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The citys attraction was amplified by grand... |
31st July 2010, 09:42 |
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The citys attraction was amplified by grand hotels, an opera house, and, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, gamblingBy the 1880s, there were several open gambling houses, and Hot Springs was on its way to being both an attractive spa and a notorious townFor decades before and during World War II, it was run by a boss worthy of any big city, Mayor Leo McLaughlinHe ran the gambling with the help of a mobster who moved down from New York, Owen Vincent Owney Madden
After the war, a GI ticket of reformers headed by Sid McMath broke McLaughlins power in a move that, soon after, made the thirty-five-year-old McMath the nations youngest governorNotwithstanding the GI reformers, however, gambling continued to operate, with payoffs to state and local politicians and law-enforcement officials, well into the 1960sOwney Madden lived in Hot Springs as a respectable citizen for the rest of his lifeMother once put him to sleep for surgeryShe came home afterward and laughingly told me that looking at his X-ray was like visiting a planetarium: the twelve bullets still in his body reminded her of shooting stars
Ironically, because it was illegal, the Mafia never took over gambling in Hot Springs; instead, we had our own local bossesSometimes the competing interests chanel jumbo fought, but in my time, the violence was always controlledFor example, the garages of two houses were bombed, but at a time when no one was home
For the last three decades of the nineteenth century and the first five of the twentieth, gambling drew an amazing array of characters to town: outlaws, mobsters, military heroes, actors, and a host of baseball greatsThe legendary pool shark Minnesota Fats came oftenIn 1977, as attorney general, I shot pool with him for a charity in Hot SpringsHe killed me in the game but made up for it by regaling me with stories of long-ago visits, when he played the horses by day, then ate and gambled up and down Central Avenue all night, adding to his pocketbook and his famous waistline
Hot Springs drew politicians tooWilliam Jennings Bryan came several timesSo did Teddy Roosevelt in 1910, Herbert Hoover in 1927, and Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt for the states centennial in 1936Huey Long had a second honeymoon with his wife thereJFK and Lyndon Johnson visited before they were PresidentsSo did Harry Truman, the only one who gambledat least the only one who didnt hide it
The gambling and hot-water attractions of Hot Springs were enhanced by large brightly lit auction houses, which alternated with gambling spots and louis vuitton denim restaurants on Central Avenue on the other side of the street from the bathhouses; by Oaklawn racetrack, which offered fine Thoroughbred racing for thirty days a year in the spring, the only legal gambling in the city; by slot machines in many of the restaurants, some of which even kids were allowed to play if they were sitting on their parents laps; and by three lakes near the city, the most important of which was Lake Hamilton, where many of the citys grandees, including Uncle Raymond, had large housesThousands of people flocked to the lakes motels for summer vacationThere was also an alligator farm in which the largest resident was eighteen feet long; an ostrich farm, whose residents sometimes paraded down Central Avenue; Keller Brelands IQZoo, full of animals and featuring the alleged skeleton of a mermaid; and a notorious whorehouse run by Maxine Harris (later Maxine Temple Jones), a real character who openly deposited her payoffs in the local authorities bank accounts and who in 1983 wrote an interesting book about her life: Call Me Madam: The Life and Times of a Hot Springs MadamWhen I was ten or eleven, on a couple of occasions my friends and I entertained ourselves for hours by calling Maxines place over and over, tying up her phone and blocking calls from new omega watches real customersIt infuriated her and she cursed us out with salty and creative language wed never before heard from a woman, or a man, for that matterI think she thought it was funny, too, at least for the first fifteen minutes or so
For Arkansas, a state composed mostly of white Southern Baptists and blacks, Hot Springs was amazingly diverse, especially for a town of only 35,000There was a good-sized black population and a hotel, the Knights of the Pythias, for black visitorsThere were two Catholic churches and two synagoguesThe Jewish residents owned some of the best stores and ran the auction housesThe best toy store in town was Rickys, named by the Silvermans after their son, who was in the band with meLaurays, the jewelry store where I bought little things for Mother, was owned by Marty and Laura FleishnerAnd there was the Bnai Briths Leo NLevi Hospital, which used the hot springs to treat arthritisI also met my first Arab-Americans in Hot Springs, the Zorubs and the HassinsWhen David Zorubs parents were killed in Lebanon, he was adopted by his uncleHe came to this country at nine unable to speak any English and eventually became valedictorian of his class and governor of Boys StateNow he is a neurosurgeon in PennsylvaniaGuido Hassin and his sisters were chanel top the children of the World War II romance of a Syrian-American and an Italian woman; they were my neighbors during high schoolI also had a Japanese-American friend, Albert Hahm, and a Czech classmate, Ren Duchac, whose migr parents owned a restaurant, The Little BohemiaThere was a large Greek community, which included a Greek Orthodox church and Angelos, a restaurant just around the corner from Clinton BuickIt was a great old-fashioned place, with its long soda fountainlike bar and tables covered with red-and-white checked tableclothsThe house specialty was a three-way: chili, beans, and spaghetti
My best Greek friends by far were the Leopoulos familyGeorge ran a little caf on Bridge Street between Central Avenue and Broadway, which we claimed was the shortest street in America, stretching all of a third of a blockGeorges wife, Evelyn, was a tiny woman who believed in reincarnation, collected antiques, and loved Liberace, who thrilled her by coming to her house for dinner once while he was performing in Hot SpringsThe younger Leopoulos son, Paul David, became my best friend in fourth grade and has been like my brother ever since
When we were boys, I loved to go with him to his dads caf, especially when the carnival was in town, because all the carnies ate replica chanel jewelry the |
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They were in very good condition and sold wellAt... |
30th July 2010, 09:43 |
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They were in very good condition and sold wellAt the time I was proud of myself, though I know now that if Id saved them, theyd be valuable collectors items today
