I replied, I have long since given up the thought that I could disabuse some of you of turning any substantive decision into anything but political processApparently, when it came to appointments, the name of the game wasnt supposed to be follow the leader but follow the leakerI have to confess that I was almost as happy about surprising the press as I was with the choice I had made In the last week of June, the Senate finally passed my budget by only 5049, with one Democrat and one Republican not voting, and Al Gore breaking the tieNo Republican voted for it, and we lost six conservative DemocratsSenator David Boren of Oklahoma, whom I had known since 1974, when he first ran for governor and I ran for Congress, gave us a vote to stave off defeat, but indicated that he would oppose the final bill unless it contained more spending cuts and fewer taxes Now that the Senate and House had approved the budget plans, they would have to reconcile their differences and then wed have to fight for passage in both houses all over againSince we had won by such small margins in both places, any concession made by one chamber to the other could lose a vote or two, all it would take to defeat the whole packageRoger Altman came over from Treasury with his chief of staff, Josh Steiner, to set up a war room to organize the campaign for final passageWe needed to know where every vote was, and what we could argue or offer to wavering members to get a majorityAfter all the blood wed spilled over minor issues, this imitation louis vuitton handbags was a fight worth makingFor the next six and a half weeks, the economic future of the country, not to mention the future of my presidency, hung in the balance On the day after the Senate passed the budget, I ordered the military into action for the first time, firing twenty-three Tomahawk missiles into Iraqs intelligence headquarters, in retaliation for a plot to assassinate President George HBush during a trip he had made to KuwaitMore than a dozen people involved in the plot had been arrested in Kuwait on April 13, one day before the former President had been scheduled to arriveThe materials in their possession were conclusively traced to Iraqi intelligence, and on May 19 one of the arrested Iraqis confirmed to the FBI that the Iraqi intelligence service was behind the plotI asked the Pentagon to recommend a course of action, and General Powell came to me with the missile attack on the intelligence headquarters as both a proportionate response and an effective deterrentI felt we would have been justified in hitting Iraq harder, but Powell made a persuasive case that the attack would deter further Iraqi terrorism, and that dropping bombs on more targets, including presidential palaces, would have been unlikely to kill Saddam Hussein and almost certain to kill more innocent peopleMost of the Tomahawks hit the target, but four of them overshot, three landing in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood and killing eight civiliansIt was a stark reminder that no matter how careful the planning and how gucci bag accurate the weapons, when that kind of firepower is unleashed, there are usually unintended consequences On July 6, I was in Tokyo for my first international meeting, the sixteenth annual G-7 summitHistorically, these meetings had been talkfests, with few meaningful policy commitments and little follow-up coming out of themWe didnt have the luxury of another meeting where nothing happenedThe world economy was dragging, with growth in Europe the slowest in more than a decade, and in Japan the slowest in nearly two decadesWe were making some headway on the economic front; in the last five months, over 950,000 more Americans had found work, about as many new jobs as the economy had produced in the previous three years I went to Japan with an agenda: to get the agreement of European and Japanese leaders to coordinate their internal economic policies with ours, in order to raise the level of global growth; convince Europe and Japan to drop tariffs on manufacturing goods, which would create jobs in all our countries and increase the chances of finishing the seven-year-old Uruguay Round of world trade talks by the December 15 deadline; and send a clear, unified signal of financial and political support for Yeltsin and Russian democracy The odds of success on any of these items, much less all three, were not great, in part because none of the leaders were particularly strong coming into the meetingBetween the tough medicine in my economic plan and the bad press over problems, both real and imagined, my dior detective bag public approval had dropped steeply since the inaugurationJohn Major was hanging on in England, but was hurt by constant unfavorable comparison to his predecessor, Margaret Thatcher, something the Iron Lady did nothing to discourageFranois Mitterrand was a fascinating, brilliant man, a So******t in his second seven-year term, who was limited in what he could deliver by the fact that the French prime minister and his governing coalition, who controlled economic policy, were from opposing political partiesCarlo Ciampi, the Italian prime minister, was a former governor of the Italian Central Bank and a modest man who was known for riding his bicycle to workDespite his intelligence and appeal, he was hampered by the fractured and inherently unstable Italian political environmentKim Campbell, Canadas first female prime minister, was an impressive, clearly dedicated person who had just taken office after the resignation of Brian MulroneyShe was essentially finishing Mulroneys long run at the helm, with the polls showing a rising tide of support for the opposition leader, Jean ChrtienOur host, Kiichi Miyazawa, was widely regarded as a lame duck in a Japanese political system in which the long monopoly of the Liberal Democratic Party was coming to an endMiyazawa may have been a lame duck, but he was an impressive one, with sophisticated understanding of the worldHe spoke colloquial English about as well as I didAnd he was also a patriot who wanted the G-7 meeting to reflect well on his country The chanel j12 watch conventional wisdom held that Helmut Kohl, the long-serving German chancellor, was also in trouble, because his poll numbers were down and his Christian Democratic Party had suffered some recent losses in local elections, but I thought Kohl still had plenty of life in his leadershipHe was a huge man, about my height and weighing well over three hundred poundsHe spoke with great conviction in a direct, often brusque manner, and he was a world-class storyteller with a good sense of humorAnd in more than size he was the largest figure on the European continent in decadesHe had reunified Germany, funneling massive sums of money from West to East Germany to lift the incomes of those who had made far less under communismKohls Germany had become the largest financial supporter of Russian democracyHe was also the leading force behind the emerging European Union, and he was in favor of admitting Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic into both the EU and the NATO allianceFinally, Kohl was deeply troubled by Europes passivity in Bosnia and thought, as I did, that the United Nations should lift the arms embargo because it was unfair to the Bosnian MuslimsOn all the great questions facing Europe, he was on the right side, and pushing hard for his point of viewHe felt if he got the big things right, the polls would followI liked Helmut Kohl a lotOver the next several years, through many meals, visits, and phone calls, we would forge a political and personal bond that would bear great fruit for Europeans and Americans shop for chanel bags al