compassionate conservative message to the swing voters was this: “I’ll give you the same good conditions you have now, with a smaller government and a bigger tax cut. Wouldn’t you like that?” On most issues, Bush was in line with the conservative congressional Republicans, though he had criticized their budget for being harsh to the poor because it raised taxes for low-income Americans by cutting back on the Earned Income Tax Credit, while reducing taxes on the wealthiest Americans.
Although Bush was a formidable politician, I still thought Al Gore would win, despite the fact that only two previous vice presidents, Martin Van Buren and George H. W. Bush, had been elected directly from the vice presidency, because the country was in good shape and our administration had strong support. All vice presidents who run for President have two problems: most people don’t know what they’ve done and don’t give them credit for the accomplishments of the administration, and they tend to get typecast as number two men. I had done everything I could to help Al avoid those problems by giving him many high-profile assignments and making sure he received public recognition for his invaluable contribution to our successes. Yet even though he was indisputably the most active and influential vice president in history, there was still a gap between perception and reality. The biggest challenge Al faced was how to show independence while still getting the benefit of our record. He had already said he disagreed with my personal misconduct but was proud of what we had accomplished for the American people. Now I thought he should say that no matter who became the next President, change was inevitable; the question for the voters was whether we would keep changing in the right way or make a U-turn to the failed policies of the past. Governor Bush was clearly advocating a return to trickle-down economics. We had tried it that way for twelve years and our way for seven. Our way worked better, and we had the evidence to prove it. The campaign gave Al the chance to remind voters that I was leaving, but that the Republicans who had pursued impeachment and supported Starr were staying. America needed a President to stand up to them so that they couldn’t abuse their power like that again, or succeed in implementing the harsh policies I had stopped in the budget battles, beginning with the government shutdown. There was ample evidence, less than a year old, that if the voters saw the election as a choice for the future and were reminded of what the Republicans had done, the advantage would shift markedly to the Democrats. When a few people in the press began pushing the theory that I could cost Al the election, I had a funny telephone conversation with him about it. I said I was interested only in his winning, and if I thought it would help I would stand on the doorstep of the
On October 12, Pakistan’s prime minister Nawaz Sharif was overthrown in a military coup headed by General Musharraf, who had led the Pakistani armed forces over the Line of Control in Kashmir. I was concerned about the loss of democracy, and urged the restoration of civilian rule as soon as possible. Musharraf’s ascendancy had one immediate consequence: the program to send Pakistani commandos into Afghanistan to catch or kill Osama bin Laden was canceled.
In mid-month, Ken Starr announced he was stepping down. Judge Sentelle’s panel replaced him with Robert Ray, who was on Starr’s staff and before that had been on the staff of Donald Smaltz during the failed attempt to convict Mike Espy. Near the end of my term, Ray wanted his pound of flesh, too: a written statement admitting that I had given false testimony in my deposition, and an agreement to accept a temporary suspension of my law license in return for Ray’s shutting down the independent counsel’s investigation. I doubted that he would actually indict me, given the fact that a bipartisan panel of prosecutors had testified at the impeachment proceedings that no responsible prosecutor would do so. But I was ready to get on with my life and didn’t want to complicate Hillary’s new life in politics. However, I couldn’t agree to intentionally giving false testimony because I didn’t believe I had. After carefully rereading my deposition and finding a couple of instances in which I gave answers that were not accurate, I gave Ray a statement that said that though I had tried to testify lawfully, some of my responses were false. He accepted the statement. After almost six years and $70 million in tax money, Whitewater was over.
Not everyone wanted a pound of flesh. In the middle of the month, I invited my high school classmates to the White House for our thirty-fifth high school reunion—as I had done five years earlier, for our thirtieth. I had loved my high school years and always enjoyed seeing my classmates. On this occasion several of them told me that their lives had gotten better over the last seven years. The son of one of them said that he thought I had been a good president, but “the most proud I ever was of you was when you stood up to that impeachment thing.” I heard that often from people who’d felt helpless in the face of their own mistakes and misfortunes; somehow the fact that I had just kept going struck a chord with them, because that’s what they had had to do.