Next to our house going west, toward town, was the Perry Plaza MotelI liked the Perrys and their daughter Tavia, who was a year or two older than IOne day I was visiting her just after shed gotten a new BB gunI must have been nine or tenShe threw a belt on the floor and said if I stepped over it shed shoot meIt was a leg hit so it could have been worse, and I resolved to become a better judge of when someones bluffing
I remember something else about the Perrys motelIt was yellow-bricktwo stories high and one room wide, stretching from Park Avenue to Circle DriveSometimes people would rent rooms there, and at other motels and rooming houses around town, for weeks or even months at a timeOnce a middle-aged man did that with the backmost room on the second replica tiffany jewelry floorOne day the police came and took him awayHe had been performing abortions thereUntil then, I dont think I knew what an abortion was
Farther down Park Avenue was a little barbershop, where MrBrizendine cut my hairAbout a quarter mile past the barbershop, Park Avenue runs into Ramble Street, which then led south up a hill to my new school, Ramble ElementaryIn fourth grade I started bandThe grade school band was composed of students from all the citys elementary schoolsThe director, George Gray, had a great, encouraging way with little kids as we squawked awayI played clarinet for a year or so, then switched to tenor saxophone because the band needed one, a change I would never regretMy most vivid memory of fifth grade is a class discussion about memory in which one of my classmates, Tommy ONeal, told our teacher, MrsCaristianos, he thought he could remember when he was bornI didnt know whether he had a vivid imagination tiffany silver jewelry or a loose -bleep-, but I liked him and had finally met someone with an even better memory than mine
I adored my sixth-grade teacher, Kathleen SchaerLike a lot of teachers of her generation, she never married and devoted her life to childrenShe lived into her late eighties with her cousin, who made the same choicesAs gentle and kind as she was, Miss Schaer believed in tough loveThe day before we had our little grade school graduation ceremony, she held me after classShe told me I should be graduating first in my class, tied with Donna StandifordInstead, because my citizenship grades were so lowwe might have been calling it deportment by thenI had been dropped to a tie for thirdMiss Schaer said, Billy, when you grow up youre either going to be governor or get in a lot of troubleIt all depends on whether you learn when to talk and when to keep quietTurns out she was right on both counts
When I was at Ramble, my interest relojes omega in reading grew and I discovered the Garland County Public Library, which was downtown, near the courthouse and not far from Clinton Buick CompanyI would go there for hours, browsing among the books and reading lots of themI was most fascinated by books about Native Americans and read childrens biographies of Geronimo, the great Apache; Crazy Horse, the Lakota Sioux who killed Custer and routed his troops at Little Bighorn; Chief Joseph of the Nez Perc, who made peace with his powerful statement, From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever; and the great Seminole chief Osceola, who developed a written alphabet for his peopleI never lost my interest in Native Americans or my feeling that they had been terribly mistreated
My last stop on Park Avenue was my first real church, Park Place Baptist ChurchThough Mother and Daddy didnt go except on Easter and sometimes at Christmas, Mother encouraged me to go, louis vuitton diaper bags and I did, just about every SundayI loved getting dressed up and walking down thereFrom the time I was about eleven until I graduated from high school, my teacher was AHis son Bert was in my class and we became close friendsEvery Sunday for years, we went to Sunday school and church together, always sitting in the back, often in our own worldIn 1955, I had absorbed enough of my churchs teachings to know that I was a sinner and to want Jesus to save meSo I came down the aisle at the end of Sunday service, professed my faith in Christ, and asked to be baptizedThe Reverend Fitzgerald came to the house to talk to Mother and meBaptists require an informed profession of faith for baptism; they want people to know what they are doing, as opposed to the Methodists infant-sprinkling ritual that took Hillary and her brothers out of hells way
Bert Jeffries and I were baptized together, along with several other people on a Sunday tiffany jewelry wholesale nigh |
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I got several interesting offers or inquiries... |
29th July 2010, 13:46 |
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I got several interesting offers or inquiries from out of stateBrown, governor of Kentucky, who had made a fortune with Kentucky Fried Chicken, asked if Id be interested in applying for the presidency of the University of Louisvilleshort-speak, he made the pitch: Good school, nice house, great basketball teamCalifornia governor Jerry Brown told me his chief of staff, Gray Davis, himself a future governor, was leaving and asked me to replace himHe said that he couldnt believe Id been thrown out over car tags, that California was a place full of people who had moved there from other states and Id fit right in, and that hed guarantee my ability to influence policy in areas I cared aboutI was approached about taking over the World Wildlife Fund, a Washington-based conservation group, which did work I admiredNorman Lear, producer of some of the most successful television shows in history, including All in the Family, asked me to become head of the People for the American Way, a liberal group established to counter conservative assaults on First Amendment freedomsAnd several people asked me to run for chairman of the Democratic National Committee against Charles Manatt, a successful Los Angeles lawyer with Iowa rootsThe only job offer I got in Arkansas was from Wright, Lindsey?Jennings, a fine law firm, which asked me to become of counsel for $60,000 a year, almost twice what Id made as chanel vintage jewelry governor
I took a hard look at the Democratic committee job, because I loved politics and thought I understood what needed to be doneIn the end, I decided it wasnt right for meBesides, Chuck Manatt wanted it badly and probably already had the votes to win before I got interestedI discussed it with Mickey Kantor, a partner of Manatts whom I had gotten to know when he served with Hillary on the board of the Legal Services CorporationI liked Mickey a lot and trusted his judgmentHe said if I wanted another chance at elected office, I shouldnt try for the party jobHe also advised against becoming Jerry Browns chief of staffThe other out-of-state jobs had some appeal to me, especially the one at the World Wildlife Fund, but I knew they didnt make senseI wasnt ready to give up on Arkansas or myself, so I accepted the offer from Wright, Lindsey?Jennings
