[249] Morrison noted that Clinton's sex life was scrutinized more than his career accomplishments, and she compared this to the stereotyping and double standards that, she said, blacks typically endure. in politics. Tensions had been mounting throughout the primary but Clinton's infamous South Carolina comment in which he dismissively compared Obama's victory there, to those of Jesse Jackson's previous losing bids seemed to mark a turning point for the man who had been affectionately dubbed "The First Black President. [130] Clinton came out for gay marriage in July 2009[135] and urged the Supreme Court to overturn DOMA in 2013. [4] Clinton was in the chorus and played the tenor saxophone, winning first chair in the state band's saxophone section. (AP Photo/Marcy Nighswander, File) Clinton also experienced many judicial appointment controversies, as 69 nominees to federal judgeships did not receive a vote in the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee. The Arkansas Education Standards Committee was chaired by Clinton's wife Hillary, who was also an attorney as well as the chair of the Legal Services Corporation. He is a member of Kappa Kappa Psi honorary band fraternity. During the 2016 presidential election, Clinton again encouraged voters to support Hillary, and made appearances speaking on the campaign trail. Clinton was elected Governor of Arkansas in 1978, having defeated the Republican candidate Lynn Lowe, a farmer from Texarkana. When Bush compromised with Democrats to try to lower Federal deficits, he reneged on his promise not to raise taxes, which hurt his approval rating. [89], Two days after taking office, on January 22, 1993—the 20th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade—Clinton reversed restrictions on domestic and international family planning programs that had been imposed by Reagan and Bush. In 2011, President Michel Martelly of Haiti awarded Clinton with the National Order of Honour and Merit to the rank of Grand Cross "for his various initiatives in Haiti and especially his high contribution to the reconstruction of the country after the earthquake of January 12, 2010". [324] However, he has since incorporated fish and lean proteins at the suggestion of Dr. Mark Hyman, a proponent of the pseudoscientific ethos of functional medicine. "Evaluating Presidential Character", Jewett, Aubrey W. and Marc D. Turetzky; "Stability and Change in President Clinton's Foreign Policy Beliefs, 1993–96", Lanoue, David J. and Craig F. Emmert; "Voting in the Glare of the Spotlight: Representatives' Votes on the Impeachment of President Clinton", Maurer; Paul J. Clinton repeatedly condemned Bush for making a promise he failed to keep. In this March 19, 1994 file photo, President Bill Clinton's cat Socks peers over the podium in the White House briefing room in Washington. He issued a notarized statement during the 1992 presidential campaign: During the 1992 campaign, it was revealed that Clinton's uncle had attempted to secure him a position in the Navy Reserve, which would have prevented him from being deployed to Vietnam. Bill said that feeling bad wasn't good enough. [271] In the wake of the #MeToo movement (which shed light on the widespread prevalence of sexual assault and harassment, especially in the workplace), various commentators and Democratic political leaders, as well as Lewinsky herself, have revisited their view that the Lewinsky affair was consensual, and instead characterized it as an abuse of power or harassment, in light of the power differential between a president and a 22-year old intern. [4][7][8][9][10] In 1950, Bill's mother returned from nursing school and married Roger Clinton Sr., who co-owned an automobile dealership in Hot Springs, Arkansas, with his brother and Earl T. Clinton worked with future two-term mayor of Dallas Ron Kirk,[40] future governor of Texas Ann Richards,[41] and then unknown television director and filmmaker Steven Spielberg. [93] Two days later, in a nationally televised address to a joint session of Congress, Clinton unveiled his economic plan. Jeffrey A. Roth and Christopher S. Koper, "Impacts of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban: 1994–96". Appointed by Clinton,[143] the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform recommended reducing legal immigration from about 800,000 people a year to about 550,000. Running in the conservative 3rd district against incumbent Republican John Paul Hammerschmidt, Clinton's campaign was bolstered by the anti-Republican and anti-incumbent mood resulting from the Watergate scandal. [110] Throughout his first year in office, Clinton consistently supported ratification of the treaty by the U.S. Senate. [321] In March 2005, he again underwent surgery, this time for a partially collapsed lung. Two other bombs had been discovered in Manila earlier in the week so the threat level that day was high. [3][4] He is the son of William Jefferson Blythe Jr., a traveling salesman who had died in an automobile accident three months before his birth, and Virginia Dell Cassidy (later Virginia Kelley). Socks was an adopted stray cat and the only pet of the Clintons during the first years of Clinton's presidency. [37], After graduating from Yale Law School, Clinton returned to Arkansas and became a law professor at the University of Arkansas. [110], The Omnibus Crime Bill, which Clinton signed into law in September 1994,[111] made many changes to U.S. crime and law enforcement legislation including the expansion of the death penalty to include crimes not resulting in death, such as running a large-scale drug enterprise. [72][73] Over the same period, the Office