I think that Bill and Hillary Clinton have a very special relationship and I think in very many ways to them it's a very satisfying relationship. I think that it's a mutual respect with a goal of power to achieve maintain power. And I think that they have been good partners in that.

On several occasions I discussed with Bill Clinton the subject of inquiries by the media about our relationship. He told me to continue to deny our relationship that if we would stick together everything would be okay.

I met Bill Clinton in 1977 while I was working as a news reporter for KARK-TV in Little Rock Arkansas. Shortly after we met we began a sexual relationship that lasted for twelve years.

Although we were never pals and occasionally butted heads my relationship with Clinton and his wife Hillary made me a better journalist.

A lot of people over time have had this kind of pattern in their relationship with Bill Clinton. You first meet him and you're overwhelmed by his talent. He's so energetic and articulate and full of ideas and he calls himself a congenital optimist and that optimism is contagious.

Bill Clinton sitting on Air Force One getting his hair cut while people around the country cooled their heels and waited for him became a metaphor for a populist president who had gotten drunk with the perks of his own power and was sort of you know not sensitive to what people wanted.

But I think there was a sense amongst the House Republicans especially that we didn't just want to be opposed to Bill Clinton that we wanted to tell the country what we were for and to brand ourselves in a more positive manner.

Regardless of Bill Clinton's politics or personal life he grew up in obscurity and was elected to the presidency - twice. Don't take that away from him because then you take it away from every other kid in America sitting out there in a school bus with a big dream.

Clinton and Obama practice this politics known quaintly as the Richard Speck strategy: if you cannot take on everyone in the room at once take them out of the room one at a time.

When I am speaking about American presidents I have to speak about my very special relations with President Clinton. He contributed more to peace than anybody else in the American sense.