Difference between revisions of "Bill Clinton"

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Revision as of 03:58, January 3, 2008

Bill Clinton
200px
42nd President of the United States
Term of office
January 20, 1993 - January 20, 2001
Political party Democratic
Vice President Al Gore
Preceded by George H. W. Bush
Succeeded by George W. Bush
Born August 19, 1946
Hope, Arkansas
Spouse Hillary Clinton
Religion Baptist

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (August 19, 1946 - present) served two terms as the 42nd President of the United States of America from 1993-2000, following George H. W. Bush and preceding George W. Bush.

Early Life

Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946 in Hope, Arkansas. His father, William Jefferson Blythe Jr. died in a car accident while his mother was pregnant with him. Clinton's mother later married Roger Clinton, and the four year-old William was given his stepfather's name.[1]

Clinton was active in high school, participating in various student government organizations as well as playing the saxophone. Roger Clinton, however, made Bill's family life unpleasant by repeatedly abusing Clinton's mother and her children. Bill Clinton would eventually stand up to his stepfather in high school, forcing his stepfather to stop beating his mother and kicking him out of the house.[2] After Roger Clinton underwent alcohol rehabilitation, he would eventually rejoin the family.

Clinton attended Georgetown University, then Oxford University after receiving a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. He also then earned a Juris Doctorate from Yale University in 1973. At Yale he met Hillary Rodham, whom he would later marry.[3]

Early Political Career

After returning to live in Arkansas, Clinton was elected Attorney General of Arkansas in 1976. Two years later, he was elected Governor of Arkansas, becoming the youngest governor in the country at 32 years-old. Though defeated in 1980, Clinton won back the governorship in 1982 and held it until becoming President in 1992.

In December 1989 a three-judge district federal court held Bill Clinton's state-wide legislative reapportionment plan violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 42 U.S.C. 1973. 1990 the Supreme Court of the United States found in the case of Clinton vs Jeffers [4] the former Arkansas Governor and Democratic president had violated the Voting Rights Act. The Justices findings were,


Bill Clinton does not dispute here -- that "violations of the fourteenth or fifteenth amendment justifying equitable relief have occurred in Arkansas."

In May 1990, the district court turned to those claims, holding that "the State of Arkansas has committed a number of constitutional violations of the voting rights of black citizens." J.S. App. A5. In particular, the court determined that the "State has systematically and deliberately enacted new majority-vote requirements for municipal offices, in an effort to frustrate black political success in elections traditionally requiring only a plurality to win." In 1990...Devotion to majority rule for local offices lay dormant as long as the plurality system produced white office-holders. But whenever black candidates used this system successfully -- and victory by a plurality has been virtually their only chance of success in at-large elections in majority-white cities – the response was swift and certain. Laws were passed in an attempt to close off this avenue of black political victory.

The court therefore concluded that


This series of laws represents a systematic and deliberate attempt to reduce black political opportunity. Such an attempt is plainly unconstitutional. It replaces a system in which blacks could and did succeed, with one in which they almost certainly cannot. The inference of racial motivation is inescapable.

Early Scandals

Clinton was known to have been involved in several scandals while Governor of Arkansas. He used Arkansas state policemen to arrange for him to meet women outside of marriage.

His close personal business partnerships with James and Susan McDougall in a failed Savings and Loan business venture lead to investigation of the Whitewater affair. Several of the people involved with the sale of land prior to the Clinton presidency were indicted, but prosecutors were never able to charge the Clintons with a crime because Susan McDougall would not cooperate with investigators. Clinton later pardoned Susan McDougall for her role in the Whitewater affair.[Citation Needed]

Presidency

Poster to end the "racist occupation of Somalia"; eighteen US soldiers were killed and some of their bodies were dragged through the streets.[5]

Clinton won in the United States presidential election of 1992 with 43% of the popular vote versus President George H. W. Bush's 37%, capitalizing on public discontent with a weak economy and public displeasure with Bush's proposed tax increases, and Ross Perot, a third candidate.

In his first two years in office, 1993 through 1994, popular outcry against Clinton's radical health-care "reform" scheme led to failure of the plan. The collapse of Soviet Bloc only a few years earlier made socialism unpopular and was accreditted with the widespread disillussionment with the proposal. The approach consisted of appointing an planning committee with secret members to reshape this important sector of the economy.[Citation Needed] The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons successfully sued to force disclosure of the committee financing, expenses and membership. The program ultimately became so unpopular after two years the Democratically controlled Congress shielded its members records by never bringing it to floor for a vote.

