Bill Clinton Daily Diary

Private Detective New York

2005-03-30T19:21:00.000-05:00

I don’t have much time. Gil is on his way here to pick me up. He received a tip. Roger is in New York. We’re going after him. Wish me luck.

Democratic Party

2005-03-30T10:26:00.000-05:00

Another political scandal is brewing in Washington. The rumors I hear is that Democratic Senate aides have been caught distributing a fake memo to journalists they said was written by Senate Republicans.

The memo is supposed to be an internal Republican document talking about strategies the Republicans should follow to profit politically from the Terri Schiavo case.

If these rumors are true, this would be the second time in a year that the Democratic party was involved in the creation or distribution of forged documents.

The first time had to do with Bush’s National Guard Memos. The memos purported to be thirty year old documents written by president Bush’s commander in the National Guard criticizing the president for refusing to follow a direct order.

These “thirty year old memos” were in reality made by a longtime Texas based Bush adversary called Bill Burkett. He wrote them on his computer and then copied them a few times to make them look old.

He fooled Dan Rather and CBS News and they used these memos just a few weeks before the election.

The Democratic Party was involved in this case too. I should be more specific. The Kerry campaign was involved in this affair.

As one of his conditions for giving CBS the memos, Bill Burkett asked CBS to put him in contact with the Kerry campaign. CBS did so and Bill Burkett talked to Kerry’s campaign advisor Joe Lockhart about strategies to cause maximum damage to the Bush campaign using the fake memos. Joe Lockhart was my press secretary when I was president. I’m very disappointed in his behavior, especially since his role in the affair is rubbing off on me, because of our relationship in the past.

As you know Dan Rather was forced to resign, because of this affair. I think it also contributed to John Kerry’s loss in the election.

Americans don’t want their leaders to be involved in murky business to get elected. Most Americans take our democratic processes serious. That’s the reason even Republicans, most of them anyway agree that Nixon’s Watergate behavior was wrong.

If it turns out the memo in question now was written by Democrats, this would damage the credibility of our party.

I don’t know what’s wrong with our party leadership on Capitol Hill these days. It seems like common sense politics have been replaced by guerilla tactics.

There is nothing wrong with using some off the book tactics to derail your opponent’s campaign. That’s politics, but the problem in Dan Rather’s case is more severe. That bordered on an attempt to steal the election.

That’s the reason I’m angry about this new fake memo issue. Americans might forgive you once, but they won’t do it twice. What’s more, these tactics are not just criminal, legally speaking, but they are also unnecessary.

The majority of Americans agree with the Democratic Party’s point of view in the Terri Schiavo case, so why do a stupid thing like forging a memo?

I’m telling you, sometimes I really despair of the quality of our party’s leadership.

Sony Playstation Portable

2005-03-29T20:01:00.000-05:00

I went to the mall today. Bobbi asked me to go with her and get a cup of coffee. I thought it was a good idea, because I could use the exercise. It was either that or sitting on my stationary bike for an hour. I hate that bike.

When we arrived at the mall, Bobbi did what most women do: she went to every shop except the one where they serve coffee. In the end she bought a Sony playstation portable. To me it looked like a Gameboy. I bought one for Chelsea a long time ago. I remember that very well, because it was very expensive.

This Sony playstation portable cost almost 300 dollars. Three hundred dollars for a toy! I don’t understand these youngsters. According to Bobbi she needs one, because she has to commute to her job every day. I told her to read a newspaper. She gave me a look.

Anyway we sat down at a coffee shop and tried to get the Gameboy to work. We had to charge it. It worked. Bobbi had bought one game, so as soon as she managed to get it to work she began playing the game.

I’m not very good at videogames. I’m not an avid player. To be honest the first time I played a videogame was only about seven years ago. I was in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I had to visit king Fahd. King Fahd is king in name only. Due to his age and mental state, his brother Crown Prince Abdullah governs the country.

When I arrived at King Fahd’s palace, he was sitting in the living room. The first thing I saw was a huge screen. The King was playing Nintendo games. He didn’t get up or even looked up. He gave me a joystick and challenged me to a race.

The game looked a bit like the Indy 500. We had to race cars. It was the first time I played one of these games, so I kept crashing my car. I remember, after the fiftieth crash the king looked at me and said “You suck”. He grabbed the joystick and told me to leave. I was stunned, but there was nothing much I could do, so I left. His brother later apologized to me for his brother's behavior.

After seeing Bobbi play with the portable playstation for a few minutes, I asked her if I could play too. I just wanted to see whether I was any good. The game she was playing looked familiar. It looked like a race game. I played it for a minute, but it kept saying Game Over.

I asked Bobbi what I was doing wrong? She told me to win at this game I had to crash my car into as many pedestrians as possible. Especially old women, they were worth a lot of points. I also had to stop once in a while and shoot at police officers.

I couldn’t believe my ears. That’s the sort of games young people play these days. I gave the portable playstation back to her.

I can’t crash my car into people. Game or no game. I just can’t do that.

After that we bought an ice cream and walked back to the house. It wasn’t until we arrived home that it dawned on me that I had made a huge mistake. I’m not allowed to eat ice cream. I completely forgot that. I have no idea how it happened, but I completely forgot about my diet.

I hope it doesn't have any consequences. I feel good right now. I'm tired, but I feel good.

Terri Schiavo and the Democratic Party

2005-03-29T10:06:00.000-05:00

I would like to extend my condolences to the families which were hit by the earthquake in Asia. Thank God it did not cause a tidal wave, but there are many victims nonetheless. I will keep you in my prayers.

I would like to talk a bit about the Terri Schiavo case.

Republicans have been forced to show their cards, because of this heartbreaking situation with Terri Schiavo. It forced the Republicans to show Americans they were pandering to religious fanatics and are capable of disregarding the courts if it suits them.

It also showed the Republican leadership are hypocrites. Tom Delay, the leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives himself had to deal with an end of life situation in his own family. His father was involved in an accident, which left him in a vegetative state. Representative Tom Delay and his family decided to pull the plug. Their father died as a result of this action.

When president George Bush was governor of Texas he signed a bill allowing hospitals to pull the plug on patients, who were in a vegetative state and whose insurance or family were not able to pay the bills. In other words George Bush allowed the hospitals to end the life of a patient without the consent of the family for the sake of money.

Americans see what is happening. For the first time they see that the Republican party is not just the party of “patriots or pro-war hawks”, but also the party of “religious zealots”. The first group represents a majority of Americans. The second group only represents a small amount of Americans.

By and large Americans are religious, but do not want others to force their believes on them. That is what is happening here.

Basically the Terri Schiavo case is a family dispute. Terri according to her husband didn’t want to live in a vegetative state. Republicans are now saying “No, the parents have a say too”, which is strange, because it directly contradicts the sanctity of marriage.

What is a marriage? It means a man and a woman become one. Do the Republicans now wants to change the definition of marriage into a man and a woman and the relatives? How about a man and a man or a woman and a woman?

The Republicans have weakened the sanctity of marriage and gay couples will reap the benefit of this.

Coming back to the fact that Republicans have shown their true face. There is a difference between “patriots” and “religious fundamentalists”. The first want technology and science to prosper and will support teaching evolution in schools as this will create the mindset needed to educate the next generation of top notch scientists, which this country needs to stay on top.

Religious fundamentalists on the other hand will want evolution to be taught as a theory next to creationism.

What I’m trying to say is simple. Terri Schiavo, God bless her, opened a rift in the Republican party, which George Bush was able to glue together before.

In our party we have a rift too. The one between anti-war Democrats and the much larger group of pro-war Democrats.

The “patriots” in the Republican party voted for me when I ran for office. Religious fundamentalists never voted for me. I was elected president twice. What I’m trying to say is simple.

The Republicans are weaker than they seemed only two weeks ago. The reason for their weakness is the divide between “patriots” and “religious fundamentalists” in their party.

I read polls recently, which said 75 percent of Americans disagree with the Republicans and their actions in the Terri Schiavo case.

Looking at it with a cold political eye I say, if we Democrats push the anti-war section in our party to the side, not out of the party, I think we could accommodate the “patriots”, which are now voting Republican. If we do so, we will win elections again.

If we don’t do so, our anti-war stance will cancel out the “patriots” discomfort with the pandering to religious fundamentalists by the Republican party. In other words, we gain nothing and we will keep losing elections.

Leapin' Lizards It's Liberace

2005-03-28T17:43:00.000-05:00

Hillary and I had a wonderful day today. We spent the whole day together. I think Hillary understood I wasn’t feeling very well and took charge. She gave the housekeeper a day off and told the secret service agents to stay out of the house. At least that is what I think she did, because I haven’t seen any of them all day long.

I made some fire in the fireplace. We watched two Liberace DVD’s. I’m a big fan of Liberace. Hillary and I saw him about two years before he died at Madison Square Garden in New York. He always brings a smile to my face. I will ask Bobbi to find a clip on the internet, so younger readers will get a chance to see him at work. (watch a short Liberace video clip)

Hillary made tea and put some cookies on the table. We sat on the couch all afternoon. We held hands. We were flirting with each other. I guess that’s something you never stop doing no matter how old you get.

I had a wonderful afternoon thanks to Hillary. She is a wonderful wife, such a beautiful woman. On days like this I’m reminded I don’t deserve her love. I can only hope I can repay her in some way some day.

The bond between us today was such that I felt I should tell her I miss her, because she’s in Washington all the time. I looked at her for at least five minutes trying to find the courage to tell her what I thought. She looked at me, I didn’t go through. I just smiled. She smiled back.

This was not the time to make her feel uncomfortable, to give her the idea she was neglecting me. She’s a good wife and days like this one make me forget all the days we are apart.

That’s what’s important.

I have also decided to follow the advice of some of the commentators on this diary. I will try and call the poor woman I saw yesterday and see how she’s doing. You are right. I shouldn’t wait for other people to act. I should do something myself.

I'm Depressed

2005-03-28T08:53:00.000-05:00

I went to church yesterday. It left me on the brink of depression. I was totally devastated emotionally. It took me the rest of the day to regain my composure.

What happened was this:

Hillary and I went to church. We got out of the car about a block away from the building and walked the rest of the way. In front of us was a couple I recognized. The woman had been pregnant. Unfortunately there was no happy ending. She had given birth to a still born child a week ago.

I could see she was crying. She held a handkerchief to her eyes from time to time as her husband was comforting her. We arrived at the door of the church a few seconds apart. The couple stopped at the door to talk to the reverend.

Parishioners came to me and Hillary to talk to us and wish me a speedy recovery.

I was still watching the lady. The revered looked up to see what the commotion was all about. He saw me and almost immediately he said goodbye to the couple. He put his hand on the shoulder of the woman, walked around them and came to me.

Why? Why did this “man of God” leave this grief stricken couple to come and talk to me? Why?

This woman’s husband is an insurance salesman or something like that. I don’t really know them, except from hear say.

Maybe they didn’t understand. Maybe they were grateful for the few seconds the reverend had for them.

I do understand. I was in that same situation when I was little. My mom was a widow, a nobody. Nobody helped us. She worked four jobs and never complained.

I showed them, huh? I’m a big man now. When a woman gives birth to a still born child, the reverend doesn’t want to spend time with her. Oh no, he wants to spend time with me.

Because my pain is so much bigger than her pain.

This reverend, this holy man, talks the talk, he waves the Bible in the air, but his heart isn’t walking the walk. No, I’m being too poetic. The guy is a scumbag. When he walked over to me and Hillary, I swear I was about to spit in his face. I was ready to explode, but as usual I swallowed the venom.

I smiled. What does that make me? I’m just as phony as everybody else.

All day long I couldn’t forget what had happened. His behavior caused me to have one of my moods when I completely lose faith in humanity. He invited my old demons back into my life. Memories of things past.

It’s very hard to put these demons to rest. I talk to myself and I talk to myself. I’m not a nice guy. I have demons in me. We all do. Maybe mine are a bit bigger than other people’s, because I went through hell when I was a little boy, but I fought back.

You know what happens when you shave off your beard? It grows back, stronger than before. The harder I fought to free myself from the hell I lived in, the harder the demons fought back. I won. That’s what I thought. I won, but at what cost?

Some days there is a storm raging in my head. Round and round and round it goes. You can’t shut it down. You just have to lock yourself in your room, all by yourself and let it rage. On those days all you see is darkness.

I had one of those days yesterday, but I’m over it now.

Re-hiring Private Investigator

2005-03-27T09:39:00.000-05:00

It’s Easter Sunday today. I’m getting ready to go to church with Hillary. It will be my first outing, since my surgery. I feel good, but I don’t know if I can take the strain of meeting so many people and sitting on a bench for so many hours without moving. But it’s an important day, so I have to attend church.

Gil, the private investigator is back in my life. He called me yesterday. I didn’t want to talk to him. He apologized for his behavior in Los Angeles a few weeks ago. He practically begged me to hire him again to find Roger. He told me Roger had disappeared and he feared the worst.

I didn’t take the bait. I wasn’t in a forgiving mood. I told him after what he had done, I would never trust him again. He began crying. He told me he had been retired from the police force, because of his alcohol abuse. He also told me his wife had left him and that he hadn’t seen his daughter for nine months, because his former wife didn’t allow him to visit her until he had paid his child support arrears.

He told me he had run up a lot of credit card debts during the time he had hit rock bottom. He was now trying to crawl out of the hole he had dug for himself. He told me he needed the money he received for the pictures he took at the motel to pay down his debts, so he could start a new life.

I told him I wasn’t interested in either his or Roger’s life and I told him to leave me alone. I put the receiver down.

But I was interested. I felt sorry for him, but I was also worried about Roger. As long as he is acting crazy, he is alive, but Gil couldn’t find him nowhere. What does that mean? I’m worried. I know Roger. If there is a trouble, my brother will get into it.

That’s Roger.

I thought about the situation for exactly five minutes. That’s when I received another phone call. It was Gil’s mother. I was stunned. I never recovered during the whole half hour we were talking.

Apparently Gil had given her my phone number and had asked her to help him persuade me to give him another chance. And that’s exactly what she did. I should’ve ended the conversation, but I couldn’t.

She wanted me to know how sorry Gil was for what he had done. She told me how Gil’s alcoholism had started, because of his ex-wife, who according to her was a “wild woman” more interested in having fun than running the household. She had been a chorus girl, a dancer I guess on Broadway before her marriage to Gil.

Gil’s mom never approved of the daughter in law. According to her she had begged Gil to marry another girl. A good girl according to her, but Gil had been stubborn. The situation now was this. This other woman had become a widow three months ago.

As I said we talked, well she talked to me for about half an hour. So I know that the other woman’s husband was a bus driver. He had a heart attack as he was driving the bus and the ride ended in the New York harbor. The husband was the only one, who was seriously hurt. The bus landed in shallow waters.

She was trying to persuade Gil to marry the widow.

She also talked about forgiveness and the Lord and how yesterday was Good Friday and tomorrow was Easter Sunday. She told me that her husband had died and that Gil was all she had left. She began crying.

There was nothing else I could do except tell her I would hire her son again. She was very happy about that. She thanked me and said she always knew I was a good man, she had been a lifelong Democrat and that she had voted for me twice. I thanked her.

After the phone call, I knew I had made a mistake by engaging Gil again, but there is no going back now. I do want to find my little brother. I want nothing to happen to him. If you go to church, please say a prayer for him.

I’m worried. More than I can say, but I have to wait. There is nothing else I can do.

God bless you and have a good Sunday.

Rafiq Hariri and Lebanon

2005-03-25T12:03:00.000-05:00

I read the newspapers this morning over two cups of coffee. I’m allowed to drink coffee again. I’m happy about that. The most interesting articles were the ones dealing with the UN report pertaining to the international investigation into the murder of Rafiq Hariri. The UN report does not assign blame to either the Lebanese or the Syrian governments.

It does blame the Lebanese government and the Syrian intelligence forces for an atmosphere of violence and hate and the lack of law and order in Lebanon. It also says the Lebanese government didn’t do a good job investigating the murder and there should be an international investigation. It also clearly says that Bashar Assad, during a meeting threatened to harm Rafiq Hariri and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt if they stood in his way.

I agree with this report. I’m certain Bashar Assad ordered the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, but in international affairs you can’t do anything without proof. I’m certain the international investigation will find proof linking Bashar Assad to the murder of my friend Rafiq Hariri.

The reason I’m so confident is the fact that it took the FBI years to find the culprits, who had blown up the plane over Lockerbie, Scotland, but they found them and linked them to the Libyan government. And when the investigation succeeds, there will be hell to pay for Assad.

He probably thought the United States wouldn’t care about the death of an Arab politician. But Rafiq Hariri isn’t just some politician and Lebanon isn’t just some country in the Arab world.

Rafiq Hariri had many friends all over the world. I’m proud to say he considered me a friend. I talked to him ten days before his assassination. I was later debriefed by a few national security agents, who were interested in this conversation.

Bashar Assad made the mistake of thinking we, Americans didn’t care about Lebanon. We do and the reason for that is pretty much the same as the reason most Americans like Israel. Lebanon is a democratic and pluralistic society. What’s more there are hundreds of thousands of Lebanese Americans living in the United States. Most Americans have neighbors, who descend from families, who came from Lebanon.

For instance, one of the most respected journalists in Washington, Helen Thomas has Lebanese ancestry. Same goes for Senator Edward Kennedy’s wife. Lebanese Americans are a very successful and respected group in our society. And for that matter in the Democratic Party.

Even France, whose president Chirac was a friend and business partner of Rafiq Hariri has made it clear this situation has to be dealt with.

The international community does not take it lightly when a president murders a politician of another country. I have no idea what Bashar Assad was thinking, when he gave the order to kill my friend, but one thing I know for certain, murdering foreign politicians in a manner reminiscent of Michael Corleone in the Godfather will not stand. He has lost any respect any foreign head of state had for him.

Finally, Bashar Assad doesn’t seem to understand how serious this administration is about dealing with rogue states and state sponsors of terrorism. Let me clarify this. Syria is not the objective, it’s a barrier on the road to Iran.

The Syrian president has made three mistakes in one years. One, he appointed Emile Lahoud president of Lebanon for another three years against the will of the vast majority of Lebanese and in spite of the Lebanese constitution. Two, he murdered Rafiq Hariri. Three, he allied himself with Iran.

The United States can not allow Iran to have nuclear bombs. We know the ayatollahs in Tehran want them and will do anything to get them. The Bush administration is intent on stopping them.

There are two ways to stop them. One, we destroy their nuclear facilities or two we bring down the regime, which wants them. Regime change in Iran isn’t easy.

Iran is a big country, with a lot of money, because of its oil and gas reserves and has a population of about seventy million people, most of them young and of military age. Invading Iran is out of the question. Bombing Iran is possible, but won’t have the intended result. The only avenue left is to mortally wound the regime in Iran by cutting off its tentacles.

The first one is Hizballah in Lebanon, the second one is the Syrian regime.

I saw an interesting article in a newspaper, when I was in the hospital. It said someone had written pro- Sistani words on a wall in the Hizballah dominated Bekaa Valley. The reason I thought this was interesting is simple. Grand Ayatollah Sistani is the leader of the Shia in Iraq. He is a direct rival of the ayatollahs in Iran, who claim they are the leaders of all Shia in the world.

The Shia religion is structured in the same fashion as Catholicism. There is a pope and there are lower ranking priests. The leader of Iran Khamenei considers himself the “pope” of all Shia, including the ones in Iraq, but also the ones in Lebanon.

This is by the way the reason why the ayatollahs in Iran are interested in helping Hizballah. They are asserting their dominance as leaders of the Shia faith.

Their only rival for the title of “pope” is grand ayatollah Sistani of Iraq. His brand of Shia Islam is more moderate and democratic than the brand the Iranians are trying to sell to the Shia world. If we want to undermine the ayatollahs in Iran, we must support Sistani in Iraq and we must do everything possible to promote Najaf as the real base of Shia Islam. Now that Sistani seems to be making inroads in the Bekaa Valley, this might end the pro- Iranian Hizballah’s stranglehold on the Shia in Lebanon.

Hizballah lost its reason to exist after Israel pulled out of Lebanon. Hizballah knows this. The Shia in Lebanon want the same things as the rest of the Lebanese, a good education and jobs. Hizballah can’t provide those things, so they will never be as important as they used to be. As they lose votes, so will the Iranian ayatollahs lose influence over the Shia in Lebanon.

Coming back to Syria, when the international investigation proves Bashar Assad was behind the murder of Hariri, the UN will impose sanctions on Syria. Syria, which is a poor country with only about 15 million inhabitants will be hit hard. If the sanctions don’t bring down the government of Bashar Assad, they will certainly cripple his grip on power and undermine his influence in the region and his capacity to help the Iranians.

This is a good thing for Lebanon. It will calm down the situation in the region, possibly leading to the creation of a Palestinian state. This would mean that the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon can go home.

All in all, Bashar Assad made the mistake of his life when he decided to kill my friend.

Books and Music

2005-03-22T17:54:00.000-05:00

When I woke up this morning I felt something had changed. I felt good, really good. I had no trouble breathing for the first time, since the surgery. I lifted my blanket and put my left leg on the floor. I sleep on the left side of the bed, because the right side is nearer to the door and since Hillary is the one working irregular hours sometimes well into the night, we thought it might be better, if she took that side instead of having to walk all around the bed in the dark.

As soon as my left foot hit the ground I froze. Something had changed. I could use my arms again. With no pain at all. I’m very happy about this.

One of the doctors visited me today and we talked about my progress. My wound is healing well. I do have to go to the hospital soon to get an x-ray, so the doctors can see if everything inside is healing well too.

The doctor told me I should start doing weight lifting exercises with small weights. I’m looking forward to it. I used to lift weights in high school. That is until I left the football team.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately. If you really like to read a good book, you should read Errol Flynn’s autobiography “My Wicked, Wicked Ways”. I probably shouldn’t recommend it to you, but I’m not going to lie, it was probably one of the most amusing books I’ve ever read in my life.

When I was just a kid I loved adventure stories. At that time my favorite book was Alexandre Dumas’ “The Count of Monte Cristo”. I read the original version of more than 1300 pages. I loved that book. Actually although I haven’t read it in decades, it still is my all time favorite book. I would’ve never acknowledged this if I was still running for office.

It’s a strange thing, being a politician. When I was running for office journalists asked me what my favorite song was. I couldn’t tell them the truth. My favorite song is “Be my Baby” by the Ronettes. Obviously I couldn’t say that, because it’s too romantic. So I decided to say it was “Don’t stop thinking about Tomorrow” by Fleetwood Mac.

It was the right thing to do at the time. You’re a politician, you’re telling voters you are going to change politics as they know it, so what better theme song than “Don’t stop thinking about Tomorrow”? It was perfect for the campaign.

I do like Fleetwood Mac. Most baby boomers do. If I’m right their album “Rumors” is still the best selling album in the United States. Their best song though, is, you will agree and you will know I’m being honest with you, their best song is “Tell me Lies”. Am I right or not? I couldn’t use “Tell me Lies” as my theme song during my presidential campaign.

The problem with telling people you like something, without really liking that particular thing is the fact that you will be confronted with that thing for the rest of your life.

I can’t tell you how many times I had to listen to some saxophone player play “Don’t stop thinking about Tomorrow” when I was president. It wasn’t fifty or a hundred times, not just here in the US, but also overseas. I never liked the song, but after all the times I was forced to listen to it, I genuinely dislike the song, but that’s my own fault. I was the one, who told them I liked it.

Terri Schiavo

2005-03-21T10:43:00.000-05:00

The Republicans are turning our country into a banana republic. The essence of a democracy is the fact that all shall abide by the law. The Republicans, edged on by their fundamentalist Christian base are making laws, which seek to undermine the rule of law.

I’m talking about the Terri Schiavo case. In my opinion there is no right or wrong answer in this matter. Basically it’s a family matter. Terri Schiavo heart temporarily stopped beating fifteen years ago. This damaged her brain. According to doctors she is in a vegitative state.

I know this is a very emotional subject, but you must put it into perspective. Each day dozens of people are killed by drunk drivers. Each and every one of these cases is a dramatic moment in the relatives’ lives. For the rest of us these victims are statistics.

Once in a while one of these family matters becomes national news. It happens during an Amber Alert, when a child goes missing and it happened during my presidency with the Elian Gonzalez case in 2000.

The two cases are similar in many ways, because they both deal with a person, who can not make his or her own decision. In both cases the family had to decide. But which family member's opinion is more important?

Elian Gonzalez was a six year old boy, who survived a shipwreck that killed his mother, when they tried to flee Cuba. Elian’s father, who lived in Cuba wanted his son back. The boy’s Miami based relatives wanted him to stay in the US.

The courts decided that Elian Gonzalez had to be reunited with his father. The Republicans at the time, edged on by Miami based anti-Castro Cuban exiles, passed law after law, even declaring him a US citizen to keep the courts from making the final decision.

In the Elian Gonzalez case, I decided to do what our Constitution demands of me, enforce the laws of the land. I asked Elian’s father to come to the United States. He came here with his new wife, Elian’s parents were divorced and their newborn child. The father was asked in private whether he wanted to stay in America. He said no. He was asked the question again later. Again he said he wanted to go home to Cuba. In this case there is nothing else you can do but follow the court’s ruling. The father took Elian back to Cuba.