Almost immediately after I lost, and for months afterward, I asked everybody I knew why they thought it had happenedSome of the answers, beyond Cubans, car tags, and making all the interest groups angry at the same time, surprised meJimmy Red Jones, whom I had appointed adjutant general of the Arkansas National Guard after hed had a long career as state auditor, said I had alienated the voters with too many young beards and out-of-staters in important positionsHe also thought Hillarys decision to keep her maiden name had hurt; it might be all right for a chanel j12 watches lawyer, but not for a first ladyWally DeRoeck, who had been my chairman in 1976 and 1978, said I got so caught up in being governor that I stopped thinking about everything elseHe told me that after I became governor, I never asked him about his children againIn harsher language, my friend George Daniel, who owned the hardware store in Marshall up in the hills, said the same thing: Bill, the people thought you were an -bleep-! Rudy Moore told me I had complained a lot about how much trouble I was in but never seemed to really focus on my political problems hard and long enough to figure out what to do about themMack McLarty, my oldest friend, who knew me like the back of his hand, said he thought I was preoccupied all year by the arrival of ChelseaHe said I had always been saddened by the fact that I never knew my own father, that I really wanted to focus on being Chelseas father, except when something like the Cuban crisis tore me away, and that I just didnt have my heart in the campaign
After I was out of office a few months, it became clear to me that all these explanations had some validityBy that time, more than a hundred people had come up to me and said theyd voted against me to send a message but wouldnt have done it if theyd known I was going to loseI thought of so many things I could have done if Id had my head on straightAnd it was painfully clear that thousands of people thought Id gucci boston bag gotten too big for my britches, too obsessed with what I wanted to do and oblivious to what they wanted me to doThe protest vote was there, all right, but it didnt make the differenceThe post-election polls showed that 12 percent of the voters said theyd supported me in 1978 but voted the other way in 1980 because of the car tagsSix percent of my former supporters said it was because of the CubansWith all my other problems and mistakes, if I had been free of either of these two issues, I would have wonBut if I hadnt been defeated, I probably never would have become PresidentIt was a near-death experience, but an invaluable one, forcing me to be more sensitive to the political problems inherent in progressive politics: the system can absorb only so much change at once; no one can beat all the entrenched interests at the same time; and if people think youve stopped listening, youre sunk
On my last day in the governors office, after taking a picture of ten-month-old Chelsea sitting in my chair holding the telephone, I went up to the legislature to give my farewell addressI recounted the progress wed made, thanked the legislators for their support, and pointed out that we still had Americas second-lowest tax burden and that, sooner or later, we would have to find a politically acceptable way to broaden our revenue base to make the most of our potentialThen I walked out of the Capitol and into cc chanel logo earrings private life, a fish out of water
W right, Lindsey?Jennings was, by Arkansas standards, a large firm with a fine reputation and a varied practiceThe support staff were able and friendly and went out of their way to help settle me in and make me feel at homeThe firm also allowed me to bring my secretary, Barbara Kerns, who had been with me for four years by then and knew all my family, friends, and supportersIt even provided Betsey Wright office space so that she could keep working on my files and, as it turned out, plan the next campaignI did some legal work and brought in a couple of modest clients, but Im sure the lifeline the firm threw me didnt make it any moneyAll the firm really got out of it was my everlasting gratitude and some legal business defending me when I became President
Though I missed being governor and the excitement of politics, I enjoyed the more normal pace of my life, coming home at a reasonable hour, being with Hillary as we watched Chelsea grow into her life, going out to dinner with friends, and getting to know our neighbors, especially the older couple who lived directly across the street, Sarge and Louise LozanoThey adored Chelsea and were always there to help out
I resolved to stay away from public speaking for several months, with one exceptionIn February, I drove to Brinkley, about an hour east of Little Rock on the interstate, to speak at the Lions Club 18k omega watch banqu |
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It was a persuasive argument, all the more so... |
28th July 2010, 09:50 |
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It was a persuasive argument, all the more so because he had the guts to do it with me sitting thereI could feel the crowd slipping away
After a few seconds of silence, a man stood up in the back and said hed like to be heardJohn Lee Wilson was the mayor of Haynes, a small town of about 150 peopleHe was a heavy man of medium height, dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt, which bulged with the bulk of his huge arms, neck, and gutI didnt know him very well and had no idea what he would say, but Ill never forget his words
Lawyer Wilson made a good speech, he began, and he may be rightThe governor may be a loserAll I know is, when Bill Clinton became governor, the crap was running open in the streets of my town, and my babies was sick because we didnt have no sewer systemNobody paid any attention to usWhen he left office, we had a sewer system and my babies wasnt sick vintage hermes anymoreHe did that for a lot of usLet me ask you somethingIf we dont stick with folks who stick with us, who will ever respect us again? He may be a loser, but if he loses, Im going down with himAs the old saying goes, it was all over but the shouting, one of those rare moments when one mans words actually changed minds, and hearts