In 1994, voters expressed their high disapproval of several decades of Democratic control of Congress by giving a victory to Republicans. This event was tagged the "Republican Revolution," and began a series of showdowns with the Republican-led Congress.[Citation Needed] These showdowns were epitomized by the budget conflict with then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich in 1995. Gingrich refused to pass Clinton's budget proposal, and the latter threatened to shut down the government as Reagan had done in the 1980s. Clinton did not back down, however, and eventually had his budget passed.[6] This showdown backfired for the Republicans, as it reinvigorated Clinton's flagging approval ratings.[7]

In 1994 a Pentagon researcher in the Clinton Administration requested funding to develop a non-lethal "love bomb" that would chemically alter the state of mind of enemy combatants and make them want to have sex with each other rather than fight.[8]

In late 1995, President Clinton dispatched some 20,000 U.S. troops to Bosnia.

Clinton aggressively advocated homosexuality. [9]

1996

Clinton was reelected in the United States presidential election of 1996 and carried 49.2% of the popular vote against Republican candidate ( Bob Dole), who won 41%, and "populist" candidate, H. Ross Perot, who won 8%. During Clinton's second term, together with the Republican-controlled Congress, he produced record federal budget surpluses reaching $236 billion by the year 2000, and representing a net federal budget gain of $526 billion.[10]

He spent much of the remainder of his presidency combating scandals. A special prosecutor's report was not released until well into Clinton's second term, and brought documented evidence of Clinton giving false testimony in the Paula Jones civil lawsuit while President which resulted in his impeachment and disbarment from the legal profession.[Citation Needed] The main charge was that he had committed perjury in a civil suit. The perjured testimony directly related to an attempt to defraud the plaintiff of damages. The Senate failed to make clear what constitutes high crimes and misdemeanors.[11]

In 1998 the Good Friday Agreement was signed between Northern Ireland's Nationalist and Unionist parties and the British and Irish governments. Clinton took part in brokering the deal, phoning the participants in negotiations, at Senator Mitchel's behest, and hosted Unionist and Nationalist leaders at the White House.[12]

al-Qaeda bombing

During Clinton's presidency the terrorist group al-Qaeda conducted the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, simultaneous bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the attack on the USS Cole in 2000. Terrorist leader Osama bin Laden[13] issued two public fatwas declaring War on America.[14] In the 1998 fatwa [15] bin Laden told jihadists worldwide,

Clinton appeared in front of the whole world threatening and promising revenge, but these threats were merely a preparation for withdrawal. You have been disgraced by Allah and you withdrew; the extent of your impotence and weaknesses became very clear. It was a pleasure for the "heart" of every Muslim and a remedy to the "chests" of believing nations to see you defeated in the three Islamic cities of Beirut, Aden and Mogadishu.[16]

Bin Laden told ABC News at the time, "We do not have to differentiate between military or civilian. As far as we are concerned, they are all targets." [17]

Cruise missiles to manipulate opinion polls

Suspicions often arose during Clinton's tenure about the timing of cruise missile attacks to manipulate public sympathy at crucial points when his approval ratings sagged. On several occasions [18] generally when the approval ratings dipped to 47%, surprise cruise missile attacks[19] were launched which resulted in a 10 point gain in the public opinion polls. Nick Gillespie of Reason remarked,

Consider, for instance, the relative lack of scrutiny accorded the August 20 cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan and Sudan … immediately after the bombing, polls showed that close to half of all Americans thought the missile strikes were meant to divert attention from the president's sex life… the Sudanese bombing suggests something else as well: If and when the public's and the media's attention shifts from the president's sex life to wider-ranging inquiries about how he makes deadly serious policy decisions…"[20]

Clinton also signed into law the Violence Against Women Act, which opened the federal courts to claims of domestic disputes between men and women, which had always been handled under state rather than federal law. Portions regarding civil rights remedies were later found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff was John Podesta between 1998-2001.

Clinton left office with an approval rating of 65%, the highest of any modern president, and remains the only modern president to leave office with a higher approval rating than he had when he took office.[21]

Impeachment

On Aug. 17, 1998, after relentless media attention, leaks, and news of Lewinsky's upcoming testimony, Clinton made history by becoming the first U.S. president to testify in front of a grand jury in an investigation of his own possibly criminal conduct. In an address to the nation, he admitted to having misled the public and a Federal Court over keys elements of testimony. Kenneth Starr, a special prosecutor appointed to investigate the case, was instructed to pursue the matter.

