A sample: Things were so bad sometimes, Monica considered suicide. At one time, she saw Hillary Clinton as her rival for the President's affection and attention. In the middle of her affair, she had another brief affair with a Pentagon official, got pregnant and had an abortion. She thought Clinton was a good kisser. He was tender and affectionate and thoughtful. Sometimes she's proud of him. Sometimes, she hates his guts and he makes her sick. In 90 minutes of sometimes-tearful, sometimes-titillating interview with ABC's Barbara Walters, a souped up Monica Lewinsky unburdened herself before the world about what she has gone through in the three years since her affairwith Bill Clinton began.

She came across as a giddy and vulnerable tramp who is still able to justify her behavior and see the tumultuous events she caused through the fish eye lens of her own insecurities and complexes. But she looked far from the venal vixen that some media had portrayed her to be.

Walters, an acknowledged queen of mush, squeezed plenty of emotion from Monica, often asking her very blunt questions (Why did you save the semen-strained dress?) and sometimes playing portions of testimony that were obviously hurtful to Monica (like a presidential aide saying Clinton called her a stalker).

Monica, who is now 26, maintained admirable poise through much of the interview, breaking down only once when she spoke of her family. The interview was punctuated by snappy one-liners and long wistful silences, as the gregarious former intern sometimes struggled to find expression for her tumult. Despite the trauma of the past year's events, she revealed she was close to her divorced parents and lovedthem immensely. ``Behind the name Monica Lewinsky, people don't realise there is a person... a family,'' she wept in a sudden cascade of tears as she spoke of the pain and destruction the media circus had caused to her and her parents. It was the only time she cried in the interview. Revealing new glimpses of how the affair began, Monica now says she did not think Clinton was particularly attractive when she first went to the White House. She thought on TV he looked old, with a big red nose and wiry grey hair. Then she met him and she thought he had a glow about him that was magnetic. He exuded sexual energy. He flirted with her and they shared an unspoken sexual message. She thought he undressed her with his eyes.

She said he is as much to blame for the affair and he should have been more restrained.

But some in the media were unrelenting in their analysis of her behaviour. Respected British commentator Harold Evans, who has just written a book called The American Century, found her attitudeappalling.

She came across as a spoilt California girl full of strange thoughts. She is smug and self-satisfied and not aware of what she has done, Evans said on one of the many animated talk shows that post-mortemed the interview. Evans, like many other commentators, seemed to object to Monica not fully acknowledging wrongdoing. In the interview, she -- notwithstanding her apology to the nation and the first family stuck to her view that her sexual affair with the President in the Oval office was a private matter between them and beyond scrutiny. In one particularly revealing moment, when Walters asked her where she found the gall to flash her thong underwear to the President, Monica dismissed it lightly as just a subtle form of flirtation.

With her hair plastered back and face made up for television, the young Lewinsky and her advisers appeared to be using stagecraft to build a sympathetic portrayal for someone many commentators have described as spoilt, troubled, and downright stupid.

While notfully regretting her actions, Monica said she had a lot of healing to do and wished to lead a normal life. She wants to have a meaningful relationship, marry and have children but there is no prince charming on the horizon yet. Asked what she would tell her children about her affair, Monica said, ``Mommy made a big mistake''.

While the Monica interview was talk of the town and constituted must-see TV in the beltway (there were plenty of Monica parties last evening) the Clintons were away on the road and did not catch the event. First Lady Hillary Clinton was in New York getting a feel of the place for a possible Senate race. President Clinton was at a fund-raiser in New Jersey.