Unfortunately, John Lee Wilson died before I was elected PresidentNear the end of my second term, I made a nostalgic trip back to east Arkansas to speak at Earle High SchoolThe school principal was Jack Crumbly, the host of that fateful meeting almost two decades earlierIn my remarks, I told the story of John Lee Wilsons speech for the first time in publicIt was televised across east ArkansasOne person who watched it, sitting in her little house in Haynes, was John Lee Wilsons widowShe wrote me a very moving letter saying how proud John chanel earings would have been to have the President praising himOf course I praised himIf it hadnt been for John Lee, I might be writing wills and divorce settlements instead of this book
As we got close to election day, my support went up and down among voters who couldnt decide whether to give me another chanceI was worried about it until I met a man in a caf one afternoon in Newark, in northeast ArkansasWhen I asked for his vote, he said, I voted against you last time, but Im going to vote for you this timeAlthough I knew the answer, I still asked him why he voted against meBecause you raised my car tagsWhen I asked him why he was voting for me, he said, Because you raised my car tagsI told him I needed every vote I could get, and I didnt want to make him mad, but it didnt make any sense for him to vote for me for the same reason hed voted against me beforeHe smiled and said, Oh, gold chanel earrings it makes all the sense in the worldYou may be a lot of things, Bill, but you aint dumbYoure the very least likely one to ever raise those car tags again, so Im for youI added his impeccable logic to my stump speech for the rest of the campaign
On May 25, I won the primary election with 42 percent of the voteUnder the counterassault of my ads and the strength of our organization, Jim Guy Tucker fell to 23 percentJoe Purcell had parlayed his issue- and controversy-free campaign into 29 percent of the vote and a spot in the runoff, two weeks awayIt was a dangerous situationTucker and I had driven each others negative ratings up with the attack ads, and Purcell appealed to the Democrats who hadnt gotten over the car-tag increaseThere was a good chance he could win just by being the un-ClintonI tried for ten days to smoke him out, but he was shrewd enough to stay in his balenciaga bag van and shake a few handsOn the Thursday night before the election, I did a poll that said the race was dead evenThat meant Id probably lose, since the undecided vote usually broke against the incumbent, which I effectively wasI had just put up an ad highlighting our differences on whether the Public Service Commission, which sets electric rates, should be elected rather than appointed, a change I favored and Joe opposedI hoped it would make a difference, but I wasnt sure
The very next day, I was handed the election in the guise of a crippling body blowFrank White badly wanted Purcell to win the runoffThe governors negative ratings were even higher than mine, and I had the issues and an organized campaign on my sideBy contrast, White felt certain that Joe Purcells poor health would become a decisive factor in the general election campaign, guaranteeing White a second chanel quilted bags |
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The British and French rebuffed Warren... |
27th July 2010, 09:48 |
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The British and French rebuffed Warren Christophers overtures and reaffirmed their right to take the lead in dealing with the situationThe problem with their position, of course, was that if the Serbs could take the economic hit of the tough sanctions, they could continue their aggressive ethnic cleansing without fear of further punishmentThe Bosnian tragedy would drag on for more than two years, leaving more than 250,000 dead and 2 million driven from their homes, until NATO air attacks, aided by Serb military losses on the ground, led to an American diplomatic initiative that would bring the war to an end
I had stepped into what -bleep- Holbrooke called the greatest collective security failure of the West since the 1930sIn his book To End a War, Holbrooke ascribes the failure to five factors: (1) a misreading of Balkan history, holding that the ethnic strife was too ancient and ingrained to be prevented by outsiders; (2) the apparent loss of Yugoslavias strategic importance after the end of the Cold War; (3) the triumph of nationalism over democracy as the dominant ideology of post-Communist Yugoslavia; (4) the reluctance of the Bush administration to undertake another military commitment so soon after the 1991 Iraq war; and (5) the decision of the United States to turn the issue over to Europe instead of NATO, and the confused and passive European responseTo Holbrookes list I would add a sixth factor: some European leaders were not eager to have a Muslim state in the heart of the Balkans, fearing it might become a base for exporting extremism, a result that their neglect made more, not less, likely
My own options were constrained by the dug-in positions I found when I took officeFor example, I was reluctant to go along with Senator Dole in unilaterally gucci silver bag lifting the arms embargo, for fear of weakening the United Nations (though we later did so in effect, by declining to enforce it)I also didnt want to divide the NATO alliance by unilaterally bombing Serb military positions, especially since there were European, but no American, soldiers on the ground with the UN missionAnd I didnt want to send American troops there, putting them in harms way under a UN mandate I thought was bound to failIn May 1993, we were still a long way from a solution
At the end of the first one hundred days of a new presidency, the press always does an assessment of how well the new administration is doing in keeping its campaign promises and dealing with the other challenges that have arisenThe consensus of the reviews was that my initial performance was mixedOn the positive side of the ledger, I had created a National Economic Council in the White House and put together an ambitious economic program to reverse twelve years of trickle-down economics, and it was making progress in the CongressI had signed the family leave law, and the motor voter law to make voter registration easier, and had reversed the Reagan-Bush abortion policies, including the ban on fetal-tissue research and the gag ruleI had reduced the size of the White House staff, despite its increasing workload; for example, we received more mail in the first three and a half months than had come to the White House in all of 1992I had also ordered a reduction of 100,000 in total federal employment, and put Vice President Gore in charge of finding new savings and better ways to serve the public with a reinventing government initiative whose considerable results would eventually prove the skeptics wrongI had sent legislation to Congress to create my national service program, to knock off chanel earrings double the Earned Income Tax Credit and create empowerment zones in poor communities, and to dramatically cut the cost of college loans, saving billions of dollars for both students and taxpayersI had put health-care reform on a fast track and had taken strong action to strengthen democracy and reform in RussiaAnd I was blessed with a hardworking and able staff and cabinet who, apart from the leaks, worked well together, without the backbiting and infighting that had characterized many previous administrationsAfter a slow start, I had filled more required presidential appointments in the first hundred days than President Reagan or President Bush had in the same period of time, not bad considering how cumbersome and overly intrusive the whole appointments process had becomeAt one point, Senator Alan Simpson, the witty Republican whip from Wyoming, joked to me that the process was so overdone that he wouldnt even want to have dinner with someone who could be confirmed by the U