In this case we again have family members claiming to speak for a family member, in this case Terri Schiavo. The husband, Michael Schiavo claims his wife would’ve wanted her feeding tube removed. The parents Bob and Mary Schindler claim their daughter would rather live.

The husband seems to be a decent man and in our system, in which marriage is a sacred institution, his point of view would be paramount. This case went through the Florida courts during the past few years. The Florida courts ruled the feeding tube could be removed.

In response the Republicans are now creating new laws to overrule the courts. In other words, they want more courts to look at the issue in the hope that another court will decide in their and their conservative supporters’ favor.

This has nothing to do with trying to be human towards a woman, who might die soon. This is all about a group in congress subverting the rule of law by creating new laws.

They have done it once now, will they stop or do it again?

In my opinion this law, which congress created, will be deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme court. Congress can’t create laws specifically geared towards one person. The governor of Florida, Jeb Bush tried to enact a similar law pertaining to the same person some time ago, but it was deemed unconstitutional.

I tried hard, but I don’t have a point of view on this issue. Both husband and parents want what’s best for Terri Schiavo.

It’s a family matter, in which the Florida courts have the final word in my opinion. The rest of the nation should keep out of it. Especially politicians.

Jimmy Carter and the Killer Rabbit

2005-03-17T09:52:00.000-05:00

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY

I feel horrible. The muscles in my legs hurt every time I move and the muscles in my arms hurt too, so I stopped moving my arms altogether. This is the result of my workout with the physiotherapist I talked about yesterday. After the exercises I felt real good. I could move my arms normally for the first time in quite a while. Today I can’t move anything. It took me an hour to shower today.

I’ve been sitting at the breakfast table all morning, trying not to move. I have to drink my milk through a straw, because I’m still not allowed to drink coffee.

The physiotherapist will be here in two hours. I’m seriously thinking about calling her to cancel the appointment. I’m feeling muscles I never knew I had.

I don’t understand what happened. We did some arm exercises and I rode the stationary bike for a while. That’s all. The rest of the day I rested as much as possible. I was sitting at the breakfast table, reading and looking into the garden.

Talking about the garden, I saw two rabbits hopping around in our backyard yesterday. It was a beautiful sight. Here in Chappaqua we see a lot of rabbits and other animals. The reason for that is our close proximity to the Catskill Mountains and woodlands.

I asked Bobbi to take a few carrots we found in the kitchen and give them to the rabbits. I thought to myself either the rabbits eat the carrots or they would be part of my water based dinner. So Bobbi took the carrots, opened the kitchen door and went to the rabbits. At first they were frightened, but Bobbi broke the carrots in pieces and threw the pieces to them.

I had to smile. I was thinking, if Bobbi had been born in the city, she would’ve thrown the carrots to the rabbits in one piece. Animals don’t have hands, so you need to break their food in small pieces, so they can swallow it more easily.

I remember about thirty years ago, I was still a student, I was waiting at a bus stop in Washington DC. I was sitting on a bench. All of a sudden this pigeon landed close by. He had one leg. He limped around for a few seconds looking for food. He found a biscuit. He tried, but he couldn’t break it in pieces with his beak and therefore couldn’t eat it.

I was looking at this and felt sorry for the bird. I thought to myself, having only one leg makes it really difficult for him to find food, so I decided to help him. I took the biscuit. The pigeon flew up, but landed just a few yards away. I broke the biscuit in small pieces and threw a few crumbs in front of him. He ate them.

Then I decided to put the crumbs on the bench. To my surprise he jumped on the bench. At first he was a bit anxious and he would eat a crumb and look at me, ready to fly away. Later he felt more comfortable. He would eat the crumb I broke off for him and look at me, asking for more.

I must’ve spend at least ten minutes feeding the pigeon. After the biscuit was gone, he looked at me and I showed him my empty hands. I sat back and waited for the bus. So did the pigeon. He sat down next to me on the bench, facing the road. For some strange reason, Hillary would probably call it silliness, but I felt a certain bond between us. We felt very comfortable, just sitting there looking at the traffic.

After five more minutes the bus arrived. I got up, so did the one legged pigeon. I told him that was my bus and I remember telling him “Take care, my friend”, before I entered the bus. I sat down next to the window and smiled and waved to the bird. As the bus drove away, he flew away.

You know I still wonder what happened to my one legged friend. He is probably dead by now, but still I wonder about him. It’s one of those moments when you meet someone, in this case a pigeon, you bond with this person, you never see that person again, but you always remember that person.

Bobbi’s encounter with the rabbits wasn’t as happy as my encounter with the one legged pigeon. The rabbits ate the pieces of carrot she gave them. More rabbits arrived and soon the garden was filled with about ten of these creatures hopping around and sometimes fighting over the pieces of carrot.

Bobbi was wearing flip flops. Women paint their toenails. Hers were reddish orange. One of the rabbits bit her toe. Hahaha. Bobbi screamed out loud and in an almost panicky mood she tried to walk to the kitchen door. This wasn’t all that easy, because the rabbits had surrounded her, waiting for their pieces of carrot. I think one of the rabbits bit her again, because all of a sudden, she screamed, jumped up, threw the carrots away and ran to the door, which I opened for her, followed by the rabbits, who probably thought she still had the carrots.

I closed the door and asked her what happened and she told me that the rabbits were trying to eat her toes. I couldn’t stop laughing all afternoon. The rabbits waited at the kitchen door for at least an hour, which I used to tell Bobbi that the rabbits were still after her. Hahaha.

This whole affair reminded me of president Jimmy Carter and the Killer Rabbit. Older people will probably remember this story. What happened was, Jimmy Carter was president at the time. He decided to take a short break. He went to Georgia to do some fishing on a river.

As he was fishing, sitting alone in his boat, he saw this fifty pound swamp rabbit, swimming to his boat. And the rabbit, which according to Jimmy looked like he had rabies, tried to climb onboard. President Carter, fearing for his life, used his paddle to keep the rabbit out of the boat. He succeeded and the swamp rabbit swam away.

When journalists heard this story, they turned it into a national hype. You had newspapers with headlines like “President Carter attacked by rabbit” and “Jimmy Carter beats rabbit in fight”. I remember the whole country was laughing about this whole event, but it didn’t do president Carter any good in his reelection bid. We were still fighting the Soviet Union and there was the Iranian crisis at the time. Ronald Reagan used the story in his campaign and won.

If I remember this right, a member of the president’s entourage made a picture of the attack. I’ll ask Bobbi to find it and link to it.

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and National Security

2005-03-16T10:15:00.000-05:00

I’ve had a good night’s rest. I was up early this morning and I must say I feel good. A physiotherapist will come to the house later this morning to help me with my exercises. I still have trouble lifting my arms. She has to help me use them again without opening the wound on my chest.

I also have to start exercising my legs. I bought an exercise bike, but I haven’t used it yet. Apart from that I also have to follow my new diet. Basically I can eat everything I want, after its cooked in water. I’m basically eating potatoes and vegetables and occasionally chicken without the skin and boiled in water. I haven’t eaten fish for a long time. I love fried fish, but I can’t get fish boiled in water through my throat.

I’ve been reading the newspapers this morning. What interests me most today is whether the Senate will vote for or against the bill allowing oil companies to drill in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

I think president Bush has the votes he needs to pass the bill in the Senate. I personally am a bit ambivalent about drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. As a former president I know the difficult decisions, which have to be made for our country’s national security’s sake.

On the other hand the Arctic Refuge is home to some of the rarest birds and mammals, which you won’t find anywhere in the world.

These are the two basic truths about the ANWR (ANWAR) project. Now I would like to dissect the political dimensions of this bill in front of the Senate.

The Democratic party leaders didn’t do a good job fighting against the bill. Their only reason not to drill in the Arctic Refuge is their fear that it might harm the environment. Republicans crossed out this objection by saying new technologies would make drilling safe and wouldn’t cause the environment any harm, which is probably true, since we are also able to dril in the middle of oceans without harming the environment.

Since the Democrats had no other reasons for keeping oil companies out of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, the Republicans kept pounding them with reasons why drilling should be allowed.

One of the most persuasive reasons is the oil price. It’s more than 54 dollars a barrel, which Americans will soon notice at the gas pumps. Another reason the Republicans used to persuade voters was to say, look at the size of Alaska, it could swallow several New Englands, the animals living on the Arctic Refuge could move to another place without much difficulty.

These might not be the most intellectual of reasons to drill in the Refuge, but average Americans understand them.

I’ve learned a good lesson in 1994, when Americans voted for Newt Gingrich and his Contract With America. It is not enough for a political party to be against something, they must also offer an alternative.

Americans know we have a problem with our oil supplies. They want the problem solved. If all we Democrats can offer them is, don’t do it, because birds won’t have a home, that just doesn’t cut it.

I’ve said this many, many times to my friends in the party. Our candidate for president John Kerry was rejected by the voters, because he didn’t have any concrete plans for the future, but still we make the same mistake every time. We say no to what the other party wants, but we offer no clear and thoughtout alternative. That will do us in each and every time, because it supposes, you don’t need to explain to your constituents, why you are against a bill and what your alternatives are for solving the problem.

I want to come back to the national security issue involved in opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It’s about oil independence. Read this carefully. It’s not about oil supply independence, but about oil shipping routes independence.

You have to look at the map. Most of the oil we use in the US comes from the Middle East, Nigeria and Venezuela. The routes oil tankers take to reach the East Coast of the US are pretty much secure. The problem is the West Coast. To reach the West Coast oil tankers have to either go through the Panama Canal or sail around the southern most tip of South America.

The latter route is much longer than the route through the Panama Canal. Apart from that it is also a very dangerous route, because two oceans meet exactly at the southern tip. This means there is a perpetual storm raging in this area, making sailing very dangerous.

The Panama Canal route, which would be the first choice to ship Venezuelan oil to the West Coast has become less reliable, because the US doesn’t own the canal anymore. Jimmy Carter made the decision to give it back to the Republic of Panama. What’s more, the ports on both sides of the canal are owned by a company named Hutchison Whampoa. It’s a company based in Hong Kong and is owned by a billionaire businessman named Li Ka-Shing. He is closely connected to the Communist leaders in China.

Opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska means the West Coast isn’t as dependent on the Panama Canal as it is now. As a former president I know you must take this into account, when you make a decision involving oil and national security.

Building a Gazebo

2005-03-15T18:26:00.000-05:00

I’ve been resting today. I walked around the house. I can’t go outside, because of the cold weather. If I catch a cold, that would set back my healing process at least a few weeks. I want to get better as soon as possible.

I was sitting in front of the window in my living room looking at our backyard. I really made a mistake by not going through with my plan to build a glass gazebo in the garden. It’s not really a gazebo, but more a cross between a greenhouse and a gazebo. The gazebo should be as beautiful as the gazebos I knew when I was a little boy in Arkansas, but it should also be completely surrounded by glass, because I want to be able to sit in it during the harsh winters here in New York.

I want to put a good heating system in it and electricity, because I want to be able to use a coffee maker and a television set to watch sports. I did talk to Hillary about building one last summer, but she said “Why? You already have a barn”. I have to talk to her again about this matter.

I noticed something looking at my garden. I totally missed the blooming of the pear trees. I also missed the ripening of the pears. I was looking forward to see that process, but I was so busy, I totally forgot about the pear trees. We can’t eat the pears yet. The trees need to grow for about another year or two.

I’ve been reading a book I received from a friend of mine. He's the publisher. It’s a science fiction book. I also watched the Johnny Carson DVD’s Bobbi bought. I was amazed she only paid 113 dollars for 10 DVD’s. I would trust Bobbi with my wallet any day.

It reminds me to thank Bobbi for all the hard work she did during the past few days. I appreciate it very much.

Rests me to say I feel good. The stitches in my chest itch, but I can’t scratch it. That drives me crazy at times, but I have to be careful not to open the wound.

Home Chappaqua New York

2005-03-15T11:01:00.000-05:00

Good morning. I’m back home in Chappaqua, New York. The doctors asked me to stay in the hospital for a few more days, but I wanted to go home as soon as possible. There wasn’t really a reason to keep me in the hospital, medically speaking. I feel good. The doctors told me the surgery and the healing process were going well. They wanted me to stay for a few more days, because they wanted to make sure I was getting better. I understand their point of view, but I also know myself. I will heal faster at home.

I would like to thank everybody for their kind remarks and well wishes. They meant a lot to me and my wife. I would like to thank you also for your prayers. They did make me feel better. Thank you. I will not forget your kindness.

I was worried about the operation, but right now all I want to do is put this healing process behind me. I will listen to the doctors, I will follow my diet and I will exercise every day. I just want to get better. I have a lot to do.

I had a lot of time, when I was in the hospital to think about my future. I have at least twenty more years to go. I’m not interested in retiring. Just lying on my bed for days, made me understand how much I love my job. Whatever that job is nowadays, be it an educator, speechmaker, writer or peacemaker. I love my job and I want to continue being active in the world community for years to come.

You know, for the first time in years I actually understood why Hillary wanted to be a public servant. It feels so good to serve other people. It feels so good to help other people. It’s the best feeling in the world to go to bed at night, thinking about your activities that day and knowing you had a positive impact in another person’s life. It’s the reason I didn’t like being a district attorney, but I loved being a governor and a president.

I’ve made up my mind. I want to continue helping people through my foundation and through my role as a special United Nations envoy. There is a lot of work to do. But that is OK, I have twenty more years to go.

Again I would like to thank you for your kinds words. I hope you will keep supporting me in the future. There is so much I want to do. I might be old and I might be fragile right now, but I will never surrender my ideals and I will never stop helping others.

Chocolates and Discharge

2005-03-14T18:26:00.001-05:00

I’ve been at the hospital till three in the afternoon. I’m exhausted. The president is feeling much better. He will probably be released from the hospital later today or tomorrow. He is walking around the hospital, but he still needs a lot of rest. The president had asked me to buy him some DVD’s. I bought him Johnny Carson’s collection, because I knew he was one of Johnny’s guests. He also asked me to bring him his favorite CD, The Ronettes. I had to go all the way to Chappaqua to get the disc.

Today again, there were dozens of well wishers, mostly friends, foreign dignitaries and politicians.

To be honest with you, sometimes I question the amount of visitors allowed in. The president is the one allowing them inside the room, but still, I think we need to ask these people to wait a few days before they come to the hospital. The president doesn’t want to send them away. He doesn’t want to disappoint any one of them.

He is cheerful as always, but I can see he is really tired. Sometimes, he is just so exhausted he just turns his back to all of us, pulls his blanket over his head and goes to sleep. I almost cried when I saw this. Don’t they understand the president needs his rest?

This morning the president received a visit from an emir from the United Arab Emirates. This is somewhere near Saudi Arabia. I don’t think we sell any books there, otherwise I would’ve known. He’s a good friend of the president. He brought the president about two dozen boxes of chocolates. The president couldn’t eat them himself, so he gave them to us. Us is the visitors and the hospital staff.

The chocolates were very tasty. Inside the chocolates was liquor. All kinds of different liquors. I liked the chocolates with the green wrapper. I think this chocolate contains rum, but I’m not totally sure.

The chocolates were very popular amongst the nurses. When I went to the hall to get a Coke, I could hear the nurses calling other nurses working in other wings of the hospital and telling them to get over here ASAP, because of the chocolates.

Pretty soon every few minutes a nurse would come into the room to ask the president if he needed anything. They would always leave with a handful of chocolates.

After lunch time, a group of female staffers from the Harlem office visited the president. They were supposed to come on Friday, but they never showed up. I know some of the girls. I have to go to the Harlem office once in a while. I also know some of them, because we worked together at the Clinton Library in Little Rock.

We didn’t get along very well, so I stayed out of the way for most of the time they were there. It isn’t really my fault we don’t get along. I got along very well with the girls working in Little Rock, who were from Little Rock itself. I mean we shared our bottles of water and our make up. The girls I knew from the Little Rock office and who now work for the Harlem office, most of them are from New York or the Mid West. They saw their job in Little Rock as a stepping stone leading to a great career in New York. They absolutely hated Little Rock. After a few weeks most of these girls would ask for a transfer to the New York office.

It’s not that I don’t like their wish to have a great career, I just don’t like their negative mentality. I liked the local girls working for the Clinton library. Most of them had just finished high school and were waiting to get married, others were married and loved their job and weren’t really looking for a career. They were just looking for a nice job to pay the bills.

So that’s the reason I kept to myself, when they arrived. The room was empty, because the doctors were running some tests and had asked the secret service men not to allow anybody in. The president was asleep when they came in. They were very loud and tried to wake up the president. I told them not to do that.

After they saw the nurses come in and take chocolates from the boxes, they decided to delve in themselves. It wasn’t long after that and they had emptied half the stack of boxes that one of the nurses entered, saw what they had done and said something about it. She grabbed a few boxes and tried to walk to the door. The Harlem office staffers were furious and wouldn’t let her go. I had to calm them down. The nurse left and told them she would call the head nurse and have all of them thrown out of the building.

A few seconds later she came back with the head nurse and a few other nurses. The head nurse, I had never seen her before went straight to the stack of boxes and said that Mr. Clinton wasn’t allowed to eat those according to the diet, so she would take them away.

The girls from the Harlem office wouldn’t let her anywhere near the boxes, because I think they wanted to take the boxes of chocolates home themselves.

I will be honest and say I had hoped to take a bag full of those chocolates with the green wrapper with me myself, but I was going to ask the president permission first. I live at a hotel and at night there isn’t much to do but watch HBO, so I was planning on eating them as I watched television.

When the Harlem office staffers didn’t allow her to take away the boxes, the head nurse became angry. All of them started shouting at each other. I told them to stop shouting, because they were going to wake up the president.

The head nurse looked at me and said “Mind your own damn business, Scarlett”. She was making fun of my Southern accent. I really resented that. I didn’t say anything, so she turned to the Harlem office girls and tried to force her way to the boxes, which were on a desk next to the president’s bed. There was a scuffle and they were shouting again.

Suddenly Mrs. Clinton opened the door. Everybody froze. Mrs. Clinton looked at all of us with her steely eyes. She said “I would like to thank all of you for your visit. We appreciate it very much”. She had a smile on her face, but she wasn’t smiling at all.

You must understand that Mrs. Clinton is totally different from Mr. Clinton. When Mr. Clinton is in the room all the aides have a lot of fun and we laugh and joke constantly, but when Mrs. Clinton enters the room all of us walk on egg shells. It just happens.

Mrs. Clinton held the door open and everybody began leaving the room. I collected the newspapers I had given the president, took my bag and I was walking to the door, when Mrs. Clinton grabbed my arm tightly. She waited till everybody left. She said “I didn’t mean you, Bobbi”. I looked in her eyes and her eyes were so friendly.

She asked me what happened and I told her. I was afraid she might think I was involved in the scuffle and that I too was hurting the president, so I told her I wasn’t involved and that I had tried to stop the fight. She said “I know, Bobbi”. She smiled at me. It was a friendly smile. She squeezed my shoulder and sat down on a chair next to the president and began reading some Congressional papers. I cried. I made sure she didn’t see it, but I had to cry.

The rest of the afternoon, I tried to stay out of everyone’s way. The president watched some sports on television. He looked good and rested, but I didn’t really talk to the president much as the doctors were still running their tests to see when he could leave.

At the end of the day, Mrs. Clinton gave me two boxes of chocoles. I thanked her for that. That was very nice of her.

The president as I said is feeling all right. He needs more time to heal, but he isn’t in any pain. His chest itches a lot, but that is normal according to the doctor. I hope they will allow him to leave the hospital tomorrow.

ADDED: I just listened to my voice mail. Mr. Clinton was discharged from the hospital an hour ago. I must’ve been on the Metro. I’m very happy to hear this news.

Bobbi Lamoon

Hospital

2005-03-13T11:52:00.000-05:00

I was at the hospital earlier this morning. The president is feeling better and better each day. He is able to walk around the hospital and talk to other patients. He still has some trouble lifting his arms, but according to the doctors he should be able to use his arms normally in a few days, after the stiches heal completely.

It was my day off, but I wanted to make sure the president had the Sunday papers. He said I didn't have to visit him on my day off, but I know how much he likes reading the papers. He likes knowing what's happening in Washington.

Mrs. Clinton and Chelsea were there too. The room was crowded as usual, so I didn't stay too long. I left right after the prayer service.

I don't know when the president gets the green light to go home. It won't be long though, because the president feels good.

Bobbi Lamoon

At the Hospital

2005-03-12T18:01:00.000-05:00

I’ve been at the hospital all afternoon. The president is doing much better than yesterday and the day before. Yesterday he fell asleep a lot, but I think that had more to do with the fact that he had been working so hard in the weeks leading up to his surgery.

This afternoon he was cheerful and alert as always. I brought him the Saturday papers and we read them together. There were a lot of friends and foreign ambassadors dropping in to wish the president a speedy recovery. Mrs. Clinton and Chelsea were there too. Chelsea’s boyfriend came to visit the president later.

It was a very awkward visit. A secret service agent told the president Chelsea’s boyfriend was waiting at the door and whether he should let him in. The president sighed and said “Oh no. Tell him I died”. All of us were shocked. The president laughed out loud, but we didn’t. Chelsea was angry. She said “Dad, you can’t say horrible things like that. Not even as a joke.” Mrs. Clinton told the president that his remark wasn’t funny at all, because a lot of people would be awfully upset if it were true. She told him to be more responsible than say things like that.

The president seemed to think it was a great joke. You know how he is. When he starts laughing he can’t stop. The secret service man was still waiting. Chelsea told him to tell her boyfriend to come in, but he didn’t move. He was looking at the president, waiting for orders, but the president was still laughing. Chelsea got up, walked out of the door and told her boyfriend to come in.

The boyfriend brought the president flowers. He was very respectful, but the president couldn’t stop laughing. As he was asking the president questions about his health, the president kept laughing in response. It took him quite a while after every question to respond. The boyfriend looked at Chelsea. Chelsea rolled her eyes.

After a while and as you know the president has a very infectious laugh, we started laughing too after the boyfriend asked a question. Chelsea’s boyfriend was becoming very uncomfortable. He stopped asking questions, but since everybody else was looking at him, he’d continue asking questions. The president would laugh out loud in response and all of us would laugh too.

After about ten minutes the boyfriend looked at his watch and told the president he had a business meeting to attend. He wished the president well and left the room, followed by Chelsea. It took the president a full half hour to stop laughing and once in a while out of the blue he’d just laugh and Mrs. Clinton told the person the president was talking to at that moment that the president was still recovering from the anesthesia.

The president is doing fine. The doctors say his wounds are healing to their satisfaction. They need a day or two to decide how long they will keep the president in the hospital.

The rest of the day was hectic, but uneventful.

Bobbi Lamoon

Recovering after Surgery

2005-03-11T11:09:00.000-05:00

I just visited the president. He is doing very well. I’m at the El Presidente restaurant across the street from the hospital right now. The nurses woke up the president at about seven this morning. He is able to walk around. He does have trouble moving his arms and shoulders. He took a shower and they gave him breakfast. He had to drink milk, because the nurses wouldn’t allow him to drink tea or coffee.

The president told me that tea and coffee keep fluids in the body from leaving the body through transpiration. He told me he had heard this before, because that is the reason Arabs living in the desert drink a lot of tea and coffee, to keep them from sweating. Because if they sweat they have to drink water and since there isn’t a lot of water, they drink tea and coffee to make sure they don’t sweat.

The president didn’t really like the nurse’s order to drink milk, because according to him, he can’t start the day without a cup of coffee.

I brought him a few newspapers this morning. Mr. Clinton loves to read. He has trouble turning the pages, so I helped him with that.

The president’s room wasn’t as crowded with nurses, doctors and visitors as yesterday. Mrs. Clinton is at the hospital. I didn’t see Chelsea, maybe she will visit her dad later in the day. The president’s staff working at the Harlem office will visit the president later today too.

The president is doing fine, although I must say, he gave us quite a scare yesterday. Well actually the doctor did. Doctor Sonett told us before the operation that it would only take about an hour or two. Mr. Clinton was in the operating room for four hours. That frightened us. The doctor told us, when they opened the president’s chest and looked inside with a small camera, they saw that the scar tissue was much bigger than they had anticipated. They had to make a bigger incision in the president’s chest to be able to cut away all the scar tissue.

So although the president is feeling fine, we are worried. To have scar tissue growing and pressing on your lungs, like the president had after a heart bypass surgery is very rare, according to the doctor. Now that we found out that there was more scar tissue than the doctors anticipated, we are very worried.

Not the president. He’s in a very good mood. I have to go back to the hospital right now, but I will keep you updated on the president's recuperation.

Bobbi Lamoon

Surgery

2005-03-10T18:06:00.000-05:00

President Clinton's operation was successful. It took four hours to complete. They drained the fluids in the president's chest cavity and took away some scar tissue. They implanted a tube in the president's chest, which will remain there for a few days to keep draining the fluids in his chest.

Right now Mr. Clinton is awake. He is tired, but very upbeat. Mrs. Clinton and Chelsea are here too. Mr. Clinton is his usual self, joking around with the nurses and doctors. He is teaching Chelsea and me how to play poker.

Everything is all right.

Bobbi Lamoon

Hospital New York

2005-03-10T07:55:00.000-05:00

I’m at the New York Presbyterian Hospital. The nurses are going to prepare me for surgery in a few minutes. I feel good. I woke up at four in the morning. The minute I stepped out of bed I felt great. A good night’s rest has done me a lot of good. I feel like I could run the New York Marathon right now. And the scary part is, I have this feeling I could win it too. Hahaha.

