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• Sunday, May 2, 2010 - I went on doing my job, and I stonewalled,...
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I went on doing my job, and I stonewalled, denying what had happened to everyone: Hillary, Chelsea, my staff and cabinet, my friends in Congress, members of the press, and the American peopleWhat I regret the most, other than my conduct, is having misled all of themSince 1991 I had been called a liar about everything under the sun, when in fact I had been honest in my public life and financial affairs, as all the investigations would showNow I was misleading everyone about my personal failingsI was embarrassed and wanted to keep it from my wife and daughterI didnt want to help Ken Starr criminalize my personal life, and I didnt want the American people to know Id let them downIt was like living in a nightmareI was back to my parallel lives with a vengeance
On the day the story broke, I did a previously scheduled interview with Jim Lehrer for the PBS NewsHourI responded to his questions by saying that I had not asked anyone to lie, which was true, and that there is no improper relationshipAlthough the impropriety was over well before Lehrer asked the question, my answer was misleading, and I was ashamed of telling Lehrer that; from then on, whenever I could, I just said I never asked anybody not to tell the truth
While all this was going on, I had to keep doing my jobOn the twentieth, I met with Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House to discuss his plans for a phased withdrawal from the West BankNetanyahu had made a decision to move the peace process forward as long as he had peace with securityIt was a bold move because his governing coalition was shaky, but he could see that if he didnt act, the situation would quickly rolex submariners get out of hand
The next day Arafat came to the White HouseI gave him an encouraging report of my meeting with Netanyahu, assured him that I was pushing the prime minister to fulfill Israels obligation under the peace process, reminded him of the Israeli leaders political problems, and stated, as I always did, that he had to keep fighting terror if he wanted Israel to move forwardThe next day Mir Aimal Kansi was sentenced to death for the murder of the two CIA agents in January 1993, the first terrorist act to occur during my presidency
By January 27, the day of the State of the Union address, the American people had been deluged with a week of coverage of Starrs inquiry, and I had spent a week dealing with itStarr had already issued subpoenas to a number of White House staff people and for our recordsI had asked Harold Ickes and Mickey Kantor to help deal with the controversyThe day before the speech, at the urging of Harold and Harry Thomason, who felt I had been too tentative in my public comments, I reluctantly appeared once more before the press to say I did not have ***ual relations with Lewinsky
On the morning of the speech, on NBCs Today show, Hillary said that she didnt believe the charges against me and that a vast right-wing conspiracy had been trying to destroy us since the 1992 campaignStarr issued an indignant statement complaining that Hillary had questioned his motivesThough she was right about the nature of our opposition, seeing Hillary defend me made me even more ashamed about what I had done
Hillarys difficult interview and my mixed reaction to it clearly exemplified the bind I had put myself in: As a women louis vuitton handbag husband, I had done something wrong that I needed to apologize and atone for; as President, I was in a legal and political struggle with forces who had abused the criminal and civil laws and severely damaged innocent people in their attempt to destroy my presidency and cripple my ability to serve
Finally, after years of dry holes, I had given them something to work withI had hurt the presidency and the people by my misconductThat was no ones fault but my ownI didnt want to compound the error by letting the reactionaries prevail when I walked into the packed House chamber, the tension was palpable both there and in living rooms across America, where more people were watching my State of the Union address than since I delivered my first oneThe big question was whether I would mention the controversyI began with what was not in disputeThe country was in good shape, with fourteen million new jobs, rising incomes, the highest rate of home ownership ever, the fewest people on the welfare rolls in twenty-seven years, and the smallest federal government in thirty-five yearsThe 1993 economic plan had cut the deficit, projected to be $357 billion in 1998, by 90 percent, and the previous years balanced budget plan would get rid of it entirely
Then I outlined my plan for the futureFirst, I proposed that before spending the coming surpluses on new programs or tax cuts, we should save Social Security for the baby boomers retirementIn education, I recommended funding to hire 100,000 new teachers and to cut class size to eighteen in the first three grades; a plan to help communities modernize or build five thousand schools; and assistance to help pleated miu miu handbag schools end the practice of social promotion, by providing funds for extra learning in after-school or summer-school programsI reiterated my support for a Patients Bill of Rights, opening Medicare to Americans between the ages of fifty-five and sixty-five, expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act, and called for a large enough expansion in federal child-care assistance to provide support for one million more children
On the security front, I asked for congressional support in combating an unholy axis of new threats from terrorists, international criminals, and drug traffickers; Senate approval of the expansion of NATO; and continued funding for our mission in Bosnia and our efforts to confront the hazards of chemical and biological weapons and the outlaw states, terrorists, and organized criminals seeking to acquire them
The last section of my speech dealt with appeals to bring America together and look to the future: tripling the number of empowerment zones in poor communities; launching a new clean water initiative for our rivers, lakes, and coastal waters; providing $6 billion in tax cuts and research funds for the development of fuel-efficient cars, clean-energy homes, and renewable energy; financing the next generation Internet to transmit information up to a thousand times faster; and funding the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which, because of congressional hostility, didnt have the resources to handle sixty thousand backlogged cases alleging discrimination in the workplaceI also proposed the largest increase in history for the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute, and the National fake chloe bag Science Foundation so that ours will be the generation that finally wins the war against cancer and begins a revolution in our fight against all deadly diseases
I closed the speech thanking Hillary for leading our millennium campaign to preserve Americas treasures, including the tattered old Star Spangled Banner, which inspired Francis Scott Key to write our national anthem during the War of 1812
There wasnt a word in the address about the scandal, and the biggest new idea had been to save Social Security firstI was afraid Congress would get into a bidding war for the coming surpluses and squander them on tax cuts and spending before we had dealt with the baby boomers retirementMost Democrats agreed with me, and most Republicans didnt, though over the coming years we would hold a series of bipartisan forums around the country in which, despite everything else that was going on, we searched for common ground, arguing about how to provide for retirement security rather than whether to do so
Two days after the speech, Judge Wright ordered that all evidence related to Monica Lewinsky be excluded from the Jones case because it was not essential to the core issues, making Starrs inquiry into my deposition even more questionable, since perjury requires a false statement about a material matterOn the last day of the month, ten days after the firestorm began, the Chicago Tribune published a poll showing that my job approval rating had risen to 72 percentI was determined to show the American people that I was on the job and getting results for them
On February 5 and 6, Tony and Cherie Blair came to the United States for a two-day state prada evening bags vi |
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