On the negative side, I had temporarily dropped the middle-class tax cut in the face of the growing deficit; lost the stimulus program to a Republican filibuster; maintained the Bush policy of forcibly returning Haitian refugees, though we were taking in more Haitians by other means; lost the gays-in-the-military fight; delayed presenting the health-care plan beyond my hundred-day goal; mishandled at least the public part of the Waco raid; and failed to convince Europe to join with the United States in taking a stronger stand in Bosnia, although we had increased humanitarian aid, strengthened sanctions against Serbia, and created an enforceable no-fly zone
One reason my scorecard was mixed was that I was trying to do so much in the face of determined Republican opposition and mixed balenciaga designer feelings among the American people about how much government could or should doAfter all, the people had been told for twelve years that government was the source of all our problems, and was so incompetent it couldnt organize a two-car paradeClearly, I had overestimated how much I could do in a hurryThe country had been going in one direction for more than a decade, living with wedge politics, reassuring bromides about how great we were, and the illusory, though fleeting, comforts of spending more and taxing less today and ignoring the consequences for tomorrowIt was going to take more than a hundred days to turn things around
In addition to the pace of change, I may have overestimated the amount of change I could achieve, as well as how much of it the American people could digestIn one posthundred-days analysis, a Vanderbilt University political scientist, Erwin Hargrove, observed, I wonder whether the president isnt spreading himself too thinHe was probably right, but there was so much to do, and I didnt stop trying to do it all at once until the voters hit me between the eyes with a two-by-four in the 1994 midterm electionsI had let my sense of urgency blot out the memory of another of my laws of politics: Everyone is for change in general, but against it in particular, when they themselves have to change
The public struggles of the first hundred days didnt occur in a vacuum; at the same time, my family was adjusting to a dramatic change in our way of life and dealing with the loss of Hillarys dadI loved being President and Hillary was deeply committed to her health-care workChelsea liked her school and was making new friendsWe enjoyed living in the White House, hosting the social events, and having our friends stay with us
The White House staff was dolce |
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I decided to go with the $500 billion figure, but... |
26th July 2010, 13:37 |
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I decided to go with the $500 billion figure, but even with new spending cuts and revenue increases, we still might not be able to meet the target of cutting the deficit in half by the end of my first termIt all depended on the rate of growth
Because of the possibility that our strategy would produce a short-term slowdown, we searched for ways to promote more growthI met with executives of the Big Three automakers and Owen Bieber, president of the United Auto Workers, who said that while Japanese cars had almost 30 percent of the American market, Japan was still largely closed to American cars and auto-parts suppliersI asked Mickey Kantor to find a way to open the Japanese market moreRepresentatives of the fast-growing biotechnology industry told me that our research-and-development tax credit should be extended and made refundable for young firms, which often didnt make enough money to claim the full credit under current lawThey also wanted stronger protection for their patents against unfair competition, and modifications in and acceleration of the product-approval process of the Food and Drug AdministrationI told the team to analyze their proposals and make a recommendationFinally, I authorized the development of the $20 billion one-shot stimulus proposal to increase economic activity in the short run
I hated to give up the middle-class tax cut, but with the deficit numbers worse, there was no choiceIf our strategy worked, the middle class would see direct benefits worth far more than a tax cutin the form of lower home mortgages and lower interest rates on things like car payments, credit card purchases, and student loansWe also wouldnt be able to increase chanel black tote bag spending as much as I had proposed in the campaign, at least at firstBut if deficit reduction brought interest rates down and growth up, tax revenues would increase, and I could still meet my investment objectives over four years
There was also another big ifThe strategy would work only if Congress adopted itAfter Bushs defeat, the Republicans were more anti-tax than ever, so few, if any, of them would vote for any plan I put up with new taxes in itA lot of Democrats who came from conservative districts would also be wary of tax votes, and liberal Democrats from safe seats might not support the budget if the cuts were too steep in programs they believed in
After a campaign during which the economic problems of America were center stage, in a time when growth was lagging all over the world, I would begin my presidency with an economic strategy for which there was no precedentIt could bring enormous benefits if I could convince Congress to pass the budget, and if it got the hoped-for response from the Federal Reserve and the bond marketThere were compelling arguments for it, but the most important domestic decision of my presidency was still one big gamble