I feel much better than yesterday. Bobbi asked me to revisit my decision to post that message. I said no. I want people to know how I feel. I want to be strong for everybody and act like it’s no big deal, but I also have to show some responsibility.

What kind of message will I give young people or even young older people in their late forties and early fifties if I made this operation look like a walk in the park? That would be irresponsible. I don’t want people to think they can eat all the wrong foods, not exercise and think if anything goes wrong I’ll just do what Bill Clinton did, I get a quadruple heart by-pass operation. He says it’s no big deal and if there are complications, I’ll just get another operation. Bill Clinton says it’s no big deal.

Surgery is always a big deal. They are going to cut you open. You will never feel the way you felt before the operation.

Please everybody, eat wisely, exercise regularly. You do not want to be in my position.

After saying that, I do want to say I feel confident everything will be alright. The surgeons have done this operation many times. I have great confidence in them and the nurses.

Well, they are motioning me to get ready. I need to say a few words to Hillary, tell her everything is going to be alright. We shared a good long hug together last night and we talked a little and cried a little, but that is normal. I talked to Chelsea too. She’s a wonderful daughter. She always was.

I’ve asked Bobbi to keep you updated on the progress of my operation and recuperation.

May God bless all of you. Take good care of yourselves.

Surgery

2005-03-09T17:51:00.000-05:00

I’m on my way to New York. I’m tired, really tired. The weather changed. It rained all afternoon. I shouldn’t have played 18 holes on an almost empty stomach. The event was a success though. George Bush is on his way home to Houston. I’m on my way to hospital.

The closer we get to New York the more anxious I get. I am afraid. Why shouldn’t I be? I might die in a few hours.

Bobbi, I know, just write down what I say. Please.

When I had heart surgery six months ago I was scared. I didn’t let anybody in on my feelings, because I didn’t want Chelsea or Hillary or for that matter any American to be anxious on my behalf. I wanted to be strong for my family and for my friends and supporters, but I was scared.

It wasn’t a small operation. It wasn’t a picnic and with the many complications that followed the operation, the fatigue I still feel, the anxiety that I might have a heart attack any moment, I haven’t been the same, since my last operation.

You know what I fear most? Pain, I’m scared to death that something might go wrong and I have to fight and fight for my life for days. I’d rather just die on the operating table.

I’ve been having trouble breathing lately, because of the fluid buildup in my chest. I feel myself suffocating little by little. It’s a very scary feeling.

I have been having nightmares lately. They are all the same, the surgeon opens me up, while I’m still awake and cuts my artery. I can’t tell you how scared I am that they cut one of my veins. I am scared of blood. I am so scared of blood.

I’m telling myself everything will be alright, but you can fool someone else, but you can’t fool yourself. Not just about the operation itself, but also about the consequences. Will the guy, who walked into the hospital be the same as the one, who walks out.

I don’t want to be an invalid. I don’t want to need round the clock nursing. I don’t want Hillary to give up her career for me. I don’t want her to have to take care of me all day long. I don’t want to be a deadweight for her.

She will leave me. My little Chelsea is out of the house and Hillary will leave me too. Oh God, please, I just don’t want to hurt anymore.

Visit Golf Course Florida

2005-03-09T10:14:00.000-05:00

I’m in Florida to play golf at the charity event I talked about yesterday. It’s a beautiful day here in Florida. The weather is much better than in Washington and New York. The charity event is taking place in Hobe Sound, a few miles north of Palm Beach. It’s not on the coast, which is a pity, because I love the ocean.

The Former president Bush is here too. We took the plane here together. We also dined together last night. I ate fried fish. I love sea food. Yesterday was the last day I could eat whatever I wanted. That is I still have to follow my diet. Today I have to eat food according to doctor’s orders, because of the operation tomorrow. After that I’ll have to follow a new more strict diet. I’m not looking forward to it, but neither do I want to go back to hospital for another operation.

Greg Norman organized the golf event. He is a world famous golfer. It’s a charity event. Greg brought together about 70 amateur golfers, who are willing to donate thirty thousand dollars each to the relief efforts benefiting the victims of the tidal wave in the Indian Ocean. Americans are the most charitable people in the world, that is for sure. George and I had expected and hoped to raise a few hundred million dollars, but the amount Americans gave superceded our wildest dreams. I would like to thank each and every person, who donated towards this cause.

I’m staying at Greg Norman’s house. He is a big land developer here in Florida. He owns half the houses here in Hobe Sound. He was asking me why I didn’t move to Florida, since I like it so much. I didn’t tell him this, but I’m actually thinking about moving for health reasons. I can’t take the cold in New York anymore, not after my by-pass surgery. It’s not really because of the by-pass surgery, but because my immune system has taken a beating and every time I’m exposed to rain or freezing cold I get flu like symptoms. I’m thinking about moving to California, Los Angeles to be more precisely. I'm not giving up my place in Chappaqua, but I'm thinking about buying something out West, because I'll be spending more time over there.

I love Florida, but you are out of the game so to say, when you live in Florida. My life still revolves around politics, fundraising and the media. The only places for that are Los Angeles and New York.

One more comment about Greg. I asked him, why he had built these beautiful houses in Hobe Sound, since none of them were oceanfront properties. I probably shouldn’t have asked a question like that, but I did. What he said is something I’m still thinking about. He told me, if you build a house on the oceanfront, you will always face the wind. The ocean is colder than the temperatures on the land, so even on sunny days you feel chilly, because of the wind. I have never thought about that. It makes sense though.

Signed Limited Edition Book

2005-03-09T09:08:00.000-05:00

A new SIGNED Limited edition of President Bill Clinton's autobiography "My Life" is out right now.

Click on the picture to order your copy at Amazon

There will only be 1,500 copies available of this edition.

This limited edition will only be sold by a select group of retailers and online bookdealers.

Each book will include:
• President Bill Clinton's signature
• Edition number– 1,500 total
• Full navy blue cloth case with Bill Clinton gold stamp on the spine
• Gold Ribbon-marker
• Frontispiece photographs
• Crimson endpapers
• Shrink-wrapping

This edition costs $350.00

This signed edition is a collectors' item, which in time is sure to grow in value.

President Bill Clinton's My Life is a refreshingly candid and at more than 900 pages an exhaustive look at the former president as a son, brother, teacher, father, husband, and public figure. President Clinton painstakingly outlines the history behind his greatest successes and failures, including his dedication to educational and economic reform, his war against a "vast right-wing operation" determined to destroy him, and the "morally indefensible" acts for which he was nearly impeached.

My Life is autobiography as therapy--a personal history written by a man trying to face and banish his private demons.

A new SIGNED Limited edition of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's autobiography "Living History" is out right now.

Click on the picture to order your copy at Amazon

There will only be 1,500 copies available of this edition.

This limited edition will only be sold by a select group of retailers and online bookdealers.

Each book will include:
• Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's signature
• Edition number– 1,500 total
• Full navy blue cloth case with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's gold stamp on the spine
• Gold Ribbon-marker
• Frontispiece photographs
• Crimson endpapers
• Shrink-wrapping
• Exclusive essay by Senator Clinton

This edition costs $250.00

This signed edition is a collectors' item, which in time is sure to grow in value.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's "Living History" is written with candor, humor and passion. She writes about her upbringing in suburban, middle-class America in the 1950s and her transformation from Goldwater Girl to student activist to controversial First Lady.

Living History is her revealing memoir of life through the White House years. It is also her chronicle of living history with Bill Clinton, a thirty-year adventure in love and politics that survives personal betrayal, relentless partisan investigations and constant public scrutiny.

Decortication Surgery

2005-03-08T20:42:00.000-05:00

I’m in Washington DC right now. Former president George Bush and I went to the White House to talk to the president and to report on our trip to Asia. It was a very nice meeting and I want to thank the president for his kindness. The weather in Washington is horrible by the way. I thought winter was over. It isn't.

Tomorrow I will be in Hobe Sound in Florida at the Medalist Golf Club. I will play golf at a charity event meant to raise money for the victims of the tsunami. Former president George Bush will be there too.

Thursday I will be back in New York for my operation at the Presbyterian Hospital, the Columbia University Medical Center. I’ve had pain in my chest for quite a while now. It wasn’t acute pain, but more a dull pain, which I could live with. I discussed it with my doctors Craig Smith and Allan Schwartz about a month ago. This was before I went to Asia.

According to them scar tissue built up in my chest and holds back fluids, which would normally drain away. This made part of my left lung collapse. After what happened to me and Gil a few days ago, I fell on my chest, I’ve been in pain ever since. I can live with it, but I just want to make sure nothing ruptured inside and there are no internal bleedings. It’s a common procedure. I’m not afraid.

The procedure is called a decortication operation. I will be under anesthesia during the operation, which will take about three hours. What they will do is they will make a cut between my ribs, insert a camera to see inside and repair the damage.

It isn’t a major operation like quadruple heart bypass surgery, but I will have to be in hospital for about a week depending on the success of the operation. After that I have to recuperate at home for about a month.

As I said I feel all right. I’m not scared.

I would like to thank everybody for their kind messages and well wishes. I appreciate them very much.

Chelsea called. I talked to Curly too. I spent most of the day with Hillary. She is concerned, but I told her everything would be ok. I’m leaving for Florida in a few hours. Bobbi will be happy to be back in her home state.

I asked her to keep you updated about my progress during the time I’m in hospital.

Again thank you for your messages. I wish all of you the best.

Private Investigator Los Angeles

2005-03-08T11:34:00.001-05:00

I promised to tell you, what happened the other night between me and Gil, while we were looking for my brother. I don’t really want to talk about what happened, but I normally keep my promises. I should have kept my mouth shut and I should’ve never engaged this idiot, Gil.

He had done some work for my friend Kevin Spacey. Kevin was being blackmailed by some guy he met in a gay bar. Gil took care of that business.

Anyway, Gil picked me up at my hotel in Beverly Hills. It was dark already. His face was bruised and battered and his nose had a strange angle. It is probably half broken. Gil has an open top car and where I sat on the passenger’s seat, the windshield had a star in it. He asked me to pay for his medical bills and the windshield and I did so.

We visited Roger’s ex-wife. She gave us a list of places, where we might find him. I pleaded with her to drop the alimony case against my brother, because that is basically the reason a judge is involved. Roger didn’t pay any alimony or child support for his son. I’m the one paying child support for my nephew. I’m also paying his school fees.

His ex said no. To be honest with you, I understand her point of view. She isn’t to blame here. It’s Roger and nobody else but Roger. He didn’t pay up, she took him to court, that’s the reason he is on parole now.

We took the list and drove around Los Angeles for a while. Gil would stop once in a while at a club and go inside to look for Roger. We didn’t find him.

It was around midnight and we were in Orange County. I don’t know where exactly, because I’m not really that familiar with Orange County or Los Angeles for that matter. Gil stopped on the parking lot of a small motel. He took something out of his jacket, which was on the back seat and left the car, the engine still running. He told me to wait, he would be right back.

He disappeared around the building. After a few minutes he appeared at the far end of the motel and looked through the window of one of the rooms. To me it seemed like he was taking pictures. I thought he had located Roger so I got out of the car and walked over to him.

I asked him whether Roger was inside. At that moment, a middle aged guy, more likely in his early sixties, because he had grey hair, he was only wearing shorts, he came out of the room, shouting. Gil got up and took a picture of the guy. The flash blinded the man. Gil screamed at me, “Run Bill”.

I was stunned. Gil was fighting off the guy. He pushed him away and ran to the car. I ran too. I don’t know what happened, but I can’t run anymore. I tried to run to the car, I couldn’t run. It’s like my muscles stiffened up. It’s the strangest thing. I was running, but the speed was gone.

The guy ran after me. He must’ve been older than me, but he out ran me. Gil got behind the wheel and drove in my direction. I tripped and fell, losing my glasses. I looked back. The guy stopped running. I think he recognized me. I got up as fast as possible and kept running. The guy caught up with me and gave me a kick in the behind, just as I jumped in Gil’s car. I hurt myself really bad. I still have pain in my chest, because of that night.

I was furious. I asked him what the hell that was all about. He told me he was trying to catch a cheating husband. He would get a thousand dollar bonus if he had a picture, which his wife could use in her divorce case. I couldn’t believe my ears. I exploded and called him every name I could think of.

I told him he was fired and threw his money in his face. He stopped the car and told me to get out. I did. The bastard drove off. I’m still so angry at this whole episode. I’m so angry at Roger for putting me in such a situation.

I went to a small strip mall closeby and bought a calling card. I was lucky, because I normally don’t have my wallet with me. If it wasn’t for the fact that I had to pay Gil, I wouldn’t have any money with me at all. Very stupid of me. I need to stop thinking I'm the president and others will take care of these things.

I called Bobbi and asked her to come and get me. I gave her the address in Orange County. After that I bought something to eat and sat down on the pavement at the side of the road.

I thought to myself how strangely familiar this whole night seemed. When I was president, I had a staff, aides to help me out. There is something I learned early on in my presidency. Aides in Washington only work for you part time even if you pay them full time salaries. What I mean is, look at Gil. I was paying him to work for me, still he wanted to make a quick buck by making that picture.

That’s almost exactly what happens in Washington. My aides worked for me, but they never forgot number one, themselves. If a journalist asked them for some confidential information, these aides always thought about whether leaking this information to the journalist would be beneficial to their career instead of thinking about whether it could hurt me or my policy initiatives. That’s what I mean. Being the president’s aide was never the end, they were always on the lookout for a better job with more pay or more status.

I can’t tell you how many times my policies were hurt by disloyal aides. Some of them leaked documents to get some recognition from the press, because they were interested in a career in the media after my presidency was over. Some of them talked to political adversaries in the hope of securing a job in the future after I had left office. Others wanted journalists to give them some attention, because they were thinking about running for some kind of office themselves and the journalists would ask for a quid pro quo.

What Gil did is reprehensible, but I’m used to it. In Washington, in politics nobody is loyal. Everybody thinks about his or her own career first. I was also thinking about George Bush’s friend, the one, who taped those confidential conversations and showed them to the media, Doug Wead. In politics you are alone. That really is true.

After an hour Bobbi picked me up in an open top white Corvette. I was just too tired to say anything about that. I had asked her to rent a car. I should’ve known what kind of a car a twenty something girl from Florida, who has never lived in California would rent.

I got in and we drove back to Beverly Hills. She took a detour, but according to her that was the only way she knew. I was looking at her steering with one hand and wiping her long hair out of her face, but the wind kept blowing it right back into her face and turning the dial on the radio to fine tune the sound. Thank God the roads were empty. We listened to some Golden Oldies on a radio station called K-Earth. I remember that name, because they have a very annoying jingle, which they play every few minutes. The music pretty much washed away my anger and made me sad about my life.

It was dark, Bobbi and I were driving on the empty highways of Los Angeles, the wind was blowing through my hair, music on the background, I was looking into the darkness to my right and I was very close to crying.

I don't know why, but I was thinking to myself, what kind of marriage do Hillary and I have? We haven’t seen each other for so long. I went to Asia with former president George Bush on the eighteenth. Before that I had been in Los Angeles. So I haven’t seen my wife since the seventeenth. That’s almost three weeks.

It’s difficult to say, but it almost feels like it doesn’t matter to us whether we’re together or not. We are on the phone all the time, but you can’t smile at the telephone, you can’t take the telephone’s hand and give it a little squeeze to tell it you care.

I never talk about this to Hillary. I never said no, when she asked me for my opinion about her running for Senate. She always supported me and I just wanted to be there for her, because I knew how much it means to her to have her own career and track record in public service.

When I was sitting in the Corvette, looking into the darkness it just was so apparent to me how much I miss her. I’m not going to lie. I wished she hadn’t run for Senate. I just want her to spend more time with me.

The reason I almost cried was because of a song on the radio. I can’t remember it exactly, but it went something like, Take me out tonight, because I want to see people I want to see life. Driving in your car, I never want to go home, because I haven’t got one anymore. And If a ten ton truck crashes into us, to die by your side is such a heavenly way to die.

I was thinking about the words and they ring true to me. Do I have a home? If so then why haven’t I seen my wife in three weeks? I didn’t want to think about all these things, but there is nothing else to do then think, when you’re driving on the dark, empty highways in Los Angeles sitting on the passenger’s seat.

I need to talk to Hillary, because we can’t, I can’t go on like this, pretending this arrangement suits me. To be honest, I’ve been feeling this way for a long time, but I just don’t have the guts to tell her how I feel.

It’s my own fault, I made many mistakes, broke her heart too many times with things, which right now seem so stupid and totally not worth it. I forfeited my right to talk to her and tell her something is bothering me about our marriage. I hurt her too many times. I just need to keep my mouth shut, maybe I’m not happy, but she probably is.

And she has every right to be. I just need to think about her and her happiness. She deserves that much after all I did to her.

University of Washington

2005-03-07T08:44:00.000-05:00

The situation is spiraling out of control. I’m in a very bad mood. I will talk about last night later. I need some time to collect my thoughts first. I just don’t know what to do about my brother.

Reader’s e-mail:

Dr. President Clinton-
I recently completed your on audio CD. What impresses me the most about the novel is the hope that you provide for young progressives like me in the end. After the last election, it seemed that liberalism was lost and that my history teacher’s comment that “Every time a democrat becomes president it is a hiccup” had come true. However, your novel dispelled all of the dark thoughts I had about politics and entering into a career of public service.
Your book makes me truly believe that I could in fact become president someday.
I am Vinny Spotleson, a Senior at Silverado High School in Las Vegas. I am currently the president of my speech and debate team (I compete in Policy Debate and Original Oratory), and I am the student body treasurer of my school. Just like you did when you were my age, I attended Boys’ State last summer, where I was elected to Lt. Governor by a 65% to 35% ratio, even with the republicans outnumbering us 2 to 1. I feel that the odds are in my favor for being able to be elected to a high office in politics here in Nevada, partly because of the state’s size.
I met you once when you were visiting Brian Greenspun. He is my father’s employer, and I have spoken with him about politics several times. If I get far enough in Law School, and get the education that I desire, along with the right opportunities and lucky breaks, I should be able to secure campaign funding from the Greenspun Corporation and other business partners of theirs.
My political goal is simple: to be the best leader that I can be, never compromising either my love for humanity, or my hatred of greed. To be elected to Governor of Nevada would be a dream come true.
I see you as both an icon and a role model, someone that I would like to be compared to. You have revealed that politics does not have to be a corrupt, selfish game, but that politics can be the single most effective way to give help to a wide range of people.
Before I enter into college, I would like to know any advice that you have for an aspiring public servant like myself. What can I do to increase my chances of success, is there any one thing that you wished you would have known when you were my age? My e-mail is vinnyspot@hotmail.com, for I will be sending this letter both through regular and internet mail.
Thank you very much for reading this and taking the time out of your crazy life to respond to me (that is, of course, assuming you do respond). Good luck in yours and your family’s future, and I hope that you get involved in the UN and help that organization become as effective as it should be in the modern inter-connected world.
Thank you,
Vinny Spotleson
PS - I have been accepted to Gonzaga U, but would rather attend the University of Washington.

Hi Vinny,

I would like to thank you for your e-mail and your kind words. They mean a lot to me, especially right now, when I don’t feel very good about things in life.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everybody, who sent e-mails and left comments on my diary. Bobbi prints them out and puts them on my desk. I can’t read all of them, but I read some of them. They give me a lot of strength to continue, when I have the feeling I’m drowning. Thank you very much.

Vinny I would like to congratulate you on being accepted by Gonzaga University. They have a good law faculty. Apart from that they put a lot of emphasis on the Roman Catholic religion, which will be of benefit to you if you do decide to go into politics. Roman Catholics are an expanding constituency, which we Democrats need to regain if we want to remain a national party.

The University of Washington is one of the best universities in the United States. I hope they will accept a bright young man like yourself. It would be in their interest to have a guy like you in their lists of alumni.

What I liked most about your letter is your enthusiasm. I receive a lot of letters from young people, who tell me they are fed up with politics as usual and consider a career of public service, but they do not follow through as their desire to become a public servant is based more on a spur of the moment than on a deep conviction and love of public service.

You are different. You say you won the Lt. Governorship at the Boys’ State, you say you are talking to Mr. Greenspun about politics. I don’t know whether you are doing this on purpose or if it’s by instinct, but you are already building your network, which is the most important thing in an aspiring politician’s career.

For this reason I would recommend the University of Washington over Gonzaga. You need to build your network even further. Don’t misunderstand me. I think you will have a great career as a public servant, because you are ambitious and seem to have the right kind of instincts. Those things are things you can’t learn at any University. So even if you do attend Gonzaga, you just have to work harder on building your network.

Now the reason I recommend the University of Washington is simple. That’s where the Democratic party’s constituency goes to school, that is where the future leadership of the Democratic party is likely to be educated.

Excuse me if I’m repeating myself, but this is very important. You need to network with the leaders of other University based groups. You know the groups, which constitute our party’s base. I don’t have to spell them out for you. You must try to make friends with the leaders of these groups, because you will meet them later on in life and at that time in your career you might need their support.

There is another thing I would like to tell you. You are attending a University. Most Universities will put ideas in your head, which are to the left of the mainstream. Remember that.

The first time I ran for governor, I won. I was full of energy and I wanted to change the face of Arkansas and its politics. Next election I lost. The reason for that was simple. I had so many wonderful ideas, I wanted to change so many things, I wasn't walking in front of the people of Arkansas, I ran passed them straight into the ditch. University had made me forget where I came from.

Vinny, don’t forget you are from Nevada and you want to go back to Nevada to be a politician in Nevada. You wear cowboy hats. You do not quote George Sand. The ideas you will learn in college are not always compatible with the Nevada mentality or mainstream. If you understand that, a great future awaits you, I will promise you that.

Vinny, our party needs you. Make us proud.

I wish you the best. And don’t forget to tell Brian Greenspun how much I appreciated his help during my presidency and how much I appreciate the support he continues to give Hillary.

Private Investigator

2005-03-06T13:09:00.000-05:00

I’m on my way back to Los Angeles. I had hoped to spend a few days resting, but that will have to wait. I received a phone call from Gil. He just left the hospital. He found Roger yesterday night at a strip club in Hawthorne.

He told me he recognized Roger as soon as he entered, because Roger was out of control, shouting and singing as three women danced in front of him. Gil went to him and told him to come along. Roger pushed him away. Gil tried to forcibly get him out of there. There was a scuffle between Gil, Roger and the three exotic dancers, who didn’t want my brother to go anywhere.

Suddenly, according to Gil, Roger screamed “Help, I’m being raped”. Three very burly bouncers appeared immediately. Apparently the bouncers thought one of the dancers was being attacked. They gave Gil a good beating. Roger escaped. Gil maced the bouncers and several strippers, who had come to help their colleague in distress and according to him that saved his life. He got in his car and drove away. One of the bouncers threw a baseball bat against his window. It broke. He wants me to pay for the window and his hospital bills.

I asked him whether he told Roger, that I had sent him. He said “No”. I told him that was very stupid, because Roger probably thought he was working for one of his loan sharks and was going to get his legs broken outside. Gil told me he wasn’t going to approach Roger again. He told me if they had called the police, he could’ve been charged with kidnapping, which I understand. He told me next time, he found Roger, I had to talk sense into him myself.

I was looking forward being home for a couple of hours. I haven’t been home for weeks now. First there were the tsunami relief effort visits, then the Asian book tour and the speeches in LA the last couple of days.

I’m tired. I just want to go to bed, but I’ll sleep on my way there.

Hiring a Private Detective

2005-03-05T19:53:00.000-05:00

I met the private detective. Bobbi and I went to his office on Wilshire Boulevard. I took Bobbi with me, because I want her to be the link between me and the private eye.

We arrived two hours earlier than the time of our appointment. I did this on purpose. It’s a trick I learned when I was a district attorney in Arkansas. If you want to get to know someone, who is a stranger, visit that person without prior warning and you’ll see that person as he really is without the polished exterior.

I remember we had set up an appointment with a banker, we suspected of fraud. We arrived at his office a day before we said we’d be there. When we arrived, his secretary was putting documents in garbage bags. Ten minutes later, the banker confessed and we worked out a plea bargain. I didn’t like the job. You have to deal with the underbelly of society, the punishment side of life, where as I’m more interested in enacting policies, which prevent people from committing crimes. Not too long after that I ran for governor.

As I said we were an hour early. I didn’t knock on the door. I just stepped inside. To be honest I wasn’t very at ease. I’m very mad at Roger for putting me in this situation.

The investigator is a short, chubby man. He was sitting behind his desk, back to the door, shoes up against the window. The room was messy with files. He was listening to the radio. I said “Excuse me, I knocked on the door, there wasn’t any reply, so we entered”. He turned around. “What do you want?” I told him we had an appointment. He said I was too early, don’t mind the mess, they were doing their spring cleaning.

I sat down and took off my glasses. He jumped up saying “Mr. President”. He sat down immediately, apologizing.

According to Bobbi my most distinct feature are my eyes. I bought glasses to cover them up. My glasses look like sunglasses. She is right, maybe it’s the fact that after my operation I lost a lot of weight, when I put on my glasses, nobody recognizes me. I’m glad about that.

My first impressions of this guy weren’t too good. He had food stains on his shirt and there were take out food boxes all over the place. It is just a small operation. That’s the way I want it though.

