I think in retrospect, he chose a very poor path. He should have said, Miss Lewinsky and I did not have sex. You accomplish two things with that. First, you are telling the truth, if only on a technicality. The choice of "relations" was a poor one, because I think many people understand it to encompass a broader range of activities. Second, using her name in a respectful way would have saved him her respect, which turned out to be pretty important in the end. Waving his finger into the camera and calling her "that woman" is dehumanizing, and of course she's going to be more apt to be vengeful. Who wouldn't? Or, he could have just told the truth, and it would've been forgotten in a matter of weeks. I doubt we'd still be discussing it 16 or so years later. How many times do people in power have to learn the lesson that the truth, no matter how bad it is, is often less damaging when told before a series of deeper and deeper lies?