y5d5exxzo's Journal

Their work was certain to bring new jobs and...
Their work was certain to bring new jobs and services at lower prices to Americans, and to spread the benefits of new technologies across the world

Around this time I was in Boston with Mayor Tom MeninoCrime, violence, and drug use were going down in America, but they were still on the rise among people under eighteen, though not in Boston, where no child had died from gun violence in eighteen months, a remarkable achievement for a large cityI proposed child trigger locks on guns to prevent accidental shootings, a massive anti-drug advertising campaign, required drug tests for young people seeking drivers licenses, and reforms in the juvenile justice system, including the kind of probation and after-school services that Boston had implemented so successfully

There were some interesting developments in Whitewater World in FebruaryOn the seventeenth, Kenneth Starr announced he would leave his post on August 1 to become dean of the Pepperdine University Law School in southern CaliforniaHe had obviously decided that Whitewater was a dry hole and this was a graceful way out, but he received heavy criticism for his decisionThe press said it looked bad because his Pepperdine position had been funded by Richard Mellon Scaife, whose funding of the Arkansas Project was not yet public knowledge, but who was widely recognized as an extreme right-winger with an animus toward meI thought their objection was flimsy; Starr was already earning lots of money representing political tiffany heart tag necklace opponents of my administration while serving as independent counsel, and he would in fact reduce his conflicts of interest by going to Pepperdine

What really rocked Starr was all the heat he got from the Republican right and the three or four reporters who were deeply vested in finding something wed done wrong, or at least in continuing the tormentBy then, Starr had already done a lot for them: he had saddled a lot of people with big legal bills and damaged reputations, and, at enormous cost to taxpayers, had managed to drag the investigation out for three years, even after the RTC report said there was no basis for any civil or criminal action against Hillary and meBut the right wing and the Whitewater press knew that if Starr quit, it was a tacit admission that there was no there thereAfter they beat him up for four days he announced he would stay onI didnt know whether to laugh or cry

The press was also still writing about fund-raising in the 1996 campaignAmong other things, they were agitated that I had invited people who had contributed to my campaign in 1992 to spend the night at the White House, even though, as with all guests, I paid for the costs of meals and other refreshmentsThe implication was that I had been selling overnights in the White House to raise money for the DNCI was an incumbent President who led in the polls from start to finish; raising money was no problem, and even if it had been, I would never have used the White House in that wayAt the end of the chanel shopping bag month, I released a list of all overnight guests in the first termThere were hundreds of them, about 85 percent of whom were relatives, friends of Chelseas, foreign visitors and other dignitaries, or people whom Hillary and I had known before I started running for PresidentAs for my supporters from 92 who were also my friends, I wanted as many of them as possible to have the honor of spending the night in the White HouseOften, given the long hours I worked, the only time I had to visit with people in an informal way was late at nightThere was never a single case when I raised money because of this practiceMy critics seemed to be saying that the only people who shouldnt be overnight guests were friends and supportersWhen I released the list, many people on it were questioned by the pressOne reporter called Tony Campolo and asked if hed given me a contributionWhen he said he had, he was asked how muchI think $25, he said, but it might have been $50Oh, the reporter replied, we dont want to talk to you, and hung up

The month ended on a happy note, as Hillary and I took Chelsea and eleven of her girlfriends to dinner at the Bombay Club restaurant in Washington for her seventeenth birthday, and later to New York to see some plays, and Hillary won a Grammy Award for the audio version of It Takes a VillageShe has a great voice, and the book was full of stories she loved to tellThe Grammy was another reminder that at least beyond the Washington Beltway, a lot of Americans were jumbo chanel flap bag interested in the same things we were

In mid-February, Prime Minister Netanyahu came to see me to discuss the current state of the peace process, and Yasser Arafat did the same in early MarchNetanyahu was constrained politically in what he could do beyond the Hebron dealThe Israelis had just begun to elect their prime minister directly, so Netanyahu had a four-year term, but he still had to put together a majority coalition in the KnessetIf he lost his coalition on the right, he could form a national unity government with Peres and the Labor Party, but he didnt want to do thatThe hard-liners in his coalition knew this and were making it difficult for him to keep moving toward peace by opening the Gaza airport or even letting all the Palestinians from Gaza come back to work in IsraelPsychologically, Netanyahu faced the same challenge Rabin had: Israel had to give up something concreteland, access, jobs, an airportin return for something far less tangible: the best efforts of the PLO to prevent terrorist attacks

I was convinced Netanyahu wanted to do more, and afraid that if he couldnt, Arafat would find it more difficult to keep the lid on violenceTo further complicate matters, whenever the peace process slowed, or the Israelis retaliated for a terrorist attack or began another building program in a West Bank settlement, there was likely to be a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel for its continued violation of UN resolutions, and doing so in a way that suggested balenciaga bag black what the negotiated settlement should beThe Israelis depended on the United States to veto such measures, which we normally didThat enabled us to maintain our influence with them, but weakened our claim to be an honest broker with the PalestiniansI had to keep reminding Arafat that I was committed to the peace process and that only the United States could help bring it about, because the Israelis trusted America, not the European Union or Russia, to protect its security

When Arafat came to see me I tried to work through the next steps with himNot surprisingly, he saw things differently from Netanyahu; he thought he was supposed to prevent all violence and wait around for Netanyahus politics to permit Israel to honor its commitments under the peace agreementI had developed a comfortable working relationship with both leaders by then and had decided the only realistic option was to keep the process from falling apart by staying in constant touch, putting things back on track when they did fall apart, and maintaining momentum, even if it came in baby steps

On the night of March 13, after appearances in North Carolina and south Florida, I went to Greg Normans house in Hobe Sound to visit with him and his wife, LauraIt was a very pleasant evening, and the time got away from usBefore I knew it, it was after one oclock in the morning, and since we were supposed to play in a golf tournament a few hours later, I got up to leaveAs we were walking down the steps, I didnt see the last gucci clearance on