of Management and Budget reported an end of year (December 31) gross debt of $5.369 trillion in 1997, $5.478 trillion in 1998, $5.606 in 1999, and $5.629 trillion in 2000. In November 1995, Clinton became the first U.S. president to visit Northern Ireland, seeing both the divided communities of Belfast and later famously shaking Adams' hand, 14 months into an IRA ceasefire during the Troubles. [273], Bill Clinton has continued to be active in public life since leaving office in 2001, giving speeches, fundraising, and founding charitable organizations,[274] and has spoken in prime time at every Democratic National Convention. Bill Clinton Socks, the Clinton's family cat, is one of the most famous presidential cats in history — he even has his own Wikipedia page. [292] In 2008, Foundation director Inder Singh announced deals to reduce the price of anti-malaria drugs by 30 percent in developing nations. [102], On September 22, 1993, Clinton made a major speech to Congress regarding a health care reform plan; the program aimed at achieving universal coverage through a national health care plan. [269], The Lewinsky scandal has had an enduring impact on Clinton's legacy, beyond his impeachment in 1998. At the Dallas Animal Services adoption center, Lily and I found a big cat stuffed in a little cage. He created the Clinton Foundation to address international causes such as the prevention of HIV/AIDS and global warming. [310] In 2010, Clinton announced support of, and delivered the keynote address for, the inauguration of NTR, Ireland's first environmental foundation. (We all know that when you have to say that you might as well be answering the question "When did you stop beating your wife? [144][145], Ken Gormley, author of The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr, reveals in his book that Clinton narrowly escaped possible assassination in the Philippines in November 1996. [194] The term "ethnic cleansing" was used as an alternative to "genocide" to denote not just ethnically motivated murder but also displacement, though critics charge there is little difference. [225] According to a CBS News/New York Times poll, Clinton left office with an approval rating of 68 percent, which matched those of Ronald Reagan and Franklin D. Roosevelt as the highest ratings for departing presidents in the modern era. [114][115] The site was followed with three more versions, resulting in the final edition launched in 2000. [53], In December of the same year, allegations by Arkansas state troopers Larry Patterson and Roger Perry were first reported by David Brock in The American Spectator. As governor, he overhauled the state's education system and served as chairman of the National Governors Association. President Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's pet cat, Socks, sat on the first lady's lap in front of a Christmas tree during the holiday season at the White House on Dec. 13, 1995. [50] Later in his presidency, in 1999, Clinton criticized the way the policy was implemented, saying he did not think any serious person could say it was not "out of whack". [4] While in college, he became a brother of service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega[18] and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. But I also interviewed and quoted one anonymous source, who knew both Clintons well, who told me that should the primary get tight, no tactic would be off the table -- including those steeped in racial innuendo. With only minor opposition in the primary and no opposition at all in the general election,[43] Clinton was elected. [294], In the early 2000s, Clinton took flights on Jeffrey Epstein's private jet in connection with Clinton Foundation work. [332] Clinton earned more than $104 million from paid speeches between 2001 and 2012. [53], Clinton appointed two justices to the Supreme Court: Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1993[217] and Stephen Breyer in 1994. [271] However, former DNC interim chair Donna Brazile previously urged Clinton in November 2017 to campaign during the 2018 midterm elections, in spite of New York U.S. senator Kirsten Gillibrand's recent criticism of the Lewinsky scandal. [126] Others were more critical. He scored a resounding victory in New York City, shedding his image as a regional candidate. High-speed train service postponed after cat clambers on to its roof. [53] Despite the Democratic majority in Congress, the effort to create a national health care system ultimately died when compromise legislation by George J. Mitchell failed to gain a majority of support in August 1994. The Clintons' other pet was a cat named Socks. [138], The 1996 United States campaign finance controversy was an alleged effort by China to influence the domestic policies of the United States, before and during the Clinton administration, and involved the fundraising practices of the administration itself. [34][35] Clinton's 1992 campaign manager, James Carville, successfully argued that Clinton's letter in which he declined to join the ROTC should be made public, insisting that voters, many of whom had also opposed the Vietnam War, would understand and appreciate his position. ©2021 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved. Edwards; George C. "Bill Clinton and His Crisis of Governance", Fisher; Patrick. According to their findings, Clinton ranked eighth overall, with a rating of 70 percent. [206] Clinton also oversaw a boom of the U.S. economy. [376], Clinton has two more Grammy nominations for his audiobooks: Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World in 2007 and Back to Work in 2012. [198], Seeking to