While most of the transition was occupied by the cabinet and other appointments and the development of our economic program, a number of other things were going onOn January 5, I held a meeting leading to the announcement that I would temporarily continue President Bushs policy of intercepting and returning Haitians who were trying to reach the United States by boat, a policy I had strongly criticized during the electionAfter Haitis elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was overthrown by Lieutenant louis vuitton kabelky General Raoul Cedras and his allies in 1991, Haitian sympathizers of Aristide had begun to flee the islandWhen the Bush administration, which appeared to be more sympathetic to Cedras than I was, began to return the refugees, there were loud protests from the human rights communityI wanted to make it easier for Haitians to seek and obtain political asylum in the United States, but was concerned that large numbers of them would perish in trying to get here in rickety boats on the high seas, as about four hundred had done just a week earlierSo, on the advice of our security team, I said that, instead of taking in all the Haitians who could survive the voyage to America, we would beef up our official presence in Haiti and speed up asylum claims thereIn the meantime, for safety reasons, we would continue to stop the boats and return the passengersIronically, while human rights groups criticized the announcement, and the press characterized it as going back on my campaign pledge, President Aristide supported my positionHe knew we would bring more Haitians to the United States than the Bush administration had, and he didnt want his people to drown
On January 8, I flew to Austin, Texas, where I had lived and worked for McGovern more than twenty years earlierAfter a reunion lunch with old friends from those days at Scholtzs Beer Garden, I held my first meeting since the election with a foreign leader, Mexicos president, Carlos Salinas de GortariSalinas was deeply committed to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which he had negotiated with President BushWe were hosted by my longtime friend Governor Ann Richards, who was also a big supporter of NAFTAI wanted to omega deville watch meet with Salinas early to make it clear that I cared about Mexicos prosperity and stability, and to make my case to him for the importance of labor and environmental side agreements to strengthen the treaty, and for greater cooperation against narco-trafficking
On the thirteenth, my nominee for attorney general, Zo Baird, got into hot water when it came out that she had employed two illegal immigrants as household help and had paid the employers portion of Social Security taxes on them only recently, when she came into consideration for the Justice postThe employment of illegal immigrants was not that uncommon then, but it was a particular problem for Zo, because the attorney general oversees the Immigration and Naturalization ServiceWith Zos early confirmation unlikely, the incumbent assistant attorney general for the civil division, Stuart Gerson, would serve as acting attorney generalWe also sent Webb Hubbell, the associate attorney general designate, over to the Justice Department to look after things
Over the next two days, we announced several more White House staff appointmentsBesides George Stephanopoulos as communications director, I named Dee Dee Myers the first female White House press secretary; put Eli Segal in charge of creating the new national service program; and made Rahm Emanuel the director of political affairs, and Alexis Herman director of public liaisonI was bringing several people up from Arkansas: Bruce Lindsey would handle personnel, including appointments to boards and commissions; Carol Rasco would be my assistant for domestic policy; Nancy Hernreich, my scheduler in the governors office, would oversee Oval Office operations, with men's omega watch an office just outside mine; David Watkins would oversee the administrative functions of the White House; Ann McCoy, the Governors Mansion administrator, came to work in the White House; and my lifelong friend Vince Foster agreed to come to the counsels office
Among those who didnt come out of the campaign were my choice for White House counsel, Bernie Nussbaum, Hillarys colleague on the 1974 Nixon impeachment inquiry staff; Ira Magaziner, my Oxford classmate, who would work with us on health-care reform; Howard Paster, an experienced Washington lobbyist, who would manage our congressional relations; John Podesta, an old friend from the Duffey campaign, as staff secretary; Katie McGinty, Al Gores choice for our environmental policy person; and Betty Currie, Warren Christophers secretary in the transition, who would do the same job for meAndrew Friendly, a young Washington, D native would be the Presidents aide, going with me to every appointment and on every trip, making sure I read my briefing paper, and keeping in touch with the White House when we were awayAl had his own staff, with fellow Tennessean Roy Neel as chief of staffSo did Hillary, whose chief of staff, Maggie Williams, was an old friend of hers
I also stated my support for David Wilhelm, my campaign manager, to succeed Ron Brown as chairman of the Democratic CommitteeDavid was young and didnt have Ron Browns public presence, but almost no one didHis strength was grassroots organizing, and our party badly needed revitalization at the state and local levelsNow that we had the White House, I figured Al Gore and I would have to shoulder the lions share of the fund-raising and public pronouncements chanel white purses an |
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Finally, sanctions were imposed in late May, but... |
25th July 2010, 09:56 |
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Finally, sanctions were imposed in late May, but with little effect, as supplies continued to reach the Serbs from friendly neighborsThe United Nations also continued to maintain the arms embargo against the Bosnian government that originally had been imposed against all Yugoslavia in late 1991The problem with the embargo was that the Serbs had enough weapons and ammunition on hand to fight for years; therefore, the only consequence of maintaining the embargo was to make it virtually impossible for the Bosnians to defend themselvesSomehow they managed to hold out throughout 1992, acquiring some arms by capturing them from Serb forces, or in small shipments from Croatia that managed to evade the NATO blockade of the Croatian coast
In the summer of 1992, as television and print media finally brought the horror of a Serb-run detention camp in northern Bosnia home to Europeans and Americans, I spoke out in favor of NATO air strikes with ULater, when it became clear that the Serbs were engaging in the systematic slaughter of Bosnian Muslims, especially targeting local leaders for extermination, I suggested lifting the arms embargoInstead, the Europeans focused on ending the violenceBritish prime minister John Major attempted to get the Serbs to lift the siege of Bosnian towns and put their heavy weapons under UN supervisionAt the same time, many private and government humanitarian missions were launched to provide food and medicine, and the United Nations sent in eight thousand troops to protect the aid convoys