I talked to my lawyer and asked him to hire a private detective. He told me that any private investigator, who knew of a breach of law and didn’t report it would lose his license. Roger is out on parole. He is in breach of his sentence. If the police finds out, he will have to go to jail. I don’t want that. That’s the reason I opted for this small company. I received this guy’s name from my good friend Kevin Spacey. He told me I could trust him to keep his mouth shut and my name out of the books.

The detective told me he was a retired former police officer, a homicide detective. He also told me I had met him seven years ago during a speech at an event organized by his union. His name is Gil. I told him why I needed him. He told me the best way to find Roger was to visit his friends and ask them where he usually hangs out. That seemed reasonable to me. He asked for three hundred dollars a day plus expenses, which seemed reasonable to me too.

He is now visiting Roger’s friends and systematically searching the clubs he normally frequents. I hope we find him in time.

After we left Gil I asked Bobbi what she thought of him. She doesn’t like him. To be honest and I hate prejudging people, I don’t really trust him either.

Blog changes

2005-03-05T08:22:00.000-05:00

The lay-out of this diary will change. As you know, I'm a PR- manager. My first priority is to sell Mr. Clinton's autobiography "My Life", both the paperback version and the limited signed collectors' version, which costs 350 dollars. If you want one, on the left sidebar is more information about that edition.

I've added Google ads, because they allow people outside of the United States to buy the president's book locally.

I took away the comment box, because some people were abusive. As a PR- manager you don't want that. Mr. Clinton misses people's reactions, good or bad. You know the president. It's very hard for me to ask him to keep writing, when he feels nobody is listening, because there are no reactions. So you can comment again.

I will monitor the comments and if you abuse it, you will be banned for life. If you know something others don't know, just smile and move on. Don't be a smart ass, because it will get you banned and this diary will continue as it has for the past 9 months.

I will install the comment box right after this post. And don't forget to buy the president's book. I could use a bonus :-)

Bobbi Lamoon

Added: You can buy president Clinton's signed limited edition book at Amazon for 350 dollars. I just want to warn you, because some are selling the book for 500 dollars or 600 dollars or 650 dollars. I've seen them at auction sites going for 934 dollars.

As soon as the last few copies of the signed limited edition are sold by the publisher, you will have to pay the higher price. There are only 1,500 copies of this edition. There are 300 million Americans. It is a collectors' item, so you'll never get it as cheap as this again.

I used to work for the publisher. I know how these things work.

I can't sleep

2005-03-04T07:43:00.000-05:00

I can’t sleep. I took two sleeping pills. They didn’t work. I can’t take any more, because I’m also using heart medicine. I tried playing internet poker, but I can’t focus. Right now there is nothing I can do. I have to wait till after the speech, which is at about lunch time here on the West coast. After that I have the meeting with the former police officer.

There is something I wanted to say a long time ago, but I didn’t have the time, because of my visit to Asia.

I would like to offer my deepest condolences to the family of my close friend and former prime minister of Lebanon, Rafiq Hariri. His death was a shock to me. I was horrified. I know exactly who did it and why. More about that later.

I called his family to tell them how shocked I was. I wanted to be present at the funeral, but the secret service vetoed that idea. It wasn’t safe, especially not with Hezbollah still armed to the teeth.

Mr. Hariri, lovingly called Mr. Lebanon by his fellow countrymen, was the driving force behind the reconstruction of Lebanon after the civil war. Lately he was also the driving force behind the movement to ask the Syrian government to pull its soldiers and secret service agents out of Lebanon.

That’s the reason the Syrians killed him. If Syria has to pull out of Lebanon, it will be pretty much encircled by enemy states. NATO member Turkey to the north, American troops in Iraq to the East, pro-American Jordan to the south (By the way Syria is occupying a large amount of Jordanian land, which King Abdullah wants back) and Israel to the south west.

The Syrian government killed Rafiq Hariri, because they are afraid that Lebanon would not just be sovereign if they pulled out their forces, but might in time be dominated by another power, be it Israel or the US, which is more likely.

Another reason is strategic depth. The capital of Syria is just a few miles from the border of Lebanon. And also just a few miles away from the Israeli occupied Golan Heights. Which is probably the reason Israel chose to occupy the Golan Heights. Standing on the mountains of the Golan Heights you can see Damascus in the distance. The Syrians know this. It’s a great deterrent against any Syrian adventurism.

This is the reason the Syrian government always uses the Hezbollah, a Lebanese group to attack Israel instead of attacking Israel itself.

Aside from a national defense dimension there is also the economic dimension. Syria has a hybrid half communist, half capitalist economic system. Syria is bankrupt and has been ever since the end of the Soviet Union. Without the economic power of Lebanon, Syria will fall apart economically.

Syria is also under economic sanctions by the US. Lebanon isn’t, so products Syria needs are bought by Lebanon, then transferred to Syria. There are also one million Syrians working in Lebanon. If they have to go back to Syria, Syria will see a lot of social problems with these unemployed young men.

In other words, without Lebanon, Syria will be boxed in from a military point of view and an economic point of view. Syria without Lebanon would be weak and exposed.

From the Syrian’s point of view Rafiq Hariri had to die, because he wanted them to leave. And he as a billionaire had the clout to gather international support for this idea. He was the one who asked the US and France to support United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls upon Syria to leave Lebanon.

Some US commentators say the Hariri murder might have been organized by Syria’s old guard without the knowledge of Syria’s young, inexperienced president Bashar Assad. This is an old myth dictators create to deflect responsibility.

Go back into history and you will see texts in old Roman books saying, the emperor had raised taxes for instance and the population, who didn’t want or dare attack the emperor for his mistake, they would say the emperor’s underlings had made the mistake without the emperor knowing.

I read books in which Germans, whose family members had been hauled off to concentration camps by the Nazi’s, said “If only Herr Hitler knew about this situation, he’d do something about it”. Well Herr Hitler knew about it and had actually ordered it.

It’s an old trick. The dictator can make mistakes and deflects taking responsibility by giving the impression he isn’t his own man and the population can criticize the dictator’s policies without criticizing him personally.

Bashar Assad ordered the death of Rafiq Hariri. Bashar Assad is in control of Syria.

People in the media should stop making up infantile excuses by saying the real power behind Bashar Assad killed Hariri. Assad is the power.

There are also people, who think you need to give Bashar Assad incentives to behave more responsibly, to make him stop supporting terrorists in Lebanon and Israel. This is nonsense. It took me almost eight years to understand that our way of thinking is not their way of thinking. Their way, I mean a country’s dictator’s way of thinking.

A dictator wants to stay in power. That’s all. A dictator doesn’t care about his population, war, peace. He only wants to stay in power. Everything else is negotiable.

You have to understand the Syrian tyranny. Syria’s president Bashar Assad belongs to a minority religious sect called the Alawis, a sub-group of Islam. The top government and army officials belong to the same sect, which only 10 percent of Syria belongs to. In other words 10 percent of the population is lording over the 80 percent of Syrians, who are Sunni Muslims.

Syria can not be a normal country, because that would mean, the minority Alawis giving up power to the vast majority of Sunnis. This is the reason, why Syria has to be always in a state of turmoil if Bashar Assad and his cronies want to stay in power.

As long as there is an external enemy, like Israel occupying the Golan Heights, as long as there is Turkey “occupying” according to Syria the province of Hatay, the Biblical Antioch, there are external enemies, which focus the majority populations’ attention on these external enemies.

Were these external enemies to disappear, the majority would have the time to consider their own plight. That is a dictator’s worst nightmare, because thinking about a problem and thinking about ways to solve the problem are very closely connected. This is the reason a minority government like Bashar Assad’s Syrian dictatorship needs chaos and turmoil to exist. It doesn’t want peace with its neighbors. It doesn’t want its people to be prosperous and content and have time to think about their situation.

The only way to stop Syria from being a constant threat and stop them from spreading chaos is to topple the minority government of Bashar Assad and let the majority of Syrians rule.

President Bush did this in Iraq and now that the majority Shia are in power, Iraq is looking inwards, trying to make the lives of its people better. That is what democracies do, they look inward instead of threatening their neighbors, the United States or Israel or the oil supply and with that the world economy. Majority rule means peace. Minority rule, like Bashar Assad’s dictatorship means chaos, terrorism and war.

Roger and the Detox clinic

2005-03-03T17:51:00.000-05:00

Roger has broken out of the detox clinic in Arizona and fueled by booze and drugs he is running amok in LA’s seedy clubs and strip joints. Oh God, sometimes I really hate my family. Why can’t they leave me alone for one damn moment? I had such a good time in Asia. Why can’t I be happy?

Now on my first day home in the States I have to help my baby brother of fifty damn years get out of trouble. What is this? His friends tell me he tried to borrow money and when they said no, he went to those guys, who will lend you money, but who don’t send a lawyer, when you miss a payment. They take it out on your knee caps or ribs.

Oh God, the guy is insane and he’s driving me insane too.

I have a speech to make in Los Angeles tomorrow. I’m talking to a group of lawyers. I wish I could cancel that. I’m not in the mood. After that I’m meeting up with Bobbi. I asked her to look for a private detective. She found one. We will visit him tomorrow.

I really hate my brother right now. Right now I wish somebody would give him a good beating.

But he is my brother. I don’t want him to get into trouble and I know he is going to get into trouble, because he is always getting into trouble.

He’s on parole. If the judge finds out what he’s doing he’s going to jail. If he isn’t dead by that time. I fear for his life. That’s why I have to go after him.

Visiting Singapore and Brunei

2005-03-01T15:37:00.000-05:00

The last leg of my book tour was Singapore. I’m now going to Brunei for a private visit. I want to thank His Majesty the Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah for his generous donation to the Clinton library. I’m only staying in Bandar Seri Begawan for a few hours, before I return home to the States.

I arrived in Singapore yesterday afternoon. I played golf with the former prime minister of Singapore Mr. Goh Chok Tong at the famous Orchid Country Club. At the beginning of the game I told Mr. Goh that my game wasn’t too good, since I hadn’t played for quite a while, because of my operation.

I didn’t have to say anything. Mr. Goh is a horrible golf player. Every time he hit the ball and it ended somewhere in the distance far to the left or right of the green, his caddy just put down another ball. I was stunned, but since they never moved a muscle in their face indicating it was a joke, I never mentioned it. We played for about an hour. I used one ball. Mr. Goh must’ve used at least 7 balls.

After this experience I met the current prime minister Lee Hsien Loong. We talked about the tsunami and the relief efforts. Later I met his father and former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew. He is a personal idol of mine.

He is the one, who turned a small backward island state into the economic powerhouse it is now. We talked about the economy and globalization. I didn’t say much. I listened to his opinions about the future of Asia and China. He thinks and he has been proven right many times in the past, that Asia will be the dominant economic force in the next few decades. He advised me to invest my money in Asia and especially Singapore.

I don’t know. I’m one of those people, who rather earn a small amount of interest as long as I can sleep at night, without worrying about my retirement. I’ve lived on the border of poverty for most of my adult life. Government pay is very low. Some might say, it’s more than I make.

That might be true, but being a governor you have to live up to a certain status. You can’t meet investors or lawmakers with holes in your suit or wearing K-mart tennis shoes. The reason I’m not a big fan of tax havens and foreign investments is a story Stanley Ho told me in Hong Kong.

We were flying over Hong Kong in his helicopter and he pointed at a house. He told me that house used to belong to Michael Hutchence. He was the lead singer for a band called INXS. I knew him very well. He performed at the White House several times, when we had parties. He died in an unfortunate accident in Australia several years ago.

He was married and he had a child. When they searched for his money after he died, they couldn’t find any. Michael’s lawyer told them INXS was a big band and business hadn’t been all that good.

According to Stanley this was nonsense. Michael had lived in Hong Kong since he was a little kid. What he and his lawyer did was, they stashed his money away in Hong Kong to avoid paying taxes in Australia, Britain and America. In the end, his lawyer took the money and Michael’s wife, devastated took her own life, leaving the daughter destitute.

No, my money won’t leave the US. I might never get rich, but at least I can sleep at night knowing I don’t have to worry about my retirement.

I would like to thank the people in Singapore for turning out in such great numbers to have their books signed. It means a lot to me. I hope I will be able to visit Singapore again some time, although I don't think I'll be playing golf here again. Thank you for a wonderful time.

Visit Taipei, Taiwan and China

2005-03-01T08:21:00.000-05:00

I had a wonderful time in Taiwan. I’d been there many times when I was a governor. I didn’t visit Taiwan when I was president, because of the US government’s opinion that Taiwan is part of China. This issue makes visiting Taiwan a hazard, because even as an ex-president I have to watch my words.

Everything is almost the same as it was when I was here the last time. The only difference is Madame Chiang Kai-shek. I met her on all my visits to the island. She was well in her eighties when I met her. She was a very charming, and I mean very charming old lady. Still looking beautiful at her age. The first thing you noticed about her though was her Southern accent, when she spoke English. According to her she had been to school in the US.

Taiwan changed a bit since the last time in that Taipei is now even more crowded and more built up. Taiwan, I saw this from the air, is pretty small.

In size, not in influence. People always tell me how Taiwan is losing and China is winning. I don’t understand this opinion. You have to look at the Taiwan, China situation from Hegel’s dynamic continuum principle.

You have two countries, Taiwan, capitalist, democratic, prosperous, and you have China, communist, autocratic, poor. These two countries are on the opposite sides of a continuum. They influence each other. Depending on their strength one of them moves to the position of the other.

Now look at Taiwan and China, who influenced who more? China became capitalist. China is the one opening up to pluralism. I assure you that if Taiwan had not existed as an example of a prosperous place, inhabited by and governed by Chinese, China would never had any reason to change.

I do want to say that China’s growth had a lot to do with Deng Xiaoping’s ideas. But he was influenced by Taiwan. I remember meeting him some time ago. He was in his library, reading a book. I asked the translator, my translator, who like most of the times was a CIA operative and should notice things like this, what Mr. Deng was reading. He told me he was reading a book about Taiwan’s success. He also told me a lot of the books in the library had the same theme.

Mr. Deng was right when he said, it doesn’t matter whether a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice. The reason he believed this was simple. He only had to look at Taiwan.

Another thing is, China makes sure every mainland Chinese remembers Taiwan is part of China. What this does is make the Chinese on the mainland think, why are they prosperous and not us? When it came to Hong Kong, the communist leaders might say, it’s run by the British, but they couldn’t say that about Taiwan. Taiwan was according to them as Chinese as Sichuan.

The existence and success of Taiwan was of paramount importance to the China that is now emerging. There is no doubt about that in my mind. And I think Taiwan will continue influencing and opening up the mainland.

In the future, China will look more like Taiwan than Taiwan like the mainland. I was in Shanghai. This city looks like Taipei.

I had a good time. I ate a lot of fish. Japan is also a fish loving country, but they cook their fish in water. On Taiwan they fry the fish. And that’s the way I like it. I met the president Chen Shi-bian. We had dinner together. Afterwards we went to his residence for a private party.

We drank wine from the mainland. I didn’t know China produced wine. The wine isn’t as good as French or Italian wine. The reason for this is the fact that the areas in China where you can grow grapes have a tropical climate. To grow wine grade grapes you need a dry sun. China is too humid.

We also sang songs. A lot of them were Elvis songs. Taiwan apart from the US probably has the most Elvis impersonators in the world. I saw 4 of them on the streets of Taipei.

Taiwan also has one of the biggest collections of Chinese art in the world. I didn’t get a chance to see that, but there is always a next time.

I would like to thank all the people of Taiwan, who bought my book and gave me such a warm welcome. Thank you.

Visit Tokyo Japan

2005-02-28T09:26:00.000-05:00

I would like to thank the Japanese people for the reception they gave me. Japan is one of those countries not many people normally visit, but you should. Japan in the eyes of most people is still a mysterious place, not a tourist destination. I like Japan. I like Tokyo. The shopping there is like nowhere else in the world.

My favorite Japanese destination is Kyoto. It’s totally different from Tokyo. Where Tokyo is a big city, Kyoto is more like a town. It’s the seat of the emperor. It also has the most important temples, museums and parks and gardens.

I wanted to visit Kyoto, but being by myself, I just couldn’t. It’s at these times that I miss Hillary the most. I can’t explore a town like Kyoto by myself. It just doesn’t look right.

When you see a couple walking through the neighborhood, you think, they are taking a stroll. If you see an old man like me, walking around the neighborhood by himself, I know people will think, what’s he snooping around the neighborhood for?

I should’ve brought Chelsea with me, but then again, I guess she’d rather spend time with the mongoose. She’d rather start building collective memories with him. Traveling alone is not the way to travel. You need somebody to share these moments and new experiences with. Next time I’ll take Bobbi with me.

As I said I spent most of the day In Tokyo. I gave a speech, answered questions from people in the audience and I signed books.

Unlike what some people might think after hearing Japan is in recession for the past decade, Japan is actually very rich. If you visit this beautiful and interesting country and you should, you need to bring a lot of money. A hamburger costs about ten dollars. I can afford it now, so I have no problem with it. It’s not a backpackers’ paradise. And that’s a pity, because I think more people should have the chance to experience Japan.

Coming back to the economy, I would like to say that the recession is a man made one. Japan has the same problem as most industrialized countries. It has a top heavy baby boomer generation and a very low child birth rate. Most women only have 1 child. And there is a problem with men and women in their thirties still living with their parents.

In America we have the same problem with a top heavy baby boomer generation about to retire. We are solving it with immigration. Japan wants to stay an ethnic homogeneous country, so they reject large scale immigration to offset the retiring baby boomers and their production capacity in the economy.

Japan does have ethnic minorities, like the Okinawans, Ainu and Koreans. There is also a group called Burakumin. I didn’t know about this group, until my host asked me not to shake the hands of a group of people, who were at the book signing event. I obviously did shake their hands and took pictures with them. Later I was told why shaking their hands was such a problem. For them, not for me. I guess all of us have our dirty little secrets.

Had Japan not been a small island nation, it would have rivaled the United States in importance. But right now I see Japan shrinking, population wise, economically, but also in its ambitions. Japan is settling into a position of powerful country, short of being a superpower.

I had a great time in Japan. I will come back if it wasn’t for the beauty of the country, then certainly for the friendliness of its people.

Another thing I would like to do is climb mount Fuji. You can see this snow capped mountain in the distance when you’re in Tokyo. It’s a magnificent sight. I would like to visit that place next time.

I’m on my way to Singapore right now. I’ve been in Taiwan for the past two days, but I’ll talk about that place next time.

Oh and I might, but this is a long shot depending on my schedule, I might visit Hawaii on my way back.

Visit Seoul South Korea

2005-02-26T18:02:00.000-05:00

I’m in Japan. I’ll be in Taiwan in a few hours. The past two days I was in South Korea.

I hadn't been in South Korea for quite a while. Every time I’m in Seoul a strange feeling takes a hold of me. I remember this feeling from the time during the Cuban missile crisis. The feeling that you could die any moment. It’s not the same feeling as knowing that a truck might hit you and kill you. You never know. It’s a darker feeling. Almost like a dark cloud hanging in the air. You just don’t feel safe.

The reason for this is clear. Seoul is only ten miles from the North Korean border. On the other side there are literally thousands of artillery pieces pointed at Seoul. One snap of the fingers by North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Il and Seoul will be in ruins in minutes.

I would like to thank the good people of South Korea for their heartwarming welcome. My book sold more than a hundred thousand copies. I'm very happy about that. I stayed for two days and I had a lot of fun. I spoke to some politicians and former presidents. I had dinner with them. I also spoke to South Korea’s number one movie director Park Chan Wook during this dinner. He told me he is interested in moving to Hollywood. To be honest I just nodded. I had no idea, who he was, until they told me he directed the movie “Old Boy”. I never heard of the movie or saw it.

That is until I got on a plane in Asia. They played the movie during my flight to Hong Kong, during my flight to mainland China and during my short flight to South Korea. And believe me or not during my flight to Japan.

The movie is dark, film noir almost. It resembles “Reservoir Dogs” in its darkness.

Coming back to the eery feeling you get, when you are in Seoul. This feeling is increased knowing that North Korea now possesses nuclear bombs. We could’ve taken care of that during my presidency. There was a crisis in the early nineties. The North Korean leader at the time was Kim Il Sung, the father of the current leader. He threatened to build nuclear bombs if we didn’t deliver oil to his bankrupt country.

At the time we did not want North Korea, a rogue state to possess these weapons. My administration was adamant that they either give up their ambition or we would bomb their nuclear facilities. The North Koreans continued their threats.

We came very close to bombing North Korea at the time. On our side all systems were go. I called the South Korean president at the time and told him what was about to happen. He flat out told me, South Korea would not join the war.

He told me, if the US attacks North Korea, we couldn’t use any of his countries bases, roads, air, territorial waters. In other words, he vetoed the bombing campaign.

I can tell you, I was thunder struck.

Here we are trying to help defend the nation of South Korea and its government has this attitude like they don’t care about their safety all that much.

The result of this is that North Korea now has nuclear weapons. And they are in the hands of the strangest dictator on the face of the earth.

When I was president, I read a report. A North Korean submarine was trying to sail to South Korea to put secret agents on its shore. The submarine’s engine broke down. It came up in South Korean waters. The seven crew members and agents, who couldn’t repair the old submarine, didn’t want to be caught by the South Koreans, so they committed suicide. All of them.

When I heard this, I was shocked. It is not normal behavior for any soldier to do so. I commissioned a report. The report told me, these people were part of a decade long program to create human robots. Not electronics, humans so completely brainwashed they behaved like robots and did whatever their leader told them to do.

These human robots begin as orphans in state orphanages in North Korea. They are taught from their first minutes in this world that the North Korean leader, first Kim Il Sung and later Kim Jong Il are gods. They are taught, brainwashed to do whatever their “Dear” leader asks them to do.

When Kim Il Sung died the program had only been in progress for about two decades. So the robots were about military service age. Right now the program is three decades old. I’ve seen reports these human robots are now little by little taking over leadership jobs in the North Korean administration. But I think they’ll need another ten years to be fully trained and integrated into the administration of the North.

The reason I mention this is the nuclear option. If the US hits the North Korean leader and kills him, what will happen? Will his generals give up or give the order to destroy Seoul, a city with 17 million inhabitants ten miles from the border?

In years past, you might say, if the leader dies, the government structure might crumble. But, now, with the human robots taking over all the sensitive positions in the government, I’m sure they will unleash a holocaust on Seoul if they are attacked.

To be honest, now that North Korea has nuclear bombs and the human robots are old enough to operate them, only a major nuclear attack from our side, killing millions of North Koreans might save South Korea from retaliation.

And as I said, when North Korea didn’t have any nuclear bombs, South Korea wasn’t interested in going to war with the North. I don’t think they are willing to fight a nuclear armed North Korea now. Nor do we.

Another aspect of this equation is the role of China. It is clear China uses North Korea to try and scare the US out of Asia. This will not happen. In reality I think China is feeding the crocodile, which one day may eat the hand, which feeds it.

We helped the holy warriors in Afghanistan defeat the Soviet Union. It was a major success, but it also laid the groundwork for the foundation of Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaida.

China must understand one thing. The United States is far away. North Korean missiles might be able to hit a few bears in Alaska, but those same missiles and nuclear bombs are only a hundred miles from Beijing. Who should be afraid?

Visit Hong Kong Thailand Indonesia Sri Lanka Maldives

2005-02-25T10:56:00.000-05:00

I’m in South Korea at the moment. I’m here to promote my book “My Life”. The reception I received was amazing. I would like to thank the people of South Korea for the welcome they gave me.

Two days ago I was in Hong Kong. I would like to thank the people of Hong Kong too. Every time I visit Hong Kong I’m amazed at it’s beauty. My good friend Stanley Ho and his daughter Pansy invited me to take a helicopter ride above the city. I saw Macao and the Pearl River delta from the air too. What surprised me the most was the fact that the area I saw from the air was so green. I liked watching al the ships sailing around. Thousands of ships, like ants seemed to be on their way to some hidden destination. Fascinating sight. I really would like to come back someday and spend more time in Hong Kong. I had a great time there.

As you know former president George Bush and I visited several countries in Asia, which were devastated by the tsunami a few weeks ago. It was such a heartbreaking, but also enlightening trip. We met a lot of people, we saw a lot of things. I would like to tell you that your donations are well spent. I would also like to tell you how grateful these people are for the help Americans gave and continue to give them.

We spent our first day in southern Thailand. We visited a fishing village. They were busy clearing the debris of the destroyed houses and boats the tidal wave left in its track, but you could still see how hard this little village had been hit. It was not really the physical destruction, which was breathtaking, but the destruction of families. Half the village had died or disappeared. You could see freshly dug graves everywhere.

I felt sorry for these poor people. They told me the biggest problem they had after mourning their dead was trying to continue living their lives. Like most people, these people’s identity is defined in large part by their profession. They are fishermen. The problem for them was, they were unable to go out and fish. First of all they were afraid, which is understandable if you consider what the ocean did to them.

Secondly, nobody was interested in buying their fish, because people were afraid these fish had been feeding on human corpses floating in the ocean. This pretty much brought these people’s lives to a complete stop and it aggravated their distress. I heard this from the local inhabitants.

What I saw was the amazing thing we call human spirit. I’ve learned one thing talking to these people, they will go on with their lives. All they ask for is a little help from the outside world.