weaken Hussein's grip on power, Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 into law on October 31, 1998, which instituted a policy of "regime change" against Iraq, though it explicitly stated it did not provide for direct intervention on the part of American military forces. [244][245] His prominent role in campaigning for President Obama during the 2012 presidential election and his widely publicized speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, where he officially nominated Obama and criticized Republican nominee Mitt Romney and Republican policies in detail, earned him the nickname "Explainer-in-Chief". With our allies, we must pursue a strategy to contain him and to constrain his weapons of mass destruction program, while working toward the day Iraq has a government willing to live at peace with its people and with its neighbors. [301] Considering Bill's remarks, many thought he could not rally Hillary supporters behind Obama after Obama won the primary. [195] Slobodan Milošević, the president of Yugoslavia at the time of the atrocities, was eventually brought to trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague on charges including crimes against humanity and war crimes for his role in the war. [317] He voted for the Democratic ticket consisting of his wife Hillary and her running-mate Tim Kaine. [183] The stated reasoning behind the intervention was to stop the ethnic cleansing (and what the Clinton administration labeled genocide)[184][185] of Albanians by Yugoslav anti-guerilla military units. [265] On March 19, 1998, Julie Hiatt Steele, a friend of Willey, released an affidavit, accusing the former White House aide of asking her to lie to corroborate Ms. Willey's account of being sexually groped by Clinton in the Oval Office. In 2018, Clinton was asked in several interviews about whether he should have resigned, and he said he had made the right decision in not resigning. U.S. Department of Justice/National Institute of Justice. The Act was signed into law on October 10, 2000 by Clinton. In October 1997, he announced he was getting hearing aids, due to hearing loss attributed to his age, and his time spent as a musician in his youth. [315] In a series of tweets, then-President-elect Donald Trump criticized his ability to get people out to vote. [249] Many viewed this comparison as unfair and disparaging both to Clinton and to the African-American community at large. [147] Details of the plot were revealed to Gormley by Lewis C. Merletti, former member of the presidential protection detail and Director of the Secret Service. [341][342] Hillary Clinton said she and Bill came out of the White House financially "broke" and in debt, especially due to large legal fees incurred during their years in the White House. Much like Jesse Jackson helped redefine himself in the eyes of some Americans by becoming a de facto international statesman, negotiating the release of various captive Americans abroad in the 1980s, President Clinton reminded us all just how relevant he still is, by helping to secure the release of captured journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling in North Korea. [254], Several women have publicly accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct, including rape, harassment, and sexual assault. [14] After a vigorous defense that made use of his "budding rhetorical and political skills", he told the Latin teacher Elizabeth Buck it "made him realize that someday he would study law". [303] After Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign was over, Bill Clinton continued to raise funds to help pay off her campaign debt. [374][375], The audiobook edition of his autobiography, My Life, read by Clinton himself, won the 2005 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album[374] as well as the Audie Award as the Audiobook of the Year. [220][221], Clinton was the first president in history to appoint more women and minority judges than white male judges to the federal courts. [119], A speech delivered by President Bill Clinton at the December 6, 1995 White House Conference on HIV/AIDS projected that a cure for AIDS and a vaccine to prevent further infection would be developed. Less than a month after taking office, he signed the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which required large employers to allow employees to take unpaid leave for pregnancy or a serious medical condition. [189][190] Prior to the bombing campaign on March 24, 1999, common estimates showed that the number of civilians killed in the over year long conflict in Kosovo had approximately been 1,800, of which were primarily Albanians but also Serbs and that there was no evidence of genocide or ethnic cleansing. [280] Clinton released a best-selling autobiography, My Life, in 2004. In 1976, Clinton ran for Arkansas attorney general. [160], On January 19, 2001, Clinton's law license was suspended for five years after he acknowledged to an Arkansas circuit court that he had engaged in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice in the Jones case. A picture of Socks was always on the children's White House website. In his second term, his rating consistently ranged from the high-50s to the high-60s. [250] Clinton, a Baptist,[251] has been open about his faith. Achievements of the Clinton Administration: the Complete Legislative and Executive. In the 1994 elections, the Republican Party won unified control of Congress for the first time in 40 years. [149] Officials also discovered a bomb near a major U.S. naval base. Then once more he stepped in a pile of kitty litter. And he came up, threw his arm around me and said, 'You've got to forgive us for that race deal.' [132] Under Clinton's leadership, federal funding for HIV/AIDS research, prevention and treatment more than doubled. But somehow just like a cat, he's always managed to find his way back. Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946, at Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, Arkansas. While Hillary Clinton was in South Korea, she and Cheryl Mills worked to convince SAE-A, a large apparel subcontractor, to invest in Haiti despite the company's deep concerns about plans to raise the minimum wage. It cut taxes for 15 million low-income families, made tax cuts available to 90 percent of small businesses,[101] and raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.2 percent of taxpayers. [238] Opponents sometimes referred to him as "Slick Willie", a nickname which was first applied to him in 1980 by Pine Bluff Commercial journalist Paul Greenberg;[239] Greenberg believed that Clinton was abandoning the progressive policies of previous Arkansas Governors such as Winthrop Rockefeller, Dale Bumpers and David Pryor. [77], Clinton was still the governor of Arkansas while campaigning for U.S. president, and he returned to his home state to see that Ricky Ray Rector would be executed. He further stated that because he opposed the war, he would not volunteer to serve in uniform, but would subject himself to the draft, and would serve if selected only as a way "to maintain my political viability within the system". [139][140] Despite the evidence,[139][141] the Chinese government denied all accusations. But I am also somewhat in awe that yet again, President Clinton rose to the occasion to remind us of the great leader he has the capacity to be when he allows himself. [260] Clinton later agreed to an out-of-court settlement and paid Jones $850,000. [59] For the nomination, Clinton endorsed Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis. It requires China to open its markets—with a fifth of the world's population, potentially the biggest markets in the world—to both our products and services in unprecedented new ways," said Clinton. [259] In 1998, lawyers for Paula Jones released court documents that alleged a pattern of sexual harassment by Clinton when he was Governor of Arkansas. "The Evolution of American Grand Strategy and the War on Terrorism: Clinton and Bush Perspectives". Additionally, it mandated that the budget be balanced over many years through the implementation of spending restraints. Washington DC. Here’s how. Dumbrell, John. With the aid of scholarships, Clinton attended the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., receiving a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service degree in 1968. The law also imposed a five-day waiting period on purchases, until the NICS system was implemented in 1998. [268], Also in 1998, Juanita Broaddrick alleged that Clinton had raped her in the spring of 1978, although she said she did not remember the exact date. Senator from New York. [15], Clinton has identified two influential moments in his life, both occurring in 1963, that contributed to his decision to become a public figure. In 1998, Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives, becoming the second U.S. president to be impeached, after Andrew Johnson. Socks, the Clinton cat, often strolled the grounds with one human or another — including the president — attached to a 30-foot leash. [65][66] Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history.[67][68][69]. This caused the White House travel office controversy even though the travel office staff served at the pleasure of the president and could be dismissed without cause. Socks Clinton (1989 – February 20, 2009) was the pet cat of U.S. President Bill Clinton's family during his presidency. Proposed reforms included more spending for schools (supported by a sales-tax increase), better opportunities for gifted children, vocational education, higher teachers' salaries, more course variety, and compulsory teacher competency exams. [62][79] Finally, conservatives were previously united by anti-communism, but with the end of the Cold War, the party lacked a uniting issue. [371], U.S. president Barack Obama awarded Clinton the Presidential Medal of Freedom on November 20, 2013.[372]. [295][296] Years later, Epstein was convicted on sex trafficking charges. Bill Clinton’s father was a traveling salesman who died before his son was born. CHILL OUT Weather LIVE - Met Office REJECTS 'White Easter' claims as temperatures plunge ... Lewinsky ‘once squeezed Bill Clinton’s privates in crowd’, memoir reveals News 'BLESSED' Remarkable life of King who interviewed 60k & didn't fear … ", Clinton's December 8, 1993 remarks on the signing of the, "When I took office, only high energy physicists had ever heard of what is called the Worldwide Web ... Now even, In 2012, the category was merged back into, Vietnam War opposition and draft controversy, Governor of Arkansas (1979–1981, 1983–1992), Sexual misconduct and sexual assault allegations. As Clinton once joked, he was the youngest ex-governor in the nation's history. Bill Clinton and Socks. However, he has also been subject to substantial criticism for his sex scandals and lies, especially in the wake of the Me Too movement. [287], Based on his philanthropic worldview,[288] Clinton created the William J. Clinton Foundation to address issues of global importance. [282], In the aftermath of the 2004 Asian tsunami, U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan appointed Clinton to head a relief effort. [286] They also spoke together at the funeral of Boris Yeltsin in April 2007. Fears were allayed August 27, 2008, when Clinton enthusiastically endorsed Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, saying all his experience as president assures him that Obama is "ready to lead". The White House responded to the controversy by claiming that the firings were done in response to financial improprieties that had been revealed by a brief FBI investigation. [208], The U.S.