In late October, just before our election, Lord David Owen, the new European negotiator, and the UN negotiator, former Usecretary of state chanel pearl necklace Cyrus Vance, put forward a proposal to turn Bosnia into a number of autonomous provinces that would be responsible for all government functions except defense and foreign affairs, which would be handled by a weak central governmentThe cantons were sufficiently numerous, with the dominant ethnic groups geographically divided in a way that Vance and Owen thought would make it impossible for the Serb-controlled areas to merge with Milosevics Yugoslavia to form a Greater SerbiaThere were several problems with their plan, the two largest of which were that the sweeping powers of the canton governments made it clear that Muslims couldnt safely return to their homes in Serb-controlled areas, and that the vagueness of the canton boundaries invited continued Serb aggression intended to expand their areas, as well as the ongoing, though less severe, conflict between Croats and Muslims
By the time I became President, the arms embargo and European support for the Vance-Owen plan had weakened Muslim resistance to the Serbs, even as evidence of their slaughter of Muslim civilians and violations of human rights in detention camps continued to surfaceIn early February, I decided not to endorse the Vance-Owen planOn the fifth, I met with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney of Canada and was pleased to hear him say he didnt like it eitherA few days later, we completed a Bosnian policy review, with Warren Christopher announcing that the United States would like to negotiate a new agreement and would be willing to help enforce it
On February 23, UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali agreed with me on an emergency plan to airdrop humanitarian supplies to the BosniansThe next vintage cartier watch day, in my first meeting with John Major, he too supported the airdropsThe airdrops would help a lot of people stay alive, but would do nothing to address the causes of the crisis
By March, we seemed to be making some progressEconomic sanctions had been strengthened and seemed to be hurting the Serbs, who were also concerned about the possibility of military action by NATOBut we were a long way from a unified policyOn the ninth, in my first meeting with French president Franois Mitterrand, he made clear to me that, although he had sent five thousand French troops to Bosnia as part of a UN humanitarian force to deliver aid and contain the violence, he was more sympathetic to the Serbs than I was, and less willing to see a Muslim-led unified Bosnia
On the twenty-sixth, I met with Helmut Kohl, who deplored what was happening and who, like me, had favored lifting the arms embargoBut we couldnt budge the British and French, who felt lifting the embargo would only prolong the war and endanger the UN forces on the ground that included their troops but not oursIzetbegovic was also in the White House on the twenty-sixth to meet with Al Gore, whose national security aide, Leon Fuerth, was responsible for our success in making the embargo more effectiveBoth Kohl and I told Izetbegovic we were doing our best to get the Europeans to take a stronger stand to support himFive days later, we succeeded in getting the United Nations to extend a no fly zone over all of Bosnia, to at least deprive the Serbs of the benefit of their monopoly on airpowerIt was a good thing to do, but it didnt slow the killing much
In April, a team of Umilitary, diplomatic, and fendi spy zucca bag humanitarian aid personnel returned from Bosnia urging that we intervene militarily to stop the sufferingOn the sixteenth, the United Nations accepted our recommendation for declaring a safe area around Srebrenica, a town in eastern Bosnia where Serb killing and ethnic cleansing had been especially outrageousOn the twenty-second, at the dedication of the UHolocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel publicly pleaded with me to do more to stop the violenceBy the end of the month, my foreign policy team recommended that if we could not secure a Serbian cease-fire, we should lift the arms embargo against the Muslims and launch air strikes against Serb military targetsAs Warren Christopher left for Europe to seek support for this policy, the Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, hoping to avoid the air strikes, finally signed the UN peace plan, even though his assembly had rejected it just six days earlierI didnt believe for a minute that his signature signaled a change in his long-term objectives
At the end of our first one hundred days, we were nowhere near a satisfactory solution to the Bosnian crisisThe British and French rebuffed Warren Christophers overtures and reaffirmed their right to take the lead in dealing with the situationThe problem with their position, of course, was that if the Serbs could take the economic hit of the tough sanctions, they could continue their aggressive ethnic cleansing without fear of further punishmentThe Bosnian tragedy would drag on for more than two years, leaving more than 250,000 dead and 2 million driven from their homes, until NATO air attacks, aided by Serb military losses on the ground, led to an chanel earrings American diplomatic initiative that would bring the war to an end
I had stepped into what -bleep- Holbrooke called the greatest collective security failure of the West since the 1930sIn his book To End a War, Holbrooke ascribes the failure to five factors: (1) a misreading of Balkan history, holding that the ethnic strife was too ancient and ingrained to be prevented by outsiders; (2) the apparent loss of Yugoslavias strategic importance after the end of the Cold War; (3) the triumph of nationalism over democracy as the dominant ideology of post-Communist Yugoslavia; (4) the reluctance of the Bush administration to undertake another military commitment so soon after the 1991 Iraq war; and (5) the decision of the United States to turn the issue over to Europe instead of NATO, and the confused and passive European responseTo Holbrookes list I would add a sixth factor: some European leaders were not eager to have a Muslim state in the heart of the Balkans, fearing it might become a base for exporting extremism, a result that their neglect made more, not less, likely
My own options were constrained by the dug-in positions I found when I took officeFor example, I was reluctant to go along with Senator Dole in unilaterally lifting the arms embargo, for fear of weakening the United Nations (though we later did so in effect, by declining to enforce it)I also didnt want to divide the NATO alliance by unilaterally bombing Serb military positions, especially since there were European, but no American, soldiers on the ground with the UN missionAnd I didnt want to send American troops there, putting them in harms way under a UN mandate I thought was bound to saddle handbags fail |