Later in the hotel, the owner of the hotel asked me to tell everybody that they should visit Thailand. He may be right, maybe the best way for these people to get back on their feet is tourists spending their money in the local economy and generating jobs for these people.

That night we slept at the hotel. We were using a government plane, a US government plane and we had to wait till the next day to visit our next destination in Indonesia.

I woke up at three in the morning that night. The former president Bush was banging on the door, saying “Bill are you awake?” No, George I was sound asleep. I got out of bed and opened the door. George told me he couldn’t sleep. My first instinct was to shut the door. I mean, he can’t sleep? What does he want me to do about that? George asked me to go to the bar with him and get a drink. He told me at home in Houston, he and Barbara never went to bed without drinking a glass of brandy.

I didn’t want to go to the bar. I wanted to go back to bed, but I thought why not?

I followed him downstairs to the bar. It was just an average hotel bar, with Thai pop music in the background and a few disco lights. We sat down and George ordered Chivas Regal. So did I. As soon as the waiter disappeared a young Thai lady, with long black hair and a lot of make up on came up to us. She got down on her knee in front of George and took his hand.

“Daddy” she said. George looked at me. “I think you got the wrong guy" he said. “Daddy”, she continued “Take me with you to America”. Bush said “I don’t think my wife will agree to that”. He tapped the ring on his finger. The girl got up and sat down on his lap, putting her head on his chest. She said “Adopt me, daddy”.

Oh my God, I had so much trouble trying not to laugh out loud. George replied “I don’t think Barbara will like that either. You know we’re kind of happy all our kids are grown up and left the house”. She pouted. That was when the waiter came back with the drinks. He started shouting at the girl. She shouted back. Everybody looked at us. The girl left. George looked at me and raised his hands. “What was that all about?”

I still have to laugh about that whole scene.

George might look like a grumpy old Republican, but he’s a very decent guy. During our visits, the locals would always hold up their kids to me, so I could take their kids in my arms. They always came to me. Never to George. Every time one of these parents or nurses held up one of these kids, George would take a step forward and take the child in his arms.

As you know I had heart by-pass surgery. The doctors opened up my chest and the only thing holding it together now are stitches. My chest needs a lot of time to heal completely. If I hold a kid in my arms and it kicks me in the chest, kids are unpredictable, it might cause internal bleeding.

This is the reason I didn’t want to hold any of the kids in my arms, but I also didn’t want to have to tell these parents I didn’t want to hold their kids. I never asked George to step in and take the kids. He never said anything about it to me. He just did it, because he sensed it would help me. It was very considerate of him.

Next day we went to Indonesia. To Aceh to be precisely. The first thing I noticed observing the damage the tidal wave had done and talking to the survivors was the lack of women. I asked a Christian nun from Boston, who had been in Indonesia for the past 62 years about this.

She told me, that the reason for this was simple, the rigidity of the religion of the locals. They are Muslims and do not like women to dress in anything immodest. So although they live near the Ocean, women never get to go to the beach, they never get to learn to swim. During the tidal wave men were able to swim and save themselves. Women and girls too, just drowned.

This was such an eye-opener. Things like this, you can’t know, unless you visit the region yourself. So in this respect the trip was very successful and I plan to mention this situation to the politicians and religious leaders I will meet in the future. Women and girls in these areas must learn to swim.

Sister Anastasia also told me that since there was now a huge lack of women, dowries could cost hundreds of dollars. Apart from that, religious leaders told me they now had a problem with homosexuality. Especially in the cities, where gangs of men living together in one housing barracks roam the streets at night using bamboo sticks to fight with other gangs of men living in other housing barracks over male prostitutes, since there aren’t any female prostitutes left. Some died, the rest took advantage of the lack of women and got married.

Later in the day we visited a 90 year old man, who had lost his wife after seventy five years of marriage. We found him sitting in front of his wife’s grave, crying. His children told me that he couldn’t accept his wife’s death and that after they found her body, he locked himself up in their room with her body, so the children couldn’t bury her. After a week they broke down the door and a doctor gave him a shot to calm him down. They buried their mother.

Next morning the oldest son woke up early and went outside. The old man had dug up his wife’s grave with his bare hands, enlarged the grave, got in it and was putting earth over himself and her. The son tried to get him out of there, but the old man resisted, telling him, he wanted to be with his wife and that they should let him go as he continued to bury himself and his wife’s body. With the help of his siblings they managed to get the old men out of there.

By the time we met him his son told me they were still guarding him round the clock. We shook his hands, George and me. I offered my condolences. He began crying again. I put my arms around him. So did George. The old man was telling us what a good wife his wife had been. I didn’t understand the language, but I could feel what he was talking about. I understood.

His son told me that the wife had been a local baron’s daughter and that her dad had been against the marriage. Risking death, they had eloped and lived alone on an island in front of the coastline for many years. Apparently someone saw smoke on the island one day and warned the baron. Soon he found out, who was living there, he got his men together and they went to the island to kill the both of them. As he was approaching the house on the island, he saw a little boy and heard a woman’s voice call the kid. It was his daughter’s voice. The baron, who had come to kill his renegade daughter and son in law, just totally melted. He lowered his machete, got down on his knees next to the kid, put one arm around him and opened his other arm to his daughter. That’s how that feud ended.

I tried to console the old man.

Then George began crying uncontrollably. The old man looked at George, then at me. I asked George, what was wrong, he told me he was thinking about his own daughter. He lost a daughter when she was an infant. Someone translated this to the old man. And just to show you how good people are, the old man though heart broken himself, he found room in his heart to grieve for another person’s loss.

He began consoling George.

And the three of us hugged and cried for quite a while as the old man was telling George not to give up, that they were lucky, since they were old they would be with their lost loved ones soon enough. He said to George, it’s important not to forget the living. Remember, when you meet your daughter again, the first thing she will ask you is, did you take good care of my mother and brothers and sisters and how are my nephews and nieces. My wife, I’m sure of this, she will ask me whether I took good care of our children and grandchildren and of her sunflowers. We have to go on.

With this I could feel new energy flowing into the both of them. I had my arms around them, so I could feel it.

By then we were told we had to leave. We left, but we left knowing the old man would be all right. I will never forget him.

Our visit to Sri Lanka was emotional too. They asked us to participate in a sacrificial ceremony, honoring their gods. They had this altar and in front of it is a stone. What we had to do was, throw a coconut on the stone and break it. The gods then could eat the copra and drink the juice.

I had trouble breaking the coconut, because of my surgery, but also because of the fact that the coconut wasn’t ripe yet.

When I was told we had to participate in a sacrificial ceremony I was afraid it would involve animals. I remember when I was in Morocco a few years ago and His Majesty the King of Morocco, Hassan II asked me to participate in a ceremony. I’m one of those people, who respects other people’s cultures and religions. Who am I to tell others that what they do or believe is wrong and that what I do and believe is right?

I trusted the King. He was educated in Europe, so when he asked me to hold the head of a goat, I did. The goat had a beautiful white skin and on it were all kinds of orange signs, made with henna.

As I said I was holding the goat’s head and talking to the goat. All of a sudden, the King took a knife from his robe and cut the goat’s throat. So there I was holding the goat’s head as blood gushed out of its throat, coloring all of us red.

I respect other people’s culture, but that wasn’t an experience I like to repeat. So I’m glad the people in Sri Lanka are Buddhists and therefore vegetarians.

Oh by the way. The king later sent me the skin of the goat. It was prepared, starched and all. I used it as a rug in the living room. Chelsea used to sit on it when she watched television.

On the last day we visited the Maldives. A small group of islands in the Indian Ocean. The first thing I heard from the president was that America should join the Kyoto Treaty against global warming.

None of the Maldives islands' surface is higher than ten feet. So what happened was, the tidal wave, didn’t build up. The wave just went over the islands, like there were no islands. Destroying everything, except for the people.

This is the reason they asked me about the Kyoto treaty. Because of the global warming, the poles melt, the water level in the ocean rises and soon, the Maldives will be under the water level.

Thank God there weren’t many casualties in the Maldives. Later that day we visited the son of the late Shah of Iran’s private island in the Maldives and from there we flew to Hong Kong. George went back home and I had to fulfill my book tour dates in Asia.

There is one more thing I would like to say about my tour of the tsunami hit regions. These people are good people. They deserve your donation. Just like the old man, who was grieving about his wife’s death, but still managed to find it in himself to grief for a total stranger’s loss of his daughter fifty years ago, there are hundreds of thousands of people like him, who need your help. I’m convinced, if it had been us, needing help, they would have extended their hand of friendship.

This trip has left me emotionally drained, but also strangely elated, electrified and energized. Now I know the people I’m helping. Before they were anonymous faces. Now I know the stories, the human beings behind the tragedy. I will work even harder to help these good people in Asia. They are good people.

Asian book tour Schedule

2005-02-23T09:27:00.000-05:00

President Bill Clinton’s Asian “My Life” book tour schedule:

Tuesday, February 22: Hong Kong, book signing event at Swindon Books store

Wednesday, February 23: Mainland China, president Clinton will discuss the Clinton Foundation’s role in helping China fight its AIDS epidemic

Thursday, February 24: South Korea, reception and invitation only book signing event at the Sheraton Walkerhill Hotel in Seoul.

Friday, February 25: South Korea, book signing event open to public

Saturday, February 26: Japan, Q & A session during forum at the Hotel Okura in Tokyo's Minato Ward district from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Open only to people who entered the lottery and won a ticket.

Sunday, February 27: Taiwan, Mr. Clinton will deliver a speech on Asia’s democracy sponsored by the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, after which he will answer questions from the audience. Later in the evening, he will attend a dinner party given in his honor by President Chen Shui-bian.

Monday, February 28: Taiwan, book signing session

Monday, February 28: Singapore, meeting with government officials

Tuesday, February 29: Singapore, play golf

Limerick

2005-02-21T16:09:00.000-05:00

Every now and then we like to post readers' e-mails on this diary. Here is one of them. Thank you Jennifer.
Bobbi Lamoon

Dear Mr. Clinton,

I only recently discovered your daily diary, so you may have already received this information.

The poem you mentioned may have actually been an old limerick! Perhaps this sounds familiar:

There was a young lady from Niger,
Who smiled as she rode on a tiger.
They came back from the ride
With the lady inside,
And a smile on the face of the tiger.

It is unfortunate that you will not be continuing your diary. I plan to go back and read through your past posts with the hope that perhaps you will be able to write more in the future.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Hite

ADDED:

Dear Mr. Clinton,

I was just about to email you the poem about the lady riding on the Tiger, when I discovered that someone had already beaten me to it.

But I was also able to find out the attributed author.

According to the Columbia World of Quotations, it’s attributed to a British poet named Cosmo Monkhouse (1840-1901).

Here’s a link to the actual entry on the website where I found it:

http://www.bartleby.com/66/78/40178.html

Keep up the excellent work. I sure wish you were still our president!

Sincerely,

Michael Kuntz
Seattle, WA

Thank you, Michael

Tsunami Relief Effort

2005-02-18T14:21:00.000-05:00

President Clinton and former president Bush will start their trip with a visit Thailand. They will be there in a few hours.

They will visit the village of Ban Namkhem, a fishing village in the south of Thailand, which was destroyed by the tsunami. They will inspect the reconstruction efforts and meet with local people. They will also meet Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

The next day, Sunday, February 20, they will visit Indonesia. They will first meet with the Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra. Later that same day they will visit Aceh.

Mr. Clinton and Mr. Bush will fly to Sri Lanka later that evening. On February 21, they will visit Matara, the southern part of the island. They will meet Sri Lankan president Mrs. Chandrika Kumaratunga and they will visit a water purification plant, which was built by an American company.

Their three day tour will end after a visit to the Maldives, a group of islands near India.

Grammy Award

2005-02-17T08:23:00.000-05:00

President Clinton won his second Grammy award recently. He was honored in the spoken word category for his best-selling memoir My Life (on CD). Last year, Mr. Clinton won a Grammy with former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and actress Sophia Loren for their recording of the Russian folk tale Peter and the Wolf. If you click on the link you will be able to hear a few audio clips.

Congratulations, Sir.

Former President Bush and president Clinton will be in Asia 19-21 February. Mr. Clinton will keep you updated on his tour of the tsunami hit countries on this daily diary.

Bobbi Lamoon
Assistant PR manager

Kenneth Dart, citizenship and Tax havens

2005-02-12T13:54:00.000-05:00

Howard Dean is the new chairman of the Democratic party. Congratulations Howard.

Howard called me up late last night to invite me to his party. That was very nice of him. I was going to accept the invitation till he told me the party would be held in the house of the wife of financier Kenneth Dart in Florida. Mrs. Dart is a big Democratic donor, but I can’t go anywhere near her or her husband.

His family owns the largest plastic cup factory in the US. He himself renounced his citizenship during my presidency and went offshore to avoid taxes. I mean hundreds of millions in taxes. I remember this episode very well. A few weeks after he renounced his citizenship, we received a letter from the government of Belize asking us permission to open a new consulate in Florida for their new consul Kenneth Dart.

Obviously I said no. It was just another of Dart’s tax dodging schemes. When you renounce your citizenship you are only allowed to be in the US for a limited amount of time. Otherwise the IRS can tax you as a resident. Being a foreign diplomat allows you to stay here as long as you like and what’s more, foreign diplomats can not be taxed.

Apart from that Kenneth Dart is one of the most hated businessmen in South America, because of his what some might call vulture fund as opposed to venture fund activities. He buys large amounts of government debts of third world countries at 20 cents a dollar and forces the governments to pay up dollar for dollar. He almost bankrupted the Brazilian economy in the late eighties with these kinds of activities. He made hundreds of millions of dollars in that transaction. That’s the reason he wanted to renounce his citizenship.

His latest venture is to force the government of Argentina to pay the debt it defaulted on. Again he paid dimes on the dollar for the debt and wants the Argentineans to pay him the face value of the debts he holds. Argentina is bankrupt at the moment. Half its population is living below the poverty line.

I don’t know what he is up to now by donating money to our party, but I don’t want to go anywhere near this guy.

I remember his brother telling a journalist that Dart hated paying taxes so much, after he dies, he wants to keep his brain alive artificially, so his daughters don't have to pay any estate taxes.

Money does weird things to some people.

Optimistic about Democratic Party

2005-02-11T20:20:00.000-05:00

I’m an optimist by nature. That is because I was born in the morning. There is this metaphor for your outlook on life, which says, people born in the morning, look at the sun coming up and say to themselves “Great, I have a whole day to do all the work I want to do today. Let’s get started”. People, who are born in the evening look at the sun disappearing into the Earth and think “There is no time left to do the stuff I want to do. Let it go. I’ll do it some other day”. People born in the morning are successful. People born in the evening are not.

This is a very old idea, but there seems to be some truth to it, scientifically speaking. I read a book about the subject of Luck in the plane going to Terry McAuliffe’s farewell party. The professor, who wrote the book says people’s chances in life do depend on Astrological signs and the day and hour of their birth.

He explains how being born during the summer makes you a more happy and lucky person than being born during the winter. It’s a pretty interesting theory. If you know the truth about yourself and you know you have a problem, you will be able to work around it. If you don’t know the truth about yourself, you still have a problem, but you are unable to deal with it. If you ever look at yourself and think I could do better, read the book. I’ll ask Bobbi to link to it. The Luck Factor.

After I finished the book I gave it to Terry. Terry is my friend. He’s a great guy. A funny guy too. Terry McAuliffe by the way has been the chairman of the Democratic party for the past few years. Tomorrow the party electors will elect Howard Dean as the new chairman.

I would trust Howard Dean with the Democratic party any day. He has all the traits a chairman needs. He is forceful, media friendly, a good organizer and he knows the internet. When I arrived at the party venue yesterday Howard was talking to someone. He glanced at me as I came through the door and continued his conversation. I had to walk all across the room to greet him.

Terry was very happy getting the book. He knows how much I appreciate the work he’s done for the party. We were all disappointed when we lost every single congressional election, and not only that, but lost seats too, and lost the presidential election against a president up to his neck in a failed foreign adventure and a failed domestic policy with an economy teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Terry did a good job. And I’m sure the jobs in the private sector are lined up for him.

As I walked across the room to greet the great former governor of the very important state of Vermont, someone grabbed my arm and I heard “haaa”. I looked around. It was John Kerry.

I thought to myself. Terry wasn’t a bad chairman. If I approach someone from behind, that person will turn around with a smile. John approached me from behind and I thought I was going to be mugged. It’s about charisma. Voters have a feeling for that.

I reached governor Dean with some difficulty. I’m a heart patient after all. I have difficulty walking. I greeted him. He nodded back.

Later after the party I tried to strike up a converation with Howard. I said “The anti-war stance lost us the election”. “No”, he said and pointed his finger at me “The Republicans were better at getting out the conservative vote”. Dean looked at me and said “You got something else? No, I have to talk to someone. I'll catch you later”.

"You got something else?". I can't get those words out of my head. "You got something else?" What did he mean? I can't get those words out of my head. There is something about those words I don't like, but did he mean the question to be friendly or unfriendly? What was his intention?

I'm a two term president and I have to walk across the room to greet a failed presidential candidate and I give him some advice and I get a "You got something else?" back?

It's all about ego in politics nowadays and in the Democratic party more than anywhere else. And based on what? "You got something else?" I've never said that to anybody in my life. That's not the way you're supposed to talk to people. "You got something else?" To me? What have I done to anybody to deserve that kind of attitude?

"You got something else?" "You got something else?" "You got something else?" He probably was just trying to ask me whether I had more questions, because he was on a tight schedule. Maybe he was just trying to be friendly. That's probably it. I should stop second guessing people.

I'm going crazy in my old age. Here I've been trying to explain the meaning of his statement and getting upset all night and all day long and all Howard was trying to do is be friendly to me.

Having a Son

2005-02-10T20:09:00.000-05:00

I don’t want those last remarks to be the last ones out there. I do like president Bush. We are alike in so many ways.

During the presidential race Bobbi, who was working for the Kerry campaign at the time and it was her job to monitor the Bush campaign’s internet activities, this was before she crashed the computers, Hahaha. Bobbi, I’m not saying it was your fault. Bobbi, it was Peter, who told me they couldn’t use the computers for four hours, because you were importing songs from the internet. What was that song again you imported, oh downloaded? That’s right “Heaven knows I’m miserable now” by The Smiths. Hahaha. Oh, Bobbi, Bobbi, Bobbi.

What was I talking about? Oh yes. Bobbi showed me a short video clip of Geoge Bush campaigning. The clip was on his website. I asked Bobbi to link to it, but it seems, GeorgeWBush dot com is now turned into a GOP website. Anyway, the video showed candid moments in the president’s campaign. The president’s daughters, Jenna and Barbara made comments about the clips.

One of the clips went something like this, Jenna says “Dad has a special relationship with Barney” the dog “He always says Barney is the only one, who wants to go fishing with him. Which is not true”. They show a clip of the president sitting next to a stoic looking Barbara in the back of a limousine. The president says to Barbara “I know mom (Laura Bush) doesn’t like me saying this, but Barney is like the son I never had”. Bobbi thought that was very funny and could be used in the campaign. Peter, he was her boss at the time said no.

I think about that clip a lot, about the president’s feelings. His words touched me. I too sometimes wish me and Hillary had more children. I love my daughter, that’s not what I’m talking about. But I do miss not having a son. Not having someone to continue the line. Maybe it’s the Irishman in me, I don’t know.

I was born on August 19 in 1946. I was Christened William Jefferson Blythe III after my real father William Jefferson Blythe Jr. Clinton is not my real name. It’s my stepfather’s name. After all the abuse I took from him, there were many times I thought about changing my name back to Blythe. I’m not a Clinton, I’m a Blythe.

It pains me sometimes to see all that I’ve achieved and know that it will all be known as Clinton and not Blythe. My father, my stepfather that is, does not deserve a presidential library in Little Rock called the Clinton Library, after the hell he put me and my mom through.

I thought about changing my name often after I left home and went to college. The problem is as time progressed all my certificates had Clinton on it and after graduation I immediately founds jobs in law and politics. It isn’t a wise decision to change your name in politics, not just because of the name recognition, but more because people tend not to trust people, who change their names. So I was stuck with Clinton.

Later after we had Chelsea and she was our only child, there was no reason to change my name. When Chelsea marries, she will take her husband’s name. So the Blythe name will disappear anyway. That pains me.

I understand George Bush, when he says he feels something is missing, because he doesn’t have a son to pass all his achievements on to. Many times, and this must be my Irish inclination for melancholy, often I feel the same way.

Social Security

2005-02-10T11:08:00.000-05:00

Did you see Karl Rove on FoxNews yesterday? Sean Hannity asked him about the president’s plans to privatize Social Security. Karl Rove, without blinking said I, Bill Clinton was the one, who first came to the conclusion that Social Security was in crisis and needed reform. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

So that’s the reason for the president’s call “Hi Bill, I admire you very much. I love the work you’re doing. So does Laura. I would like to ask you for a favor. Would you like to help me ask for donations to help the victims of the Tsunami?”

I’m a fool. I fell for the gimmick. I thought he was honoring a former president. He was trying to shut me up. Now he’s using me to sell his hard right private retirement accounts plans to the middle classes of this country.

It’s almost like there are two George Bush’s. One friendly and nice. One a cold hearted calculator.

There is a poem I learned in elementary school. I forgot how it goes exactly and I forgot the title of the poem or who wrote it. I love the poem, so if you know the name or the name of the writer, please e-mail me.

At sunrise, a girl went out for a walk, sitting on top of a tiger. She had a smile on her face.
At sunset, the tiger returned. He had a smile on his face.

Visit Raleigh Durham Chapel Hill North Carolina

2005-02-09T19:59:00.000-05:00

I forgot to say earlier how much I like Raleigh. I’ve been there many times, both in public and in private. I’ve also been to Durham and Chapel Hill. With a bus. There is this Tri-State bus service connecting these three towns.

I’ve been to Chapel Hill many times. Not really because it’s the home of the University of North Carolina, but because my friend Harry Wayne Casey lives there. He’s a musician. You probably heard one of his songs. He used to be in a band called KC and the Sunshine Band. They were big in the seventies. I visit him often. As often as I can. I always tease him about visiting him in his log cabin. He’s a Republican.

So that’s the reason I know these places so well. I remember one night and this is many years ago, I went to see him, but he wasn’t home. There were no buses and I didn’t bring my wallet so I tried to walk from Chapel Hill to Raleigh. Big mistake. After a few miles, I couldn’t go on anymore. I tried to hitchhike, but I found no buyers. I gave up. It was extremely dark. People living in New York don’t know how dark rural areas are. The crickets were chirping, I remember them very well. My old friends the crickets. Since I was in the middle of nowhere I decided to go into the shrub and sleep. I did. It's surprising how easy I fell asleep. I mean. In the middle of nowhere. I had no fear whatsoever. Youth.

Next day I woke up, it was cold, but sunny. I was wet. It must’ve rained during the night and I slept right through it. I was soaking wet. Anyway, it was early in the morning, I managed to catch a bus and I went back to Raleigh to my hotel room.

I haven’t been in Raleigh in a long time. What I mean is, I haven’t been there walking around town for quite a long time. As president and former president all you get to see is hotels, limousines and hotels. So my memory is a bit hazy. I remember Raleigh quite well though. There is a statue of president Polk in front of the State Capitol.

By the way president Polk is the one, who declared war on Mexico and annexed Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Next to it is the business center with all the banks. If you walk from the Capitol to the business center, if I remember right, the central bus station is to your left, near by. Very close by is a McDonald’s I remember very well. I used to sneak out of my hotel room to go stock up on fast food there.

Still facing the business center with your back to the Capitol, I think the police station is to your right. It’s next to a major road. If you walk from the Capitol to the Business center and keep on walking you come to a neighborhood with dilapidated houses. I remember looking at these houses, but this is years ago, and thinking what beautiful old houses they were and how with a little TLC these houses could be turned into a thriving new neighborhood. I don’t remember people living there. I was there at night.

I told the mayor at the time, he should give young couples some incentives to buy these houses and clean them up. I don’t know whether he did so or what happened to the neighborhood. I wish I could’ve taken a ride on the bus again like I used to be able to do. It would’ve been a lot of fun.

By the way if you know what happened to this neighborhood, e-mail me. Include your name so I can post the responses here for all to see. If you’re from Raleigh or Durham or Chapel Hill e-mail me and I’ll ask Bobbi to put your e-mails up here too.

R, D, CH, I have a lot of good memories.

Black Ops and The New Yorker magazine

2005-02-09T09:08:00.000-05:00

I talked to Seymour Hersh, when I was in Raleigh, North Carolina on Monday. He is an award winning investigative journalist for The New Yorker magazine. For the past few years, he has been writing an alternative history of the Bush presidency. He is the one, who broke most of the stories about the Neo-Conservatives and the Abu Ghraib, prison scandal.

We talked about black ops., that means covert operations. All politicians know or should know everything about this issue. The Republicans did it to me for the entire eight years I was in office.

Black ops is not just about smearing your competitor. It is more about making sure your opponent can’t give the public his views without being challenged. What black ops does is confuse, change and detract from the other person’s message.

The Republicans were masters at this. Every time I came up with a new proposal, their black ops department would clutter the airwaves with paranoid stories and books about my supposed past.

White Water, Ken Starr and the Monica Lewinsky investigations were part of these black ops operations.

