to do."

Mrs. Clinton had said, "Can you help us?" And on August 17, I did what I thought was the right thing. Nobody tried to push me into this. This was not a manipulative thing. This is something that is part of me. I'll be very clear and sort of blunt here. I think that what the independent counsel, what the Republicans, what the national media did to the president is one of the great travesties and injustices. I believe that. . . . I think this whole thing was just ridiculous. . . . I knew what I thought about it, and my views have remained remarkably consistent.

A lot of people on the staff have now said that they were upset at the president because they were lied to.

Yes. I understand. Look, I wish he wouldn't have done it. It was a silly, stupid thing to do to fool around with a young woman like that, okay? But I am not going to abandon a guy over something like this. No way. Some people who I respect have a different opinion. But he was entitled to a defense. I was glad to give him one.

Since those days, the president seems to be in a much better mood.

I don't blame him.

How would you characterize what the president has been like since the impeachment chapter ended? How did it change Bill Clinton?

. . . He's glad he's glad it's over. Obviously, he's a lot more at ease. He's a lot more relaxed than he was. The phone calls during that time were tense. . . . The Republicans just hated Clinton so much. They were just blinded by hate.

How frightened were you that this administration was going to be over?

We were fighting like hell, but . . . I was worried, worried sick, and it wasn't just me. Damn right. And you knew I was in the fight. . . . Looking back, I don't know how rational it was. Public support remained pretty steady. But at the time, I was very scared. Personally, I was very scared for the president, and very scared for me. I was very afraid that there'd be a delegation of congressional Democrats and moderate Republicans coming down to the White House . . . and telling the president that it's all over. And quite candidly, I was not alone in that fear.

Did the president worry about that? How about Mrs. Clinton?

He never told me, but I am sure he did. I would be stunned if he didn't. She never told me, but I'd be stunned if she didn't. It's the kind of thing you just didn't bring up.

You walked right to the edge of the precipice?

Yes, I took a look down. I didn't like what I saw. . . . Now, there's some validity that the president can pick his issues pretty well, but I guess you can't pick your enemies. But he's lucky to have some of the enemies that he has. Some of them were colossally stupid in this. And the public just never supported the remedy. In the end, that was the main thing we had going for us.

Since the impeachment ended, one of the biggest political stories has been Mrs. Clinton running for the Senate. Did that surprise you or did you expect that?

I guess I was a little surprised. I knew that she would stay involved in politics in some kind of way. I suspect that Mrs. Clinton could have millions of dollars before she left the White House. She'd been the most sought-after person on the speaking circuit. God knows what she would have gotten for a book or how many boards she could have sat on, etc., etc.

She has always been enormously interested in public policy. . . . When she told me about this, I told her that I'd do anything I could to help her. If it was me, I would not have done that. I would run for nothing but the state line. . . .

What does the president think about it?

. . . He's interested in it. He's trying to be as helpful as he possibly can. He's very interested, very supportive. . . .

How do you think Bill Clinton looks upon this period in his presidency?

. . .I enjoy him more now. He's a lot more relaxed. He's enjoying himself. And look, he likes politics. There's no question about this. He's into the Senate race. . . . There have been very eventful and tough times. It's like boot camp. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world, but I wouldn't go through it again either. . . . I saw a lot of history and I had a chance to participate in a bit of it. . . . It's been amazing. . . .

What is Bill Clinton's legacy?

His positive legacy is that facets of American life are better today than when he took office. You can point to any number of specific things that he did to help that. . . . I would much rather live in the country we have in 2000 than the country we had in 1992. On the negative side, he's a good man who has done a bad thing. He's paid dearly for a mistake he made in the whole Lewinsky thing. On the whole, it has been a hell of an eight years. . . . I think history's going to be very kind to him, when you look at what was accomplished around the world and in the way the United States is viewed.

There's never been a better time to be in America. On the whole, I feel good about things. I wish I'd done a few things differently myself. I wish he'd done a few things differently. But you never get everything you want in life. And it's been an incredible ride. I thank the Lord and I thank Bill Clinton every day for letting me ride in the car with him.

In your very first thinking about Mr. and Mrs. Clinton, the team, what was it that impressed you or drew you?

. . . President Clinton is a lot smarter than you've even heard. He's built to digest things quickly and spit them out. . . .

So it was his innate political intelligence and intuition?

Right. And they just have a lot of chemistry. You had the sense that these were really extraordinary people and extraordinary talented. . . . He could change the chemistry in a room. He could walk into a room of a hundred people and immediately have the sense of each person. . . . It's an instinctive thing. I can't explain it. I've just seen it happen again and again and again. And both of them always ask the right question. . . . He could really focus and get things done.

When he was elected in 1992, what was going through your mind?

. . . I started to have a sense of how much my life was going to change. And in a way, I was naïve about just how much it would change. . . . I'd had failures, and here I was at the pinnacle of my chosen profession. And I was just so happy. I had no idea what lay ahead. . . . People will very often come up to me and say, "I knew you before you were James Carville." I didn't become James Carville until I was 48 years old (laughs). And that's the best way that I can put it. In 1992, I felt an enormous sense of being able to go home with my head up, and no one is going to say I'm a failure. . . .

So many of the staff who worked to get Bill Clinton elected were young people. What did that mean to you, and what did you think as you won?

I felt so good for them, to have something like this happen to you so young in life. Most of the 1992 people have really remained very close to each other over a period of time. The number of young people we had in the campaign was a function of a lot of different things. I think it was a function of Clinton, the candidate, who was something different and new, and the Republicans had been in power for 12 years.

Doing a presidential campaign is something that takes a special kind of person at a special time in their life to do this. I couldn't do it right now. I was 48 on election night. . . . All that I'd ever wanted to do was be a successful political consultant. It was my searing thing. I felt this enormous sense of professional relief that I could go home and not be a failure. . . .

There's been a lot of good times, and a lot of successes. . . . A high point for me was when the president and first lady gave a party when I got married in the White House, and let us invite anybody we wanted. How many people get married and have a party thrown for them in the White House? . . . My anger about investigations is genuine, but there's been a lot of good times. . . . We certainly did have our share of crises.

Were there so many crises because it's part of how Bill Clinton is as a human being?

A lot of the stuff that he did was he was pushing -- the gay thing in the military or the health care thing, or the crime bill -- it was him pushing. That's one set of things. The other big crisis was the Lewinsky thing. I can't defend what he did. I can certainly defend to put it into perspective.

But is there a sense of danger about the man, Bill Clinton?

People say that. Obviously there must be some sense of danger. . . . My daddy gave me a good piece of advice -- that all these things are much easier to get into than they are to get out of. So my advice to people would be, "You got an exit strategy?" Or else don't do it in the first place.

. . . Bill Clinton is a person who causes a lot of passion both ways about people, and there's certainly a lot of turmoil if you look back at the eight years. But there was a lot of good, too. I understand that it's necessary to talk about the turmoil. But as a result of his risk-taking and him pushing things, we do have a lot of things that are better in America. You can talk about the Lewinsky thing, and failure of health care, but you also have to talk about lower crime rates, lower deficits, higher employment, and a lot of foreign policy successes. . . .

I would certainly say that he's learned a lot from both his personal and policy mistakes. . . . He's a bright man. He's an energetic person. He's got a real activist streak about him and he pushes ahead. The only person that ever stumbles is a guy moving forward. You don't stumble backwards; you stumble forward, and you never stumble when you're stationary. So don't worry about stumbling. Keep pushing it forward. And that's pretty much the way I feel about it. That's it.