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Hillary, Ira Magaziner, Judy Feder, and all those... |
24th July 2010, 13:57 |
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Hillary, Ira Magaziner, Judy Feder, and all those who helped them had crafted a plan that we could implement while reducing the deficitAnd contrary to how it was later portrayed, health experts generally praised it at the time as moderate and workableIt certainly wasnt a government takeover of the health-care system, as its critics charged, but that story came laterOn the night of the twenty-second, I was just glad that the TelePrompTer was working
Toward the end of September, Russia dashed back into the headlines, as hard-line parliamentarians tried to depose YeltsinIn response, he dissolved parliament and called new elections for December 12We used the crisis to increase support for our Russian aid package, which passed the House, 321108, on September 29 and the Senate, 8711, on September 30
By Sunday, October 3, the conflict between Yeltsin and his reactionary opponents in the Duma erupted into a battle on the streets of MoscowArmed groups carrying hammer-and-sickle flags and portraits of Stalin fired rocket-propelled grenades into the building that housed a number of Russian television stationsOther reform leaders in former Communist countries, including Vclav Havel, issued statements in support of Yeltsin, and I did, too, telling reporters that it was clear that men's gucci wallet Yeltsins opponents had started the violence, that Yeltsin had bent over backwards to avoid using excessive force, and that the United States would support him and his effort to hold free and fair elections for parliamentThe next day Russian military forces shelled the parliament building and threatened to storm it, forcing the surrender of the rebellions leadersAboard Air Force One, on my way to California, I called Yeltsin with a message of support
The battle in Moscows streets was the top news story across the world that night, but the news in America led with a different story, which marked one of the darkest days of my presidency and made famous the phrase Black Hawk Down
In December 1992, President Bush, with my support, had sent Utroops to Somalia to help the UN after more than 350,000 Somalis had died in a bloody civil war, which brought famine and disease in its wakeAt the time, Bushs national security advisor, General Brent Scowcroft, had told Sandy Berger they would be home before my inaugurationThat didnt happen because Somalia had no functioning government, and without our troop presence, armed thugs would have stolen the supplies the UN had been providing and starvation would have set in againOver the next several months, the United Nations sent in about 20,000 troops buy miu miu and we reduced the American force to just over 4,000, down from 25,000After seven months, crops were growing, starvation had ended, refugees were returning, schools and hospitals were reopening, a police force had been created, and many Somalis were engaged in a process of reconciliation moving toward democracy
Then, in June, the clan of Somali warlord Mohammed Aidid killed twenty-four Pakistani peacekeepersAidid, whose armed thugs controlled a good part of the capital city of Mogadishu and didnt like the reconciliation process, wanted to control SomaliaHe thought he had to run the UN out to do soAfter the Pakistanis were killed, Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali and his representative for Somalia, retired American Admiral Jonathan Howe, became determined to get Aidid, believing the UN mission could not succeed unless he was brought to justiceBecause Aidid was well protected by heavily armed forces, the United Nations was unable to apprehend him and asked the United States to helpAdmiral Howe, who had been a deputy to Brent Scowcroft in the Bush White House, was convinced, especially after the Pakistani peacekeepers were killed, that arresting Aidid and putting him on trial was the only way to end the clan-based conflicts that kept Somalia mired in violence, failure, and chaos
Just gucci paolo watch a few days before he retired as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell came to me with a recommendation that I approve a parallel American effort to capture Aidid, though he thought we had only a 50 percent chance of getting him, with a 25 percent chance of getting him aliveStill, he argued, we couldnt behave as if we didnt care that Aidid had murdered UN forces who were serving with usRepeated UN failures to capture Aidid had only raised his status and tarnished the humanitarian nature of the UN mission, I agreed
The American commander of the Rangers was Major General William GarrisonThe armys Tenth Mountain Division, headquartered in Fort Drum, New York, also had troops in Somalia under the overall commander of Uforces there, General Thomas MontgomeryThey both reported to Marine General Joseph Hoar, the commander of the UCentral Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, FloridaI knew Hoar and had great confidence in his judgment and ability
On October 3, acting on a tip that two of Aidids top aides were in Mogadishus Black Sea neighborhood, which he controlled, Major General Garrison ordered the Army Rangers to mount an assault on the building where the men were thought to beThey flew into Mogadishu in Black Hawk helicopters in broad daylightIt was a much louis vuitton denim riskier operation during the day than it would have been on a dark night, when helicopters and troops are less visible and their night-vision devices give them the ability to operate as well as they can in daylightGarrison decided to take the risk because his troops had carried out three previous daylight operations successfully
The Rangers stormed the building and captured Aidids lieutenants and some lesser figuresThen the raid went terribly wrongAidids forces fought back, downing two of the Black HawksThe pilot of the first copter was pinned in the wreckageThe Rangers would not abandon him: they never leave their men on the field of battle, dead or aliveWhen they went back in, the real fireworks beganBefore long, ninety Usoldiers were surrounding the copter, engaged in a massive shootout with hundreds of SomalisEventually, General Montgomerys Rapid Deployment Force entered the action, but the Somali resistance was strong enough to prevent the rescue operation from succeeding throughout the nightWhen the battle was over, nineteen Americans were dead, dozens were wounded, and Black Hawk pilot Mike Durant had been capturedMore than five hundred Somalis were dead and over a thousand woundedEnraged Somalis dragged the body of the slain Black Hawk crew chief through the streets of louis vuitton china Mogadis |
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