I made a stupid mistake and for a while I was actually contemplating resigning. That is until my good friend Seymour talked to me about the machinations behind the scenes. The project set up to bring down a democratically elected American president. Seymour Hersh knows everything about everything and everybody. When Seymour stopped talking that night, I was shocked. That was the night I decided to fight back no matter what. If I had resigned, the coup would’ve succeeded. I couldn’t tell this to the American people, the country was divided, they wouldn’t understand.

A little bit more about black ops. If you try to smear the opponent, it must always be grounded in fact. For instance, The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth started out as a small group of Vietnam veterans, who had a problem with John Kerry’s anti-war activities after he came back from Vietnam. That was thirty years ago. Who cares? The Swift Vets would never have made any headlines or impact if black ops hadn’t taken over the cause and spread it wide and far around America. The reason this black ops stuck with voters was the fact that the accusers were genuine. Secondly, the Democratic party was seen as pacifist in a time of war, so Kerry the Hippie, weak on defense struck.

On the left you had black ops too. Not very successful though. I remember MoveOn.Org’s ad comparing president Bush with Hitler. A few, very few think that is a good comparison. The vast majority of Americans think that is nonsense. I want to ad another black ops operation. The Ashley story. It was based on the truth. Ashley’s mom died during the World Trade Center attacks. President Bush was told about it, when he met the girl during the race and he hugged her. A picture was taken of this hug. A few weeks later this story was turned into an ad and every American got to see president Bush, teary eyed hugging this girl. It was a powerful commercial. I had trouble not crying myself.

That is black ops too. Michael Moore and the Bush is Hitler messages were countered and as Bush won the election successfully deflated. Why did the Bush is Hitler, Bush is bad ad not work?

Very simple. The day after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, three hundred million Americans saw president Bush with tears in his eyes telling America, we would fight back. Three hundred million Americans have implanted in their mind this image of a teary eyed Bush. The majority of Americans, even though they may not like his policies, feel Bush is a good, decent man.

Along come the MoveOn cowboys trying to tell America, Bush is evil. It didn’t work. The message is not based on reality.

As I said I had a very interesting talk with Sy. He told me how surprised he was that the government would allow its enemies, I mean terrorists like Zarqawi and Osama Bin Laden to put out their messages for the world and their supporters to see. If the CIA allows this, they are not doing their job. If the government allows this and God knows Republicans know everything about black ops, they are incompetent. They should never have allowed these terrorists to have a clear communication tool to the world is what Sy said.

The best way to destroy terrorists is to destroy their ability to communicate with the world and their supporters. Their message should be cluttered, changed, hijacked. For instance, how difficult is it to pay a few locals to dress up as terrorists and make the most idiotic claims, always based on reality of course? How hard is it to fake a few Zarqawi internet messages?

To destroy your opponent in American politics, you need to derail their message. Hey, I was a victim, I know that it works. So instead of talking about my policies I was forced to defend myself and talk about nonsense.

You can do the same with the terrorists. Force them to spend more time on their “PR”, force them to answer your faked messages, bring chaos in the communications between them and the wider world and them and their supporters.

A group, without a dependable communications tool will have a problem getting out its message, but eventually will also have a problem recruiting new people and getting new finances.

This is what I talked about with Sy. If you like books, art and investigative journalism, I would like to encourage you to buy The New Yorker. If you’re in the North East and interested in politics, but don’t want the prepackaged government version, check out the magazine. It sure could use your support. I’ll ask Bobbi to link to it.

Chinese New Year

2005-02-08T13:06:00.000-05:00

Happy Chinese New Year!

This year, 2005, is the year of the Rooster, specifically the Green Wooden Rooster.
This means good fortune, good business and a good year for gold. I hope I can catch the last few days of the Lantern Festival celebrations, when I visit Asia later this month.

Greek Myths

2005-02-08T07:44:00.000-05:00

Bobbi shows a lot of promise. She is one of those young Democrats I keep talking about. Committed activists, who one day will lead our party. She has a habit of making notes every time I speak. I am a very successful 30 year veteran of politics. The only way you will learn the nuts and bolts of politics is by doing it or listening to someone with experience. She is a smart young lady.

I told her a story from the old Greek mythology. I had to point her to the point I was making, but she caught on pretty fast. Let me tell the story and see how quick you are seeing the message behind the story.

The old Greeks thought there was a reason why tall grass, moved by the wind goes “wash, wash”. The reason for that is the king of Minos. He was born with donkey ears. His parents were devastated and made sure nobody ever knew about it. After his parents died King Minos continued to cover them up with a hat. Nobody knew his little secret, except for his old barber, who was a mute. Now the old barber died, so a new one had to be appointed. The unsuspecting fellow received the shock of his life when King Minos took off his hat the first time. “Your majesty”, he said “You have donkey ears”. “Yes”, said the King, “And if I ever hear rumors about it, I know it was you, who started it and I will kill you”. The barber kept his mouth and did his job.

One month, two months. The barber was a healthy, normal barber and like most barbers he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He was going crazy. He had to talk to somebody. Three months, four months. He couldn’t sleep anymore. King Minos has donkey ears was all he could think about. Many times, cutting other clients’ hair he caught himself almost telling the secret.

One day he said to himself “I can’t go on like this. I have to spread this rumor. If I do it I’m going to die, but if I don’t do it I will lose my mind”. So he runs as far away from the town as possible, gets into the tall grass and screams “King Minos has donkey ears”.

He felt so much better. He went back to town a happy man. The tall grass, entrusted with such a juicy gossip couldn’t keep their mouth either, so every time the wind provokes them they go “wash, wash, wash”.

That sound sounds like “King Minos has donkey ears” in its original old Greek translation.

Recently I heard there is some commotion about teaching evolution and creation as equal theories in school. I believe in the Good Lord. I also believe that we shouldn’t let Christian fundamentalists take this country back to the dark ages. We are creating a national security problem if we teach children that, not science and discovery are the way to explore and explain the world and the laws of nature, but God and the Bible.

I believe in Ronal Reagan’s premise. We are safe as long as our military and their equipment are superior. China turns out 75,000 scientists every month. Now is not the time to question science and it’s benefits.

It isn’t the journalist, who protects Americans’ right to free speech. It’s the soldier, who does so. It isn’t the priest, who defends America against foreign threats, it’s the scientist, who invents the most technologically advanced weapons.

Football Super Bowl

2005-02-07T08:08:00.000-05:00

The New England Patriots won the Super Bowl. I knew it. The Philadelphia Eagles are good, but just not really on the same level as the Patriots. It was quite a game. I was at the Alltel Stadium in Jacksonville, Florida. Former president Bush was there too. We were there to appeal to the American people to donate to the tsunami relief fund.

One third of American families have done so already. An incredible amount of people. What's more, half of them donated using the internet. I would like to thank everybody, who donated and I would like to ask everybody, who hasn't done so, to do it today. Your donation will do a lot of good. I will see to that in my role as UN special envoy.

I had a great time yesterday. To be honest I'm not a big NFL fan. I used to play football myself in high school. I was pretty good too. I was a really big kid. I was towering over everybody in my class and everybody was always teasing me about it.

I remember we had this very important game against a high school from Prescott, Arkansas. I had broken through their defenses and I was home free, except for one scrawny little kid. Instead of moving to the side, he tried to block me. With my size I knocked him over. He fell to the ground and screamed like a baby. I kept running, but I thought, with my size, maybe I broke his neck. I stopped and went back to him. I crouched down next to him. I said “Are you Ok?” The little weasel grabbed the ball, passed it on to his team mate and they scored a touch down.

We lost the game and instead of playing against other teams during the summer our team couldn’t do much else, but lick our wounds and practice for the next season. It wasn’t just my fault we lost. We lost really heavily. We just weren’t that good a team, you know? But this didn’t keep the team, the high school and the whole town from blaming me for the loss.

So every time we had to practice, and one of my team mates fell down, he would say “Oooh help, call sister Bill”. In high school they were calling me “nurse Clinton”. It’s no fun if a whole town hates your guts and you’re just twelve years old. It was then that it became clear to me that I had to get out of Hope.

Well anyway, I stopped going to practice and not long after that I quit the team. The result of this decision was my heart by-pass operation a few months ago. If I had kept up my condition as it was when I was in the team, I would’ve been healthy right now.

This is the reason I get mad at parents, who don’t force their kids to participate in sport. They say “Well, little Timmy doesn’t like to sweat”. Well maybe little Timmy likes a heart attack when he’s in his late fifties and spend the rest of his life scared to death not surviving another one.

It’s important for kids to exercise. It will strengthen their lungs, it will grow their heart and it will keep them healthy. If you don’t work out as a kid, you will never be able to do so as an adult. I tried, oh so many times to get back into shape, but it was impossible. If you don’t build it up from childhood, forget it. So my arteries clogged up and I almost died.

All because of a jerk from Prescott, Arkansas. Aaron Johnson, is his name. I bet he still lives there. The little town hero. I still have a score to settle with you, Aaron.

Politics

2005-02-06T08:32:00.000-05:00

There is something that amuses me, but I can’t really talk about. Who will run for president? In my experience you have to keep two things apart. One Senators. Two governors.

If a Senator gets asked whether he (or she) is running for president it’s much smarter to be ambivalent, whether you plan on running or not. If you are planning on running, It’s a good thing to get the extra media attention. There are after all 100 other Senators in the Senate, all vying for a spot in the media sun.

If you aren’t really interested in running, you should be ambivalent too. As a Senator you have to build alliances in Congress, if you want your pet projects to become law. If other politicians in Congress think you might be the next president, they will be more interested in working with you in the hope they will reap the rewards after you get elected.

Even if you don’t become the party’s nomination, an ambitious Senator, could still become a vice-president or a secretary of one of the departments. It’s always smart to be friendly with an ambitious Senator.

With governors, politics are different. You don’t want your name to be out there too early in the race. You’re popularity will peak too soon. It’s about momentum. Just look at Vermont’s governor Howard Dean. Long before the Iowa caucuses he had been chewed on by each and every media outlet in America. There was nothing fresh about him. Everybody knew everything about him. You also give your competitors too much time to dig up dirt on you. After the newness wears off, you’ll spend most of your time answering questions about things you did or didn’t do in your past.

A better strategy is to build your campaign machine in silence and just before the caucuses and primaries, you come out of the closet. If you did your job well and your campaign machine works, you will end up a good second or third in the race after the first few caucuses and primaries. This will give you the media attention and the momentum you need to surge ahead as you suck the oxygen out of the other candidates’ campaigns.

So in response to the question everybody asks me these days, will Hillary run for president, I can only say I haven't the faintest idea. (I couldn't suppress laughing after writing the last sentence)

Trip to Asia

2005-02-05T07:59:00.000-05:00

Former president George Herbert Walker Bush and William Jefferson Clinton will lead a United States presidential delegation to Aceh, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and the Maldives on February 19-21.

Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra will meet and host a dinner for George Bush and Bill Clinton on February 19. They will visit the South of Thailand, the area devastated by the tsunami.

Bobbi Lamoon
Assistant PR manager

Sweatpants

2005-02-04T11:37:00.000-05:00

George Bush and I will travel to Asia later this month. We will check up on the progress that has been made in rebuilding the lives of the victims of the tsunami.

This trip couldn’t have come at a better time. I need some fresh air to breathe. I’m hearing wedding bells chiming ever nearer and I don’t like it one bit. And her mom isn’t helping either. She seems to have been charmed by the cad. They know I don’t like curly, so they’ve teamed up against me. They are cooking something, but I can’t just go to one of them and ask questions. I’m the father, they are supposed to come to me. Especially that mongoose. It’s his job to come to me and ask me for the hand of my daughter if that’s what is happening.

Hey, I tried to be nice. Hillary asked me and I tried. I asked them to come to the house a few days ago, so we could talk a little bit about his prospects. I mean his career. They came by. Curly was wearing sweatpants. Is that what you wear when you visit your future in-laws? Is that how you behave to impress your future in-laws? You wear sweatpants?

When I was dating Hillary and we visited her parents, I always wore a suit and a tie. Even long after we got married. Yes, Ma’am, yes Sir. That’s how it used to be. It was a sign of respect. And now I’m supposed to be happy giving my daughter away to a guy, who visits me wearing sweatpants? How can I trust him with my little sweetheart, when I can’t even trust him to wear normal pants?

Anybody wearing sweatpants, who isn’t jogging, has given up on life. Curly is in his twenties. He should be full of life. He should be exploding with energy and trying to make all my little girl’s dreams come true. But no, that is other people’s sons in laws. My future son in law wears sweatpants.

Hey, I give up. Don’t talk to me, don’t visit me. Just let me sit here all by my self in my barn-office. It’s just my daughter we’re talking about. I guess I’m the old man. A relic from the past. Nobody cares about my feelings.

I spent twenty years trying to put some sense in her head and she comes home with curly. What have I done wrong? For God’s sake, what have I done to deserve a future son in law, who visits me wearing sweatpants?

I give up.

Social Security Crisis

2005-02-03T10:55:00.000-05:00

I want to come back to the comments I made regarding last night's SOTU address. I had a good night’s sleep so I’m clearer in my thinking now.

All I can say about president Bush and his political skills as a 30 year veteran of politics myself is Bush is good. Very good. As I said yesterday, the Democratic party stands no chance in preventing the partial privatization of Social Security.

Why? As I said before, I want to use this diary as a communication tool to educate the new cadre of the Democratic party. With my 30 years of experience in politics, I feel that is my obligation. I believe in educating young, dedicated people, who will one day become the new leaders of the Democratic party. If you are one of these committed active Democrats make notes. As I walk you through the SS issue, you will see politics at work. You need to understand the machine behind Bush’s victory in this SS debate.

Let's say there is a Social Security crisis. Let’s say Social Security has a funding problem. More money comes out than goes in. A normal person would say either increase the flow going in, or make a cut in the flow coming out.

President Bush’s solution is taking tax money funding SS and putting that into private accounts. Just think about it. How is partially cutting the flow of money going into SS a solution to the problem?

The problem and the solution don’t match. The reason for this is simple. President Bush isn’t really trying to save SS as his prime objective. What he wants to do is take money going to the government to fund SS and put it in people’s pockets in the form of private retirement funds. In other words, the president is actively pursuing his vision of an ownership society.

President Bush knows one thing. Americans, at least the baby boom generation and generation X don’t save money out of their own free will. That’s why he wants to force them to save and invest by making it a legal requirement.

Using the solvency or insolvency of SS is just a tool to force-create his ownership society. Not just that, it’s also the only large scale government program he could use to divert money from.

The partial privatization of Social Security doesn’t solve the funding question as I said before. Actually as it limits the tax money going in it worsens the funding problem of the program. How will he solve this funding issue?

Although I’m not in Washington, my ears are attuned to the political grapevine like radars. I know exactly what’s going on behind closed doors.

As I said, partial privatization has nothing to do with solving the funding question of SS.

Again as I said: Let’s say SS has a funding problem. More money comes out than goes in. A normal person would say either increase the flow going in, or make a cut in the flow coming out.

Bush has made it clear he does not want to increase taxes to fund the long term solvency of SS. In other words the only solution he allows is reducing the flow of money coming out of the SS fund, in other words Bush wants to cut the benefits people will get.

He proposes several ways to cut benefits, but what I hear is the most talked about compromise is increasing the retirement age by one or two years at which SS pays out the benefits. Americans, who still want to retire at age 65 can use their private retirement funds.

Is Bush’s proposal a bad idea only benefiting Wall Street brokers, who will receive big fees investing this retirement money?

It’s not a bad idea in itself. A steady flow of money will go into the stock market, big trustworthy companies will get funded by a steady stream of cheap investments, which they can use to expand their business. This will grow the economy and create jobs for Americans. This steady flow of money will also free up money tied up in big corporations and could be invested in small innovative new companies.

The risk I see is people putting their retirement money in Enron/ Worldcom like companies and losing their money. At least their private retirement fund money. The other problem I see is people unable to work, because of a handicap for instance? What about their private retirement fund? What will happen to stay at home moms, who get divorced?

The biggest problem might be what to do with the shortfall in money going in and coming out of the SS fund until the new program balances this. The government has to borrow billions of dollars to fill the gab between the current system and the new system. Can our economy take that? Who will pay for the borrowing is simple, the tax payer. But is a tax hike to pay for this possible?

Just to illustrate the amount of money we are talking about, look at these figures.

Workers pay 6.2 percent of their taxable wages to finance SS right now. Their employers also pay 6.2 percent per employee. In president Bush’s plan people under 55 could place as much as 4 percentage points of the 6.2 percent they themselves pay into personal accounts.

In other words SS in the future will only receive 2.2 percent of the taxable wages workers pay plus the 6.2 percent the employers pay.

We are talking about a lot of money that needs to be borrowed by the government.

As I said yesterday just after the State of the Union address, I now believe the president will get his way when it comes to reforming SS. The reason why I believe this is simple. Politics is about trust. After the successful elections in Iraq and yesterday's dramatic scenes in the Senate, when the Iraqi lady hugged the mother of a fallen soldier, I'm sure Americans trust the president not just with their safety, but also with their retirement money.

I'm disappointed in my party. They didn't even put up a fight. The president just rolled over their objections like the Democratic party didn't exist. I hope in Howard Dean's capable hands as chairman, the party will come back to life again. A democracy with no opposition is no democracy. And it is Bush, who succeeded in relegating our party to irrelevance. Never again doubt his capabilities. He is good. Very good.

State of the Union address

2005-02-02T23:00:00.000-05:00

I watched the State of the Union address. I've been around long enough to know whether there is momentum or not. President Bush's most important proposal in the next four years, privatizing Social Security will pass congress.

I wasn't sure about it. A lot of Democratic and liberal groups were making a good case of keeping SS as it is. I thought they might succeed in frightening enough Republican politicians, who might run for reelection, to derail the proposal. I thought they would be able to convince most Americans that Social Security wasn't a problem.

When I saw the Iraqi lady hug Mrs. Norwood, the mother of the marine, who died during the assault on Fallujah, I knew the president would get his way. It's about trust.

The president took this country to war even though the nation was divided. He asked the American people to trust him. It was in our national interest to liberate Iraq. Half the country doubted him.

The elections in Iraq on Sunday and the hug the two ladies shared, made one thing clear to most Americans, president Bush was right. Even the doubters can't deny Bush is succeeding in Iraq.

The president has shown he can be trusted. It means Americans right now have enough confidence in president Bush to allow him to lead them on the Social Security issue. I have no doubt that it will pass.

Well Wishes

2005-02-02T09:41:00.000-05:00

I would like to thank everybody, who sent Hillary a get well E-mail. She appreciates it very much. She has recovered completely. I asked her whether she was sure about that and whether she didn't need to stay home for a couple of days. She said "Bill, why are you always being so dramatic? It was just a little pain in the stomach. Some people are worse off." She told me one of her staffers had brought to her attention the case of a little girl, who is severely ill and might never get better. The girl's name is Megan. After I read about her on her website, I was overwhelmed with emotions. She’s such a brave young girl. She’s so strong, confident and positive. I cried. God, sometimes I don’t understand you. I really don’t.

I will ask Bobbi to link to the little girl’s website. Please visit her website and sign her guest book. Megan's Home

I wish you all the best, Megan. I will pray for you and visit your site often to see how you’re doing. May God bless you and your family.

United Nations

2005-02-01T16:37:00.000-05:00

I’ve been appointed special envoy by the United Nation’s secretary general Kofi Annan. My job will be to help raise funds for the victims of the tsunami in Asia. President Bush asked me to do it nationally, but now I’m asked to do it worldwide.

Former president Bush, my partner in the national effort was asked to be a UN envoy too. He declined. My good friend Kofi asked me to talk to the former president and try to persuade him to accept the job. I called George Bush, that’s senior, but he was adamant. He said "Bill, I will not be a rock in the road of my son’s presidency. I’m not going to do anything that could be perceived as contravening or mitigating or contradicting my son’s policies". The current president Bush has a rocky relationship with the United Nations. So I understood I couldn’t change his mind.

I am very humbled, proud and happy that I was chosen for this role. I’m looking forward to doing this very important job.

Feeling Helpless

2005-02-01T10:42:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I just want to pull out my hair out of sheer helplessness. Yesterday was one of those days. After I heard what had happened to Hillary I called her up. I asked her and the doctor how she was doing. Hillary assured me she was fine. The doctor told me she needed medical attention, she needed to be hospitalized. Hillary didn’t want that. I pleaded with her to follow the doctor’s advice. She refused.

I don’t understand her. Well I do understand her, but I don’t like it. My wife wants her own legacy, apart from me. That’s ok with me. It’s just sometimes the politician takes over from the human being.

I remember very well what kind of role health played in my first presidential election. George Bush Sr, not long before the election had gone to Japan. He became ill and vomited and passed out during an official dinner. This was caught on film. Bush never managed to shake off this moment of vulnerability. I know Hillary feared something like that might happen to her if she allowed herself to be overpowered by her illness. A politician can’t look weak. People know Washington is a vipers’ den, they will never vote for a person, who seems weak. So even when I pleaded with Hillary to go to the hospital, she said no.

She almost seemed like a tiger protecting her territory, in this case in Washington. She worked hard for her seat in the Senate. That’s for sure. She isn’t a natural politician. She doesn’t connect with people like some politicians do. Like some people say I do, or this president Bush does. Hillary is all about issues. To her being in the Senate isn’t a job. It’s a way to affect policy on issues she holds dear.

I think she is afraid of not being reelected. I understand the fear. After I was elected governor of Arkansas for the first time, I lost the reelection. It was one of the most depressing times in my life. I have never forgotten that. I was full of ideas how to change things. But I walked too far ahead of the people in Arkansas. I made one big mistake. I never took the time to educate them on why policies had to change or couldn’t stay the same. This is a mistake a lot of left leaning liberals still make. They assume everybody understands that the changes in policies they want are good for Americans. So changing laws using the courts seems the right thing to do to them. And when the majority of Americans don’t want their policy changes, they get angry. They must learn the lesson I learned. Educate people, take the time to educate people about the reasons why policy changes are good for them. I learned this lesson and got reelected a few years after my defeat. I stayed governor till I ran for president.

Coming back to Hillary and her reelection. It’s going to be tough. The Republicans are aiming their big gun at her Senate seat. It’s not official, but I don’t think you need to doubt the information. Rudolph Giuliani will be running against her in two years time. He is very popular in New York City and upstate New York. This Senate race will probably, no certainly be the most difficult and most talked about race in two years time.

I understand Hillary, but I’d rather see her home or in hospital, so she could recover. I worry about her, but that’s my right.

Stomach Flu or Food Poisoning

2005-01-31T18:32:00.000-05:00

I would like to thank everybody, who was concerned about Hillary's well-being after she fainted today. She feels much better now. She and the group of Democratic campaign strategists she spent time with this weekend, all of them came down with a stomach flu or food poisoning. The doctors don't know yet. Hillary is up and working again. She is very strong. And I love her very much.

E-mails

2005-01-31T07:51:00.000-05:00

We get dozens of E-mails. From now on, once in a while, we will post a selected few on this daily diary.

Readers' E-mails:

Dear President Clinton
I am really not sure what to say because I have never written to a President before. I have always feared doing so because when I was a little girl one of our neighbors was angry about the price of food and wrote a letter to President Ford. She got a nasty visit from the FBI, which I though a little silly, all because she was angry about the price of hamburger. As a result of this, everyone we knew always said, "Don’t write the President".
I found your diary on the Internet while doing some research on an entirely different subject and was very surprised. I was even more surprised after I began to read it and realized you sounded like a real - everyday person and not a politician. (No disrespect intended). At first I couldn’t believe that it was actually you writing it because you sounded like someone real, like a next-door neighbor and not the president. It was a pleasant surprise though.
First a little about me; I am a freelance writer and a novelist. I am definitely a Democrat. I did vote for you both elections. Though I worried about your welfare policies at first, (For years I was a single mother who had to scratch out a living for my children because I received no financial help from their father) but felt that your policies were mostly favorable for this country, and I still feel this way. Life was hard, but I made it and enjoy much success today. From what I understand, I come from a similar background as yourself.
I have wanted to say this several times over the last few years, and especially after this last election (Of which I will leave no comment about) I really wish you were still President, or at least someone with similar policies. It is just my personal opinion, but I never believed that what they did to you during your second term was right. Someone’s personal life and professional life should, for the most part be kept separate. You were doing a wonderful job, and that is what counts.
I wanted to address what you said in one of your posts about Democrats not getting it together. This is probably true to an extent, but I have to tell you that many average people whom I talk to, both Democrat and Republican are afraid to speak out against public policy at all, let alone organize in any way. Most people I have talked with feel that much of this country’s Constitutional Rights have been stripped and they fear legal reprisal or worse if they speak out against the current President or his policies.
After the last election I heard many many people talking of leaving the country and maybe immigrating to Canada or overseas. Now with the thought of the current President’s brother running in 2008 there seems to be a definite chance that we will end up with a family Monarchy instead of a Presidency. Apparently, there are a lot of people who fear we are losing any resemblance to democracy that we had to begin with and turning in to an Imperial Dictatorship. I don’t know exactly why I am telling you this except that it is important for those who are in power to know that many Americans, have this fear, and even worse, they are afraid to do anything about it. This is especially true of those of us who do keep up on what is happening in the world today.
I actually wept on the last Election Day because I was so disappointed and fearful for my country and my family. I vowed to do something more than vote for the next election and I certainly intend to do so, if there is a way I can volunteer and help. I am not a wealthy or famous person, but if there is a way to help, I will do so.
I am not really sure you will actually ever see this letter, but if you do I just wanted to thank you for the time you gave this country and tell you that there are many Americans who do miss you.