At the end of the month, a Senate filibuster killed campaign finance reform again; we marked the fifth anniversary of AmeriCorps, in which 150,000 Americans had now served; Hillary and I held a White House Conference on Philanthropy in the hope of increasing the amount and impact of charitable giving; and we celebrated her birthday with a “Broadway for Hillary” event reminiscent of what Broadway stars had done for me back in 1992.
I began November by going to Oslo, where the negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians had begun, to observe the fourth anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination, honor his memory, and join with the parties in rededicating ourselves to the peace process. Norwegian prime minister Kjell Bondevik had decided that an Oslo event might move the process forward. Our ambassador, David Hermelin, an irrepressible man of Norwegian-Jewish descent, tried to do his part by serving kosher hot dogs to both Barak and Arafat. Shimon Peres and Leah Rabin were there, too. The event had the desired effect, though I was convinced that both Barak and Arafat already wanted to complete the peace process and would do so in 2000.
Around this time several members of the press began to ask me about my legacy. Would I be known for bringing prosperity? For being a peacemaker? I tried to formulate an answer that captured not only concrete achievements but also the sense of possibility and community I wanted America to embody. The truth is, though, I didn’t have time to think about such things. I wanted to press ahead until the last day. The legacy would take care of itself, probably long after I was dead. On November 4, I began another New Markets tour, this time to Newark, Hartford, and Hermitage, Arkansas, the little town I had helped get living facilities for its migrant tomato workers in the late seventies. The tour ended in Chicago with Jesse Jackson and Speaker Hastert, who had decided to support the initiative. Jesse was looking resplendent in a fine pin-striped suit, and I kidded him about dressing up “like a Republican today” for the Speaker. I was encouraged by Hastert’s support and confident we would pass legislation in the coming year.
In the second week of the month, I joined Al From for the first online presidential town hall meeting. Since I had been President, the number of Web sites had grown from 50 sites to 9 million, and new pages were being added at a rate of 100,000 per hour. The voice recognition software that converted my responses to type is routine today but was novel then. Two people asked me what I was going to do after I left the White House. I hadn’t figured it all out yet, but I had begun to make plans for my presidential library.
I had thought a lot about the library and its exhibits on my years as President. Each President has to raise all the funds to build his library, plus an endowment to maintain the facility. The National Archives then provides the staff to organize and care for its contents. I had pored over the work of several architects and had visited many of the presidential libraries. The overwhelming majority of people who visit them come to see the exhibits, but the building has to be built in a way that preserves the records. I wanted the exhibit space to be open, beautiful, and full of light, and I wanted the material presented in a way that demonstrated America’s movement into the twenty- first century.
I chose Jim Polshek and his firm as my architects, largely because of his design for the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York, a huge glass-and-steel structure with a massive globe inside. I asked Ralph Applebaum to do the exhibits, because I thought his work on the Holocaust Museum in Washington was the best I had ever seen. I had already begun working with both of them. Before it was over, Polshek would say I was the worst client he had ever had: if he came to see me after a six-month hiatus with only a minor change in the drawings, I would notice and ask him about it. I wanted to situate the library in Little Rock because I felt I owed it to my native state and because I thought the library should be in the heartland of America where people who didn’t travel to Washington or New York would have direct access to it. The city of Little Rock, on the initiative of Mayor Jim Dailey and city board member Dr. Dean Kumpuris, had offered twenty-seven acres of land along the Arkansas River in the old section of town, which was being revitalized and was not far from the Old State Capitol, the scene of so many important events in my life.
Beyond the library, I knew that I wanted to write a book about my life and the presidency and that I would have to work hard for three or four years to pay my legal bills, buy our home—two homes, if Hillary won the Senate