–China Relations Act of 2000 granted China permanent normal trade relations (NTR) status (previously called most favoured nation (MFN)) when China becomes a full member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), ending annual review and approval of NTR. The plan focused on reducing the deficit rather than on cutting taxes for the middle class, which had been high on his campaign agenda. [212], U.S. manufacturing jobs have decreased by almost five million since 2000. Bill Clinton statue in Ballybunion, erected to commemorate his 1998 golfing visit, Bill Clinton statue in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, Bill Clinton is one of the narrators on Wolf Tracks and Peter and the Wolf, a 2003 recording of Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf performed by the Russian National Orchestra, on Pentatone, together with Mikhail Gorbachev and Sophia Loren. [162] Both votes fell short of the constitutional two-thirds majority requirement to convict and remove an officeholder. Clinton was only 32 years old when he took office, the youngest governor in the country at the time and the second youngest governor in the history of Arkansas. [13], Clinton joined friend Bruce Lindsey's Little Rock law firm of Wright, Lindsey and Jennings. His 373 judicial appointments are the second most in American history behind those of Ronald Reagan. [218], Along with his two Supreme Court appointments, Clinton appointed 66 judges to the United States courts of appeals and 305 judges to the United States district courts. He threatened his stepfather with violence multiple times to protect them. [71] Over the years of the recorded surplus, the gross national debt rose each year. (In fact, the highest number drafted was 195.)[31]. On July 17, 1996, Clinton issued Executive Order 13011—Federal Information Technology, ordering the heads of all federal agencies to utilize information technology fully to make the information of the agency easily accessible to the public. [314], Clinton campaigning at an election rally for his wife Hillary who was running for President of the United States, 2016, Clinton holding a dog on the campaign trail in New York City. [13], In the early 1980s, Clinton made reform of the Arkansas education system a top priority of his gubernatorial administration. Aller's 1971 suicide had an influential impact on Clinton. "[174], In 1995, U.S. and NATO aircraft bombed Bosnian Serb targets to halt attacks on U.N. safe zones and pressure them into a peace accord that would end the Bosnian war. [11], Although he immediately assumed use of his stepfather's surname, it was not until Clinton turned 15[12] that he formally adopted the surname Clinton as a gesture toward him. General Wesley Clark was Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and oversaw the mission. [248] In 1998, Nobel laureate Toni Morrison called Clinton "the first Black president", saying, "Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas". $15.99 $ 15. [4][13] The other was watching Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech on TV, which impressed him so much that he later memorized it.[16]. Clinton's office released a statement in 2019 saying, "President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York. [177], Capturing Osama bin Laden had been an objective of the U.S. government during the presidency of Bill Clinton (and continued to be until bin Laden's death in 2011). In the first primary contest, the Iowa Caucus, Clinton finished a distant third to Iowa senator Tom Harkin. "[83] The televised exchange led to AIDS becoming an issue in the 1992 presidential election. Socks Clinton (1989 – February 20, 2009) was the pet cat of U.S. President Bill Clinton and his family while he was in the White House . However, Clinton biographer John F. Harris said the program failed because of a lack of coordination within the White House. [13][22][23], During his time at Oxford, Clinton befriended fellow American Rhodes Scholar Frank Aller. The reforms passed in September 1983 after Clinton called a special legislative session—the longest in Arkansas history. [204], On October 10, 2000, Clinton signed into law the U.S.–China Relations Act of 2000, which granted permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) trade status to China. Socks was later joined by a chocolate Labrador, Buddy. [137], Bill Clinton's announcement of Next Generation Internet initiative, October 1996. [25], While Clinton was president in 1994, he received an honorary degree and a fellowship from the University of Oxford, specifically for being "a doughty and tireless champion of the cause of world peace", having "a powerful collaborator in his wife," and for winning "general applause for his achievement of resolving the gridlock that prevented an agreed budget". [22][26], During the Vietnam War, Clinton received educational draft deferments while he was in England in 1968 and 1969. He also expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit, a subsidy for low-income workers. [310] In response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, U.S. president Barack Obama announced that Clinton and George W. Bush would coordinate efforts to raise funds for Haiti's recovery.