Warm Regards
TLH

Reading this E-mail made me mad. How can any American be afraid to voice his or her opinion? I had no idea that that is an actual concern for a lot of people. I blame the president for giving the impression that citizens should fear publicly speaking their mind. This is not how it should be. TLH, you did not succumb to the fear, which you say many people have. You are a brave person. Yesterday we saw the Iraqi people do the same thing. They didn't let themselves be cowed into silence by threats of harm. You shouldn't either. I thank you for your E-mail. It has opened my eyes to something I didn't know existed. This is another reason I need to undertake the State of the Nation Tour. I and the rest of the Democratic Party must understand, what's really happening in the US, not just what gets reported in New York newspapers. What does make me sad is the fact that people are allowing themselves to be cowed into silence, like your friends. They shouldn't, they must be brave, if not for themselves then for their children. What kind of world are they allowing to come into being for their children? If they know something is wrong, but they don't dare do something about it, even though they know in the end it will harm their children, they are simply wrong. This is the reason I'm agry at people, who call themselves Democrats, but, who do not actively get involved in making the party a success. I'm angry at Democrats, who do not volunteer or contribute to the party, but expect "others" to do it. Only active participation will get the Democratic party back in power. It has to be a grass roots activist effort if we want it to succeed. This is the reason I want my Tour of the Nation to be supported by small contributions from people, who care. What kind of fact finding tour would it be if I paid for it and people read it, without any involvement? It would be just another tour. Just another project nobody cares about, nobody is interested in and which is doomed to fail, because it won't push people to become involved in winning the congressional elections in two years time or the presidential election in four long years time. If we want to win, we need to start working now. If you want the Democratic party to win and take away your fears, you must actively participate now.
TLH, thank you for the E-mail. I wish you and your children the best.

I wanted to see if this is a valid address. I just discovered your blog today and am delighted! I met you in Tallahassee at the Capitol in March,1995 (before your personal troubles began), when I was president of the Tallahassee section of National Council of Jewish Women. I had just come back from the NCJW triennial legislative conference advocating on the Hill for your polices for women, children and families, and had missed seeing you there and then had missed your arrival at the Tallahassee airport by one hour on my return. I thought I was going to miss you again at the Capitol because the crowd was so thick, but you walked counter clockwise the way I was leaving where the crowd thinned, and I was finally able to meet you briefly. As I introduced myself and told you where I had been and what I had been doing, I noticed that you are probably the most attentive listener I've every known. You are able to stay in the present and give laser-like attention. I've never forgotten that.
Your blog is like your charming book continued. Please do whatever you can with your considerable people skills to wrest our country from the dark force of people who would rather destroy than construct. God bless you.

Linda G. Miklowitz,
Attorney & Counselor at Law
Tallahassee, FL

Hi Linda, I remember you very well. I hope you're doing well. I would like to thank you and the NCJW for the support you gave me and you continue to give to my wife. Tallahassee is a lovely place. Bobbi talks about it all the time. She comes from Alford, a few miles to the north. Maybe you know each other. I would like to thank you for your E-mail and I would like to wish you the best. Take care of yourself.

Pres. Clinton,
I accept the blame you impose. I have not done enough to help my local democratic party. I am starting to try to turn that around. I am a precinct chair here in Tarrant County, Texas. I just went to my first executive meeting and volunteered for the, here's the hook, Speakers Committee.
Our problem is this: We have only got $11,000.00 left in the bank. Our County Chair even had to lend over $10,000.00 of his own money to the effort to keep the doors open earlier this year. The executive meeting was about 2 things. Getting the Democratic Party rebuilt after serious losses and getting some money back in the pipeline.
I have been involved with a few other civic organizations and know that we could probably turn things to at least a slightly better place with a series of speakers that would draw some money to us. Dallas County Democratic Party has Wes Clark coming in February 11th. Dallas County has a larger organization than we do, though I don't know they are any better off.
Here's the pitch. Are you able to help us here in Tarrant County? After reading your diary I see you are still fatigued easily. Your friends in the country are still concerned about you. If you were considering a State of the Nation Tour anyway... could you consider coming to Fort Worth for a fundraiser. As I was reading in your book you used to be no stranger to small events and this would be a lalapaloosa small event. I couldn't guarantee what kind of audience there would be, though for Democrats worldwide you are still the man. I think we would have to find an immense hall to hold the love and appreciation our audience would shower on you.
Our Democratic Party in Texas is suffering. We were not able to save Martin Frost or Charlie Stenholm. Money to our counties is in short supply. I will probably be treading on someone or another’s toes by even sending this but hey they know and I know we need the help. The one thing I did learn in my previous experience was that speakers won’t come and help if they are not asked, and frankly Mr. President we need you, so I am asking. Is it possible?

John Derewitz
Pct 2383 Chairperson
Arlington TX

Hi John, I would like to thank you for your wonderful words about me and your interest in my health. I'm feeling better, but I can't say I feel like I used to feel before the surgery. My schedule is filled and with my activities for the victims of the tsunami and my Asian book tour, I actually have to scrap speaking engagements. The State of the Nation Tour is a fact finding tour, which I will undertake incognito. I will be in disguise. I want people to talk to me like they would talk to a stranger. I want the truth. I want to hear the real deal. I will report about my tour here on this daily diary. I will also post pictures of the places and maybe the people I meet on my journey. I don't believe in saying no, without giving an alternative. You should contact the Dean for Chair campaign. I think Dean needs people in the South and South West, like you in Texas. People in these regions fear Dean. They don't really know what he stands for. Actually they have the wrong impression of him. They think he's your typical New England liberal. He is not. Howard Dean is moderate on abortion, has a triple A rating from the National Rifle Association and is against gay marriage. The only point I disagree with him on is the war in Iraq. I support it. He doesn't. He does believe though that we need to finish what we started. I think it might be mutually beneficial for both your precinct and the Dean campaign if he was to speak at the event you're trying to organize. Try contacting his campaign. He might say yes. Just tell them I recommended you. I was a campaign volunteer for George McGovern in Texas, when he ran for president. I know what it's like to be a Democrat in Texas, so I would like to encourage you to keep up the good work. The party needs committed people like you. Have a good day, John.

Yoga and Iraq

2005-01-30T06:50:00.000-05:00

I was planning on sleeping for a few more hours. I’m exhausted after a week of meetings and speeches at the World Economic Forum in Davos. We accomplished a lot.

Hillary got up early this morning as she usually does. After taking a shower she came back into the bedroom to do her Yoga exercises. I don’t understand why she doesn’t do them in another room. I can’t sleep while she is close by tying herself in the most amazing knots. I can’t sleep. I worry she will break her neck. So I got up and moved to another room, since these exercises usually continue for about an hour and a half. It does give me the opportunity to say something important though.

I would like to encourage all Iraqis to vote. You might be afraid, but what can the terrorists do to you that 35 years of Saddam’s dictatorial rule hasn’t done to you already? This is the reason you must vote. You must end this state of fear you’ve been living in for the past decades. Don’t let yourself be imprisoned again. Don’t change one dictator for another one. One ruling through rape rooms, one through cutting throats. This is your chance. You must use it. No matter what.

I know a lot of Iraqis are afraid to go out and vote. I know a lot of people, especially here in the United States blame ambassador Paul Bremer and Don Rumsfeld for the lack of security. They blame them for disbanding the old Iraqi army, leaving a security void, which was filled by looters and terrorists.

I disagree with those voices. If the old army, stuffed with the minority Sunnis and Baathists was still around, they would pose organized opposition to the new civilian authorities. You cannot build a civil society with an armed group as powerful as the old Iraqi army still in place. Civil authorities must be in control of the army. Not the other way around. In the long run, building an army up from the ground will prove to have been a wise decision

Apart from that, having 300,000 armed and highly organized Sunni and Baathist soldiers close to and amidst 125,000 American soldiers is a risk no American president can take.

So again, I would like to say to the Iraqis. Go out and vote. Your future and the future of your children is in your hands.

My legacy

2005-01-29T08:02:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I ask myself whether I’m not too candid. Americans just don’t understand me sometimes. I’m not just referring to the dust, which is engulfing the right wing media after my comments in Davos. I don't care about these Rush Limbaugh Dittoheads. Not after all they said and did to me.

I was very open in my biography, My Life. I’m not planning on changing my style here. Why do I keep my diary? I think every politician should have one. It’s a way to communicate with the world directly. The Clinton library isn’t mine anymore. It’s customary to donate the presidential library to the nation. I did so too. It is now part of the National Archive.

It’s sad to see what happened to our country after I left office. President Bush has expunged almost every imprint I had made on the nation’s social and economic welfare. All the things I did to make this a better country are gone. What do people remember of the time I was in office? The only mistake I made.

I can’t make a new imprint on the nation as president. All I can do is hope Americans don’t forget my legacy. I was a darn good president. It seems like I constantly have to defend myself and my policies against my detractors.

I’m afraid, if I don’t fight back, my detractors will succeed in defining my presidency. What bothers me is that average Americans seem to forget, how it really was. My detractors seem to be able to put a whole new memory into their minds. A memory, which is just not true.

The only way I can defend myself is by being out there. Doing the State of the Nation Tour, writing this diary, giving speeches, helping rebuild the party and helping my fellow Democrats succeed.

People shouldn’t forget me or the things I did, which made this country such a great place to live during the 8 years I was president.

I’m still the same guy. That’s why I have to be candid, why I have to be open. I have to touch people’s hearts and hope they remember me and my presidency as they truly were. That's important to me. It's all I have left as time goes by.

Technology and China

2005-01-28T13:07:00.000-05:00

I don’t want to get involved in this issue, because there is a history here. The issue I’m talking about is American technology sales to China. Right now several GOP congressmen are trying to stop the sale of IBM’s personal computer division to a Chinese company, Lenovo Group. Their reason: America’s national security is at stake. They believe that withholding old computer technology will keep China weak.

This is an ignorant position to take. If they had visited the World Economic Forum here in Davos, they’d understand that China is more technologically advanced than a lot of American politicians seem to think.

They should understand that if China can’t get it’s technology from the US, they will get it from the Europeans or Japan. There is no worldwide embargo to keep China from attaining a higher level of technological advancement.

The Europeans have recently and against our wishes, they have lifted their arms trade ban pertaining to China. We, America and its companies must learn the lesson here. It would be much smarter for us to sell the Chinese our technology and use the money to invest in more advanced technology.

We can no longer expect to guard our national security by keeping China ignorant. We shouldn’t try it. What we should do is make sure we keep ahead of them and the rest of the world when it comes to technology. This means changing our school system, making it more science friendly. It means changing our tax practises when it comes to Research and Development.

China is turning out 75,000 highly skilled scientists every month. We need to change our attitude.

I remember we had the same situation a few years back, when the Hong Kong based Huchison-Whampoa company, owned by Li Ka-Shing tried to buy the bankrupt Global Crossing company. We stopped them. As a result, I heard later, China set up a whole new fiber optics division at one of their universities. Their technology is now comparable with ours. Let’s not make the same mistake again.

World Economic Forum Davos Switzerland

2005-01-28T11:04:00.000-05:00

I’m starting to feel better. It’s almost evening here in Europe. I felt terrible all day long, but that’s my own fault. I told Bobbi to go back to bed. She kept falling asleep during a press conference this morning.

I met my good friend Bono and Tony Blair yesterday during a media event. We wanted to spend some time together, so we agreed to meet each other in Tony’s hotel suite. When I told my assistant, Bobbi I was off to visit Bono, she begged me to take her along. I know the kind of attraction Bono has on young women, so I let her tag along.

It was about 10:30 when we got to Tony’s suite. Bono was there already. Bobbi was so star struck, she was speechless, the three of us just laughed. Tony had a bottle of French wine, we opened it and had a great time. That is until Bono gave me a large package. He and Tony could hardly suppress their laughter. I opened the package and to my surprise, inside was a sax made of china.

Bono urged me to play something. To my big surprise, the sax actually worked. Tony asked me to play a song, but I declined to play alone. Tony and Bono got up, walked to the other room and came back with their guitars.

We jammed for a few minutes. Tony is a great guitar player. He told me he used to be in a band. He also told me once that during a short period, when he was homeless, he played guitar for tips on the streets and in the parks of London.

People always think guys like Tony and me were born with a silver spoon in our mouths. That is not true. We had to work very hard to get where we eventually got.

After opening up a few more bottles of wine, we stopped jamming and began playing old rock and roll hits. Bono sang and Bobbi clapped her hands. At one time Bobbi started singing along. It must’ve been the wine. All of us had to laugh. Bobbi has a distinct Southern accent. Bono asked her to choose the next song. She said she wanted to hear “Angel of Harlem”.

We were all silent for a moment and looked at Bono. Bono has a special relationship with that song. He rarely plays it. I don’t know why, but I know it’s so. It must’ve been silent for 5 minutes. Bono looked at Bobbi. Bobbi looked at me. Helplessly.

Then he said: All right. He began playing the opening chords of “Angel of Harlem”. I absolutely love that song. It’s a classic. He sang: It was a cold and wet December day, When we touched down at JFK.

Tony and I played along. I will never forget this moment as long as I live. We had such a good time.

We continued drinking and playing till 2:30. I was sitting on the bed, Tony and Bono were both sitting on a chair. All of us were more asleep than awake by then. I hadn’t slept the night before. I told the guys it was time for me to go. I looked around for Bobbi, but she was fast asleep on the bed.

I got up, sort of, my legs were too wobbly and I tried to wake her up. I couldn’t. I tried to lift her up to take her to her room, but my heart surgery has left me quite weak and Bobbi is a healthy young woman from the Florida panhandle. The last thing I remember is Tony saying he was going to the toilet and never returning and me falling to the ground.

I woke up early this morning. I had a terrible headache. Bobbi was still asleep on the bed. Bono was next to her, also passed out. He was still wearing his blue sunglasses. I woke up Bobbi.

I have to laugh though. Well now, not this morning. I said good morning. She said good morning. She looked to her side and screamed out loud. I said: It’s Ok. That’s Bono. We all fell asleep last night. You gotta get up. We have to go.

Oh God, I still have to laugh about the look on poor Bobbi’s face.

I went to the toilet. I heard someone say: yamma, yamma, yamma. I looked around and found Tony in the bathtub. He was sleeping like a baby. I couldn’t help myself. I threw water on his face. Hahaha. I woke him up good. When I left Bono was still asleep.

I feel terrible now, but I had such a good time last night. Tony and Bono are my true friends. They are wonderful people.

Arafat and Barak Palestine and Israel

2005-01-27T14:42:00.000-05:00

I'm having a great time here at the World Economic Summit. It's such a heart warming sight to see world leaders and CEO's of multi nationals come together to discuss ways to make the world a better place. My good friend Tony Blair made sure we, representatives of the industrialized countries didn't forget Africa. My fundraising efforts for the Tsunami victims is going well.

Today 60 years ago Russian troops liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi occupied Poland. Hillary has Jewish relatives, so this issue is very important to us. I learned a very important lesson. Such evil must never be allowed to happen again. When I tried to bring the Israelis and Palestinians together, I noticed one important thing. Who ever was in power, be it Rabin, Peres, Netanyahu or Barak, I could talk about every subject, but when it came to security for the Jewish people, goodwill became an iron clad no.

I understand that, now more than then. Yasser Arafat fooled me. I thought he really wanted to make peace. I tried hard to get the Israeli side to go the extra mile. He fooled me. When Barak went further than any prime minister in history and Arafat didn't close the deal, but instead unleashed a violence not seen in years, I understood, the Israelis were right. I was wrong.

It's amazing to see how one person can hold the freedom, happiness and prosperity hostage of millions of people. Arafat left the scene and the whole equation has changed. For the better.

I met Bill Gates today. He's donating money to the tsunami relief fund. I tried to get him to donate some money to my AIDS project, but I caught him at the wrong moment. There seems to be something wrong with Microsoft. Just before I talked to him, he had been grilled by journalists. I don't know much about computers, but it had something to do with leaks in Internet Explorer and viruses. What I gathered from the questions is that Microsoft is losing its dominance, that rivals have products, which don't attract viruses. If I was a betting man, I would start short selling Microsoft shares.

Palm Beach Florida Trump Wedding

2005-01-27T03:18:00.000-05:00

I'm in Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum. I can’t sleep. I wake up at noon usually, when I'm home. If it wasn’t for Bobbi knocking on the door, I’d probably sleep till 4. If one of the secret service agents knocks on the door and I don’t reply, they get back in the car and wait. Bobbi used to have a key, but Hillary asked her to give it back when they had a fight when I was recovering from my heart surgery.

There is no real reason to get up. I’m not going anywhere. I just sit around looking at the snow in the garden. I’m glad Hillary is working. What would our lives look like with two people without a thing to do. We’d probably end up bickering like that couple played by Elisabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

Hillary would win. I’d probably end up locking myself in my barn office to get away from her.

I was at Donald Trump’s wedding Saturday. Well not at the wedding itself, but at the reception at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach. It’s a beautiful place. It used to be a private home. It’s a private gentlemen’s club now. Donald owns it. I had a good time. I was glad to be doing something. I gave the couple a small trinket I bought at Tiffany’s. It wasn’t my choice, but that’s where they had their list. Everything on the list was expensive. 200 dollar tea spoons. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Maybe it’s the years of poverty, but 200 dollars buys you a car, not a spoon. If somebody gave me a 200 dollar spoon, I wouldn’t know what to do with it.

The food was pretty good. They had what they called a “Bounty of the Sea” buffet. You had to get your own dish. Which was ok with me. I love fried fish. I ate too much. I always eat too much at parties.

The other guests were all happy and laughing. I had a wonderful time. I just wish some people would curtail their cocktail intake. Katie Couric and Richard Chamberlain had words. She began shouting at him. Richard, whom I adore sought my help, but I’m not getting in the way of a tipsy 46 year old woman, who is accustomed to getting her way. Donald had to intervene and calm down the situation.

Melania and Katie had words too. I didn’t understand their problem. Barbara Walters said something about a camera in a lipstick, but she was pretty much gone by that time. I just smiled and left her at the first opportunity I got. I went back to the buffet.

Democratic Party supporters

2005-01-26T15:28:00.000-05:00

I still receive questions about the plan I talked about months ago, the State of the Nation Tour. There isn't going to be a State of the Nation Tour. Let me be honest here. The tour was supposed to highlight all that had changed after I left office.
I'm disappointed in Democrats. We've become lethargic and lazy. We say we want to be saved from the Republicans, but what are we doing to be saved? We're not doing a damn thing.

The Republicans turn out millions of Evangelicals. Whom do we get out to vote? Nobody. Our voters are lazy. Our voters want others to donate. Our voters want others to volunteer. I'm disappointed in my fellow Democrats. I'm very disappointed.

You know, I worked really hard all my life. I tried to make America a better place. For 8 years it was a better place. I leave office and everything spirals out of control. I can't help but blame myself. I made many mistakes. But I also blame those, who believe in the Democratic party, but, who never contribute their time or money to see their party prevail. I blame myself, but I also blame you.

Blog

2005-01-23T06:16:00.000-05:00

President Bill Clinton will resume posting on this blog on Monday.

Social Security Crisis

2005-01-10T09:31:00.000-05:00

My good friend Kevin Spacey made a movie once called Swimming With Sharks. That's what politics is, dealing with the Bushes. I have second thoughts about joining the tsunami effort. I can't go back, but still.

Anyway, the reason I have doubts about my new role is George Bush's push to privatize Social Security. He wants young people to be able to create private accounts. This will obviously take money out of the SS system and cause the system to collapse in the near future. The people, which will be hit most are old people. Young people can always get a job, but what should the old and the sick do?

It's pretty obvious what George Bush is trying to do. He did the same with the current budget. George Bush proposes huge extra spending on the military and homeland security. No politician wants to be seen as weak, so everybody goes along with these increases. They cause a huge budget deficit. The government tells congress money needs to be saved, so they start slashing current spending. And it always involves taking away money from social programs.

In other words, George Bush is cutting spending on programs he dislikes by overspending on programs he can get away with.

I knew this even before 9-11. The huge tax breaks for the rich were not meant to kick start the economy or to put money in middle America's pockets. It was meant to create a huge budget deficit, which in turn had to lead to cuts on spending, cuts on social programs.

It's the same old Bush objective, dressed up in new clothes.

People always say, Bush is a spend it all "new" Republican. This is not true. Just look at what he's spending money on.

Now Social Security. Bush wants to cut it down or even get rid of it. He wants private pension plans to replace a national system in the future.

He will arrive at his private pension plan by taking money out of SS. This will cause SS to run huge deficits. Since they are unsustainable, SS will need to be changed. People might have to work till they're 70 years old or the amount of money retired Americans get may be cut.

What Bush is doing, what he has been doing since before 9-11 is create a problem, then solve it using his own methods, which always include money going out of government and into the pockets of big business.

It's insurance companies and banks which stand to reap huge profits if young people can put their money in private accounts. Nothing "new" Republican about that.

The reason I have my doubts about my new role in the tsunami relief effort, is the fact that I'm bound. I can't all of a sudden start criticizing the president about Social Security. Americans wouldn't understand and blame me. He played his hand well.

Being alone

2005-01-07T11:47:00.000-05:00

Hillary isn't home. I wish she was. I can't stand being by myself. Certainly not here in Chappaqua. This dreary weather, in the middle of nowhere. I wish Hillary would be home more often, that she would be content, that my legacy would be enough for the both of us.

She supported me through all of these years, so I have to support her. I know that, but that doesn't mean my heart wants it.

I've thought a lot about moving to Manhattan. That's impossible, but a small second home, an apartment would do.

I have a lot of friends in New York. I miss them. I miss going to Broadway, going to art expositions, going to fundraisers, socialites' dinner parties. I miss meeting people, talking, laughing.

If I want to do all these things now, I have to commute each day and stay at hotels. I dislike both. Apart from that, if you get invited, one day they expect you to invite. Where do I give my dinner party? In Chappaqua? Most people in Manhattan can't even pronounce the word, let alone have any inclination to visit this small town and my "farmhouse" dressed up in cocktail dresses and dangling with 200 year old jewellery. No, it just wouldn't work.

Apart from that, I'd have to host my parties alone, because Hillary spends most of the week in Washington. And I'd have to visit their parties by myself. I can hear the gossip already.

Lately she's been spending more and more time in Washington. Isn't she interested in spending time with me anymore? Is it because Chelsea is gone now and all we got left is the two of us? Is that not enough for her?

I like those moments when we sit at the fire place, with the sound of the rain gently hitting the roof in the background. We open up a bottle of wine. One from my stock, because my friends bring me the better stuff from France. I always tease her about the wine she gets.

Most of the time it's Californian Ernest and Julio Gallo wines given away by the case load to her and other congressmen by one of the company's directors trying to get some tax break for the wine industry.

I love those moments together with my wife. She'd be in her chair sipping her drink and reading her book and I'd be sitting there pretending to read, but actually looking at her. I love looking at Hillary. Me looking at her is how we met for the first time.

Those moments also make me sad. I know how many times I hurt her. I hurt her so very badly. There are times that I just want to get on my knees in front of her and tell her, I'm so sorry, sweetie. I'm so, so sorry.

But I'm afraid. We've regained a lot we lost, after the whole Ken Starr affair. I'm afraid if I tell her how I feel, this might anger her or bring back the old feelings and I might lose what I have right now.

I don't know what to do. I want to talk to her so much, but I fear her reaction.

Area 51 and Aliens

2005-01-06T16:21:00.000-05:00

Bobbi and I went to the movies today. I can't do that too much, because of security reasons. That's why I watch the first screenings in the morning. The theatre is almost empty at that time.

We saw The Grudge and National Treasure. The Grudge is a horror movie about a cursed house. I thought it was slightly amusing, more amusing was Bobbi's reaction. She kept screaming and grabbing me and hiding her face against my shoulder.

I liked National Treasure very much. Nicolas Cage is one of my favorite actors. Jerry Bruckheimer, the producer made a very entertaining and interesting movie. I'm a conspiracy buff. I like reading books about secret societies and cloak and dagger stories. I was on the inside of government, so I know there is more out there than meets the eye.

You know, when I was elected, but before I was inaugurated, someone, a total stranger, whom I met on the street asked me to look into Area 51 and Aliens in Roswell, New Mexico. I laughed, but decided to buy a book about the subject. It was very interesting. I asked my good friend Webster Hubbell to investigate the matter.

When Hillary talked about the vast right wing conspiracy, she was mocked. Maybe the conspiracy wasn't a right wing one, but something else.

I never did get a clear answer about Area 51 from the ones with the security clearance. And I was the president.

More than that you know what happened to me during my second term. And you know what happened to Hubbell. He died.

Sometimes you shouldn't ask questions why, you just have to accept reality.

The electoral votes were counted in Washington today. Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones and Senator Barbara Boxer forced a debate about the legitimacy of the election. Their objections were overturned. George Bush won fair and square, didn't he? Both times.

Blogging

2005-01-05T11:56:00.000-05:00

President Clinton won't be blogging today. He's traveling and he's too busy asking for donations for those poor people in Asia, who were hit by the tidal wave. He's receiving a lot of positive responses.