In the second term Clinton was accused of perjury in connection to the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit. Clinton adviser and close confidant George Stephanopoulos said publicly that there would be a "scorched-earth policy" if Clinton were impeached.[22] Clinton previously had decried the "politics of personal destruction."[23]

During the impeachment trial, pornographer Larry Flynt, an old friend of Clinton advisers James Carville and Strobe Talbott, publicly offered a $1 million reward for any information about the personal lives of members of Congress that could be used for the purposes of blackmail. Although a majority of 55 Senators voted to convict, a minority of 45 Senators gained his acquittal, a two thirds majority being necessary to remove him from office.


David Gergen, former White House Communications Director for both Presidents Reagan and Clinton, summarized the sentiments of many regarding the President's conduct:

The deep and searing violation took place when he not only lied to the country, but co-opted his friends and lied to them....when you have gone over the line, you won't bring others into it...You don't foul the nest."[24]

Clinton lost his law license in Arkansas because he had committed perjury before a Federal judge.

It was during this scandal that Clinton famously stated: "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is".[25]

Terrorist pardons

On August 11, 1999, President Clinton offered clemency to members of the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN) terrorist group. [26] On January 24, 1975 the FALN bombed Fraunces Tavern in Manhattan killing four people. Over a six-year period, the group claimed responsibility for more than 100 bombings that took six lives and injured some 130 people.[27]

Legacy

Clinton has spent much of time since leaving office supposedly working for charitable causes such as support and fund-raising for the victims of AIDS and the Asian tsunami. In the case of the Indian Ocean tsunami, he teamed with former president George H.W. Bush to raise money for relief efforts.

Bill Clinton's wife, Hillary Clinton, was elected Senator to New York in 2000. She was reelected in 2006. While his wife is now seeking financial donations for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008 may face a felony conviction that carries with it a five year sentence, according to WorldNetDaily, for recieving $1.9 million to her Senate Campaign in illegal donations, [28] Bill Clinton has refused to make known the idenities of financial donors to his Presidential library.[29]

See also

References

  1. http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/bc42.html
  2. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=50652
  3. http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/bc42.html
  4. Findings of the Supreme Court of the United States in Clinton vs Jeffers No. 90-394 (1990) on appeal 730 F. Supp. 196, 198-201 (ED Ark. 1989) (three-judge court), aff'd, No. 89-2008 (Jan. 7, 1991).
  5. The Oil Factor in Somalia: Four American Petroleum Giants had Agreements with the Arfican Nation before its Civil War began. They could reap big rewards if peace is restored. By Mark Fineman, Times Mirror Company, January 18, 1993.
  6. http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/commentprint082800d.html
  7. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Clinton_approval_rating.JPG
  8. Air Force Considered Gay 'Love Bomb' Against Enemies, Fox, June 12, 2007.
  9. [1]
  10. Congressional Budget Office figures
  11. Statement by Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-Connecticut), Congressional Record for Friday, February 12, 1999.
  12. [2]
  13. Did Bill Clinton Smooth the Way for Bin Laden to Become the World's Most Successful Terrorist?, Mary Mostert, Original Sources, August 24, 1998.
  14. Bin Laden's Declaration of War, 1998.
  15. Bernard Lewis, License to Kill, Foreign Affairs, November/December 1998.
  16. October 1997: Ali Mohamed Tells FBI He Helped Al-Qaeda Kill US Soldiers, But FBI Takes No Action
  17. The 9-11 Commission Report, The Foundation of the New Terrorism, Official Government Edition, GPO, 2004.
  18. The Facts About Clinton and Terrorism, Byron York, National Review Online, September 11, 2006.
  19. Airstrikes Against Iraq: 'What Happens Now?', U.S. Information Agency Daily Digest, December 21, 1998.
  20. Bombs Away - Troubling questions about the U.S. attack on Sudan, Reason, December 1998.
  21. Presidential Approval Ratings
  22. Insight Magazine, J Michael Waller, 6/19/00.
  23. Bill Clinton, Historian, Peter Wehner, Jewish World Review July 22, 1999.
  24. In Washington, That Letdown Feeling, By Sally Quinn, The Washington Post, November 2, 1998, Page E01
  25. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/21/newsid_2525000/2525339.stm
  26. U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee testimony available at http://www.senate.gov/~judiciary/wl91599.htm, The Tampa Tribune, S.J.Res. 33 (passed 95-2).
  27. Clinton Pardons Terror, New York Post, August 13, 1999. rtetrieve from http://www.latinamericanstudies.org September 14, 2007.
  28. 'Smoking gun' tape indicts Hillary Art Moore, WorldNetDaily.com, April 21, 2007.
  29. Clinton Library Donors Remain Secret, ABC News, September 27, 2007.

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