I heard there is going to be a dinner party in Hollywood for all the actors, singers and entertainment executives. The president thinks they could raise millions in donations. Mr. Clinton is very popular in Hollywood.

He's asking Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond to perform together. He said that would be a big thing. To be honest I hardly know these singers. The president rolled his eyes when I said that. Maybe I should google their names.

Oh and Jerry Seinfeld called. I talked to him on the phone. He's a very nice man. Just like on TV. He will be there too. It should be a wonderful party. I wish I could be there. But Maybe it will be on TV.

Bobbi Lamoon

Fundraising

2005-01-04T08:01:00.000-05:00

President Bush asked me to lead the fundraising efforts to help the victims of the tsunami. I agreed. I'm working together with George Bush Sr.

President Bush was caught off guard in this situation. And to be honest I think he almost fell off the horse. When the tsunami struck it took him 3 days to come back from his vacation and the first aid the administration was willing to give was 15 million dollars.

I don't blame him. Nobody, not even the local governments knew the extent of the destruction and loss of life in the first few days.

What caught the president off guard too was the huge outpouring of grief and compassion for the victims and the widespread and in depth media coverage. Americans cared. There are many catastrophies all over the world, but this one seems to have struck Americans and indeed the world right in the heart.

Maybe it's the fact that it was a natural disaster and not a man-made one. No one can sit back and sarcasticly say, are they beating each other's brains out again. No one is to blame. That is probably the reason for the massive international and national effort to help.

Though president Bush was caught off guard, he jumped back on the horse pretty fast.

First of all nobody should doubt George Bush's political acumen. He is a first class politician.

He did show his hand though. He appointed his brother, the governor of Florida Jeb Bush to accompany secretary Powell on his trip to Asia.

Governor Bush is very popular in Florida. He won reelection with a wide margin. It is now pretty clear to me that Jeb Bush will run for president in 2008.

Jeb Bush has a lot of experience dealing with national issues. What he lacks, as did George Bush when he first ran in 2000, is international experience. The governor is filling in that gap in his resume right now under the wings of Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice.

George Bush giving his brother some international exposure is a smart move. Asking me to join him in the relief effort was a smart move too.

President Bush knew he was under attack by Democrats for his late and initially small contribution to the relief efforts. By appointing me he deflects a lot of the criticism.

Why did I say yes to president Bush's request? Because I want to help the victims.

Larry King Live CNN

2005-01-03T22:55:00.000-05:00

LARRY KING LIVE 9:00 PM ET CNN
Former Presidents Bush and Clinton discuss their new role in coordinating the U.S. effort to aid tsunami victims.

Welfare Reform and Internet Poker

2005-01-03T06:12:00.000-05:00

I couldn't sleep. I played internet poker for awhile. I lost 22 dollars to someone in Nebraska.

Danny DeVito called me yesterday and admonished me for talking about Kevin Spacey's life so openly.

I told him it was the truth and that I've learned a few things as a politician. One of the things is there are always people with the same problems like you, who think their problems are unique.

If someone, who is being abused reads the post about Kevin, they will understand it happens to other people too. They will understand that there is help out there. That they can get out of that unhealthy situation.

My dad was an abusive drunk. I wish someone told me there was help out there, so my mom and brother and I didn't have to continue going through what we went through.

I've always tried to be honest. I've always tried to do the right thing, whether it was popular or not.

I remember the struggle to reform welfare entitlements when I was president. Many people in the Democratic party would tell me, African-Americans are your most solid constituency, why would you reform welfare, which will hurt them?

My answer was always simple. Reforming welfare was the right thing to do.

I know it would've been easier to do nothing, but what about the countless people welfare entitlements were hurting?

I know that there are people, whose jobs are so hard, that if they could receive welfare instead of work they would opt for welfare. OK.

But what about their children?

Would you like to have dad at home all day long? What kind of morals are you passing to your children if you spend your days in front of the television? Do you expect them to succeed in life with such an example?

That's the reason I can't get angry at my brother Roger, when he messes up again. I know where he's coming from.

Some might say, and said, this and that and people need it. Ok, but what about the people it's hurting? Who's looking out for them?

I think welfare reform was a major success. Even African-Americans, the people some in the Democratic party didn't want to enrage, told me it had made their lives more difficult at times, but in the end it was for the better of them and their families.

Sometimes, if you love someone and as a politician, you love people, you have to administer some bad tasting medicine for the people's own good.

It's not enough to cry together, you also need to find a solution that works together.

Kevin Spacey as Bobby Darin in Beyond the Sea

2005-01-02T09:01:00.000-05:00

My good friend Kevin Spacey has a new movie out. It's called Beyond The Sea. It's a biopic of rock and roll legend Bobby Darin. You probably heard his music on the radio or if you're old enough, you might have seen him on television. Bobby Darin died a long time ago at the age of 37.

Kevin had tried to make this movie for a long time. Bobby Darin is one of his idols. I've seen his struggle to get this movie done. Kevin not only played Bobby Darin, but he also directed and produced the movie. I'm so proud of him and the movie.

Kevin is one of my closest friends. We click on a level I don't click with others. I've thought about our connectedness. Maybe it has to do with the fact that we both had very violent and abusive alcoholic fathers and doting mothers.

I want to make one clear distinction though, my father was abusive, but never in a sexual way. I can't talk about Kevin, but his older brother, Randall Fowler, Kevin Spacey Fowler is Kevin's real name, publicly said once that their father was a Nazi nut, who sexually abused him. That is Randall. About Kevin, it's not my place to talk about those things.

Kevin sings the songs in the movie himself. He also sings the songs on the movie soundtrack. Bobby Darin's songs. His rendition of Mack the Knife and Dreamlover are very good. He has been on tour singing these songs for the past few weeks. I'll ask Bobbi to add a link to his tour schedule website. I think the tour has finished, but the reaction from the public is so overwhelming, I hope he'll consider adding dates to his tour.

The film opened nationwide on December 29 and includes Kate Bosworth as Sandra Dee, John Goodman, Bob Hoskins, Brenda Blethyn, Gretta Scacchi, Caroline Aaron and Peter Cincotti.

I enjoyed the movie very much and I would like to recommend it to you. Kevin Spacey's BEYOND THE SEA, The Bobby Darin Story

Kevin Spacey Sings Bobby Darin Tour Schedule

Happy New Year Buddhist Temple

2005-01-01T08:40:00.000-05:00

I would like to wish all of you a happy and a healthy new year.

I would also like to ask everybody to remember the victims of the tsunami in Asia and donate.

Hillary and me went to a Buddhist temple in Queens yesterday. Buddhist monks and others were collecting money and goods to help the victims in Asia. It was a big success. I want to thank everybody, who was involved in this. God bless you.

Bill Clinton New York Office Mailing Address and Phone Number and Fax

2004-12-31T08:07:00.000-05:00

President Bill Clinton's New York (Harlem) office (mailing) address and phone number:

55 W. 125th Street 14th Floor, New York, NY 10027-4526
tel: 212-348-8882 fax: 212-348-9245

Clinton Presidential Center mailing address:

Post Office Box 1104, Little Rock AR 72203-1104

Immigration

2004-12-30T07:06:00.000-05:00

There is something about Bush's controversial illegal immigrants proposal that bothers me. He wants illegal immigrants to be able to get a work permit, which would allow them to work here and eventually gain citizenship. It is a general pardon, but the president can't say it like that, because of internal party politics.

I've indicated earlier that to save our party, we need to reform it. This issue shows us what's wrong with the Democratic party. This issue illustrates the extent of the crisis in our party.

First of all, we are the party of immigration and immigrants rights. Why is Bush allowed to hijack this issue?

Secondly let me tell you what the president is doing. He is taking away the Hispanic vote from the Democratic party, because a large majority of illegal immigrants is from Mexico and Latin America. In the last election, 44 percent of Latinos voted for George Bush.

The Latino vote is crucial for our party. Why are we allowing the Republicans to take over our base and relegate us to eternal opposition? That is what the president is doing. He is putting together a coalition of voters, which will make the Republican party the dominant party for years to come.

Some Democrats seem to relish the division this proposal is causing in the Republican party. Hardcore Republicans, especially in the House do not want to "reward" illegal aliens with a work permit and eventually citizenship for breaking the law.

We should not be too happy about this division. We should not put our hands in our pockets and watch the coming destruction of the Republican party.

In my opinion, we might be disappointed.

After the election president Bush has earned a lot of political goodwill, which he intends to use. Maybe on getting his proposal accepted.

Secondly, I've been in Washington. I know politics. I hear things. I can't believe the White House's audacity.

The story goes, the president will throw these hardline Republicans and their base some red meat. The proposal will in its appearance tilt towards home security. Regulating illegal residents is good from a law enforcement and home security perspective. How can you be against securing the homeland is the idea here.

More importantly though is the second piece of red meat. What most hardline Republicans and base are afraid of is, you regulate the existing illegal aliens, but new ones will cross the border.

Here the new proposal proposes something I thought was incredible. The proposal will make money available to build a fence on our southern border. I couldn't believe it when I heard it. What I'm telling you is hearsay, not official, just ideas being thrown around in Congressional backrooms.

Expanding on the last point. Most people will say, a fence will never happen. Well, in politics that's not always the point. The point is, you give your hardliners something in return for something else.

The president gets his general pardon, the public gets home security, the hardliners in the Republican party get a fence and can take that to their conservative base, who will love the idea.

Does the president want a fence? No. How will he sign on to a fence knowing that there will never be one?

The ideas, which are thrown around involve the federal government giving state governments the right and the money to build a fence. If they want to. In other words, the problem will be on the plate of states with 30, 40 percent Hispanic populations (and voters).

To make a long story short, there isn't going to be a fence, but by the time the debates in the states come to a conclussion, Bush will have pardonned 8 to 10 million illegal immigrants, brought the Hispanic vote under the Republican wing and created 8 to 10 million very grateful new citizens and Republicans.

George Bush could become one of the most influencial politicians in our country's history. If we Democrats don't pull ourselves together.

Tsunami in Asia

2004-12-29T17:51:00.000-05:00

There are no words to describe my feelings right now. I'm devastated like many of you about the horrible catastrophe that has occured in Asia. A tsunami in the Indian Ocean has kelled tens of thousands of people in Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, the Maldives and Aceh, Indonesia. Millions lost everything they owned.

My heart goes out to these people. I was planning on touring Asia to promote my book, so Asia was on my mind a lot these past few weeks.

I've spent the last couple of days calling my friends over there to ask them if they were alright. I haven't been able to locate all of them. I hope for the best, but I fear the worst.

I would like to ask you to donate to the Red Cross or Oxfam, like I did.

I also think we as a nation need to play a pivotal role in the rescue and rebuilding effort. This is a time to show we Americans care. The world is looking at us.

It's a horrible thing to say, but I know my conservatives in the Republican party and they won't commit any resources to help in this effort if it doesn't directly benefit America. To them I would like to say that helping now will earn our country a lot of goodwill in Asia and amongst the biggest muslim country in the world Indonesia.

I also support the use of the military in this effort. First of all, it gives our troops a lot of chances to excercise and learn just in case something like that ever happens on our soil (which is possible geologically speaking) and build contacts locally. Which will benefit us in the war on terror.

This only reminds us of the incredible forces in nature. Whatever we people might think about our privileged place on this planet, we are no match for these forces of nature.

I heard rumors the administration might be interested in asking me to help lead the US efforts in Asia. All I can say is, this is not a time to ask questions why, this is a time to act.

Diet

2004-12-28T05:43:00.000-05:00

I'm in a good mood. In spite of Curly staying at our house for the past two days. I don't know whether Chelsea's relationship with him is coming or going or just floating around.

Curly is getting lazy. He isn't offering Hillary to help do the dishes anymore. He used to. As a result Hillary has stopped washing the dishes when he is at our house, like she used to do.

He also seems to have developped some sort of hearing problem. When I ask him something about his job or income or prospects, all I get back is Huh? or a dumb stare. I thought I had left those kinds of reactions behind when Chelsea grew out of her teens.

Curly and me, we don't get along. At Christmas dinner time I made sure he was sitting as far away from me as possible. This didn't stop him from raising his voice and trying to talk to me all through dinner, annoying everybody else trying to have a civilized family get together.

I have to laugh though. My favorite aunt, she's in her late eighties, said to me after dinner: That young man my niece brought to dinner has no manners. Which I agree with, but Chelsea seems to be happy with him. What can I do?

Well anyway, I can't be bothered with it. You know what's on my mind right now? Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, peas, fried catfish and Coca Cola.

Let me be honest with you about something. People might think, and they tell me, well food cluttered your arteries, the wrong kinds of food almost killed you, you must be really careful with what you want to eat now, right?

The answer is yes and no. Yes, I am careful with what I eat. No, because I want to eat all those things that brought my situation about. Fast food almost killed me, but still here I am, what time is it? Early in the morning and all I can think of is fast food.

If you have a loved one, who had heart by-pass operation, please keep an eye on their diet. The temptation is incredible.

Time Flies

2004-12-27T15:10:00.000-05:00

I need a time manager, because time flies. Tempus fugit, the Romans said. They were right. I just laughed. I'm supposedly retired, but still I can't find the time to do all the things I like to do.

I hope all of you had a blessed and happy Christmas, especially the ones whose loved ones are overseas serving our nation. My holidays were a bit different from the past ones. I miss Chistmas dinner. Chistmas is not the same if you're not allowed to dig in, losen your belt and dig in some more. I miss food. I'm not even going to deny it. I think about food quite a lot. I have dreams about feasting on food.

I just laughed again, because it's so true. Here I am even writing about food. If you made anything special for Christmas dinner make sure you write it down in the comment box.

I had a merry Chistmas. I saw a lot of family, my brother Roger's son was at our house, Bobbi was here.

Oh and Bobbi, congratulations. I'm sorry it took me so long to notice that this daily diary is mentioned in Time magazine. I didn't read that particular issue myself. It's the one with George Bush "Man of the Year" on the cover. Somebody pointed out to me that this website got mentioned. Time magazine said Bill Clinton Daily Diary is a hit. The only reason for that is Bobbi. She did all of the hard work. Thank you, Bobbi.

She's standing behind me reading over my shoulder. I think she's blushing. Hey it's true, Bobbi, this website was your idea to promote the book. Hahaha. She's red as a lobster now.

I'm taking it easy till the end of the year. After that I have the Asian book tour coming up. I'm looking forward to that although I must admit I'm frightened of the strain on my health, but I promised I would go, so I will go.

If you are in Asia, reading this diary, I hope we'll meet when I visit your continent.

I'm also going to work hard to try and help rebuild the Democratic party. That must be done. My plate for the new year is full, unfortunately it's not food.

Merry Chistmas

2004-12-26T17:42:00.000-05:00

Merry Chistmas, everybody.

2004-11-25T14:34:00.000-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving

Announcement

2004-11-24T11:38:00.000-05:00

Clinton Presidential Center news:
This Thanksgiving Weekend, November 26, 27 and 28, the normal donation requested at admission will be waived. Free Admission, Free Shuttle Service. Please click here for more information.

Bill Clinton Peter Jennings interview video

2004-11-22T21:06:00.000-05:00

President Clinton won't be blogging today. He's traveling. I've received many e-mails about Bill Clinton's interview with Peter Jennings on ABC. Thank you for your e-mails. There seem to be rumors that Mr. Clinton threatened or even physically assaulted Mr. Jennings. Everybody, who saw the interview knows this is not true.

After Mr. Kerry lost the election, I was a paid staff assistant at his campaign headquarters, I called Mr. Clinton to ask for a letter of recommendation and he was so kind as to offer me a job as a member of the PR team at the Clinton Center. I love my job here in Little Rock. It's pretty close to the place where I was born, North Florida. My job is to prepare president Clinton's Asian book tour, but I have to react to this rumor.

I found a video clip of the interview between Mr. Clinton and Peter Jennings. It's on a right-wing website, so please ignore the written remarks. The clip is about three minutes long. Judge for yourself. Click here to see part of the interview. I hope this sets the records straight.

I've noticed one thing working for the Kerry campaign. If you are attacked, and I think this is a very dirty attack on a great man, you have to respond with the truth immediately. Don't let it go or it will grow and come back to haunt you.

As you see: Nobody gets angry, nobody gets threatened, nobody gets assaulted.

President Clinton really is a good man, the nicest man you will ever meet and I have had the honor and pleasure of working for him since the first book tour months ago.

Bobbi Lamoon
junior Assistant PR manager
Clinton Presidential Center, Little Rock, AR

Running nose fever

2004-11-21T16:32:00.000-05:00

I feel much better today. I have a running nose, but the fever, which was trying to gain ground yesterday, didn’t hold.

I’ve spent most of my day calling my friends, who attended the opening of my library. I thanked them and told them how special they are. They are, but I could see something of disappointment in their eyes, when I didn’t single out one of them to come and stay at my house in Little Rock.

This is normal. If I'm in Los Angeles or San Francisco I stay at my friends' house. If they come to New York, they stay at my place.

Having a lot of good friends is a blessing, but when you put them in one location there is always the jealousy, the struggle to find out whom I like best. At the dinner, when all my good friends were looking at me so hopefully and expectantly, I thanked all of them and told them I still hadn’t healed, I was going home to take a warm bath and go to bed. I disappointed many good friends, who expected special treatment. So today I called them to tell all of them I care.

About yesterday. Although my brain felt cloudy, it has never been more clear to me what is going on. The Republicans are dismantling all the policies I enacted. They are rolling back everything I stood for. It has never been clearer to me that conservatives and George Bush are trying to make my presidency a presidency without consequence. More, they are trying to write me out of the history books. They are trying to relegate my 8 years in office to the footnotes of American history.

For instance, I left a balanced budget. That was part of my legacy. George Bush has major budget deficits. The result is that part of my legacy is gone.

We were an open, respected country in the world, who made the UN work. What’s left of that part of my legacy? We were moving in a direction where respect and tolerance for other people’s lifestyles was the norm. Now we have a Republican president bent on dividing people according to his conservative religious morals. Just look at the ban on gay marriage proposals. What’s left of that part of my legacy? Nothing.

The Republicans are consciously and systematically destroying my legacy.

It has become clear to me that George Orwell was right. He, who has power in the present writes the history. And he, who controls history, owns the future.

We need to wrestle the power out of the Republicans’ hands. If we want to achieve the future we want, our party needs to become the majority party again. It’s as simple as that. We need to start winning elections again. We need to learn to play the game that politics is again. We need to learn to win elections again.

That is my mission for the coming years. Rescue our future from the Republicans and defend my legacy. We need to rebuild the Democratic Party and start fighting back.

Sinuses diappointment

2004-11-20T18:49:00.000-05:00

I feel terrible. My nose is partly blocked, there is a fog in my head, my sinuses hurt, inside my mouth, the top hurts, it hurts to breath and I feel warm and cold at the same time at different parts of my body. I’m coming down with a fever. Oh God, I can’t use this right now. I haven’t healed from my heart by-pass operation and the complications following that. And now a cold or a fever.

Medicating this is a problem too, because what’s good against a fever is bad for the by-pass condition. God, why always me, why always me?

For the past two days, all I read is stories about my mistake in office, Ken Starr, me threatening Peter Jennings during the ABC news interview. What a baloney. Eight years in office, the best economy in the history of our nation, peace, prosperity and the newspapers and TV boils my legacy down to his museum looks like a trailer home, he lied about his mistake.

I know, I know, I made a mistake. One mistake. And all they can say is Bill Clinton had an affair with Monica Lewinsky. I paid for that. I’m still paying for that. I hurt my family and I paid for that. I never hurt the country. I did a good job in office, but the media doesn’t want to give me even that satisfaction. They just want to tarnish my legacy by bringing up the same old same old over and over again.

Anybody who thinks the media are liberal and they will give Democrats the benefit of the doubt is wrong. The media are bloodhounds. If you’re so unfortunate as to let them smell some blood, like I did with my mistake, they will hunt you, they will tear you apart. Democrat or Republican. Even if some of them think, well this story is not worth the damage we are doing to this person, the pack mentality will take over and kill is the only commandment ruling their behavior. That was what I tried to tell Peter Jennings.

After all the media did to break my spirit then, now they are out in full force to tarnish my legacy by constantly highlighting my mistake and ignoring all the good things I did.

You know, when I was sitting there during the opening of the Clinton Presidential Center listening to the former presidents and the bands, I felt proud, but at times, I had this feeling of falling, like I was falling from the sky. Without a parachute. I wasn’t scared and I didn’t scream in my thought. I just felt like I was falling.

I’ve had that feeling for the past two days and nights. I’m freefalling. The thing is now, it must be the fever, now I see Barbara Bush’s face and I hear her voice saying something like: You will disappear into presidential history for your mediocrity, like what you did to my husband.

It’s a strange sentence, but that’s how it pops up in my mind. And she’s right. Is it just coincidence that the present president Bush has deconstructed everything I built, every single achievement is gone? Everything my presidency stood for has been undone in the past four years. And we got 4 more years ahead of us.

George W. has always been nice to me. So wonderful. Gracious. Behaving like a present president should towards a former president. He’s been so considerate to me, Hillary and Chelsea. In the mean time he’s been cutting and slicing my legacy till nothing is left of it. Oh you’re smart George, you’re so smart. But I’m not dead yet. I will protect my legacy. I will be the one writing the definitive version of my legacy, my 8 years in office. Me, not you, not the media, not Rush Limbaugh, not Ken Starr. Me.

What can I say? I’m disappointed. In myself, the media, everybody. And there’s nothing I can do about anything. My heart can’t carry me no more. It rains on the day of the dedication of my library. I got a fever coming on, which will make it impossible for me to give people my side of the story in this critical period of my political life.

Ah what’s the use. Everything is against me right now. Here I am in my bed. All I want to do is pull the blanket over my head and disappear into oblivion.

Day after opening Clinton Library

2004-11-19T09:31:00.000-05:00

I haven't been able to sleep all night long. What a day yesterday. Such a wonderful day. Except for the rain. I would like to thank everybody, who took the time and braved the rain to attend the dedication of the Clinton library and park. It means a lot to me. The support of my family meant a lot to me too.

It was good to see the presidents and first ladies. It was good to see my old friends from Hollywood. I hope my former colleagues from my days in Washington had a good time. And I hope all the people from Little Rock and Arkansas had a good time. This library is not just a testament to me, but also to our beautiful state.

Normally it rains on a day a president dies, so I hope the rains were not a sign as the old Gospel song says for the sweet chariot to swing low and take me home. I kinda wanna hang around for a few more years. hahaha.

The opening of the center truly is the beginning of a new chapter in my life. I hope to be able to follow in the footsteps of my good friend president Jimmy Carter and use the center to build bridges of understanding between people of different regions, races, religions and sexual orientations.

What we need is more understanding, more unity, not more condemnation and divisiveness.

Here is to a bright future for all of us. And make sure you visit the library. It's open to the public. Take care and have a good day.

Opening William J. Clinton Presidential Center

2004-11-18T17:00:00.000-05:00

The William J. Clinton Presidential Center has officially opened its doors today in Little Rock Arkansas. Friday the library will be opened to the public. You're welcome to visit the museum. Congratulations, president Clinton.

Bobbi Lamoon

Clinton Library opens tomorrow

2004-11-17T09:25:00.000-05:00

The Clinton Library in Little Rock, Arkansas will be opened by president Bush on Thursday.

Hillary Clinton will be on Larry King Live tonight, 9 pm ET.

Tomorrow will see the grand opening of the Clinton Presidential Library here in Little Rock. I'm very excited. I don't like calling it the Clinton Library or the Clinton Museum. It has the sound of history and looking back to it. I prefer the Clinton Center. This sounds like action and looking to the future.

The Clinton Presidential Center doesn't just review my 8 years in office. The foundation is also involved in trying to bring peace to different parts of the world. It is also involved in battling the scourge of AIDS ravaging the third world. We are working on many projects, which will secure a brighter and more peaceful world in the future. So the Clinton Center is not all about the past.

If you'd like to read more about the Center, under the picture to the right is a link.

I was looking around the Center today. I'm very, very proud of it. If you ever visit Arkansas, make sure you come by. I promise you and your family will have a great time.

You know, every time I walk to the front door, it takes my breath away. The Bill Clinton museum. Amazing. Amazing. A small town kid from Hope, Arkansas now has his own presidential museum. Amazing. Amazing.

I've been blessed. I've been thinking about a way to repay my debt to all the people, who made this possible. It hit me that the most valuable thing I have to offer is my experience. Now that money concerns and debts have been taken care of, I'm seriously thinking about sharing my experience, my know-how of politics with the next generation of Democrats. How it will take shape I don't know, but I'm thinking about teaching. But we'll see.

Tomorrow is a great day. For me and my family. Many people, millions of people all over America made tomorrow possible. This kid from Hope would like to thank all of you. I hope the museum will inspire you or your children or grandchildren to go out there and make your dreams come true. It is possible. You see, it is possible.

Health issues Politics

2004-11-16T13:26:00.000-05:00

The Clinton Library will be opened by president Bush on Thursday.

Hi, everybody. I would like to thank all of you from the bottom of my heart for your well wishes after my heart operation. Thank you for the letters, flowers and e-mails. I appreciated them very much.

You know, when they tell you they are going to open up your chest to reroute some major arteries, it just takes the life out of you. What can you do? You’re lying on your bed, staring at the ceiling, sometimes ready to die, sometimes crying, sometimes hyperventilating.

I’m human too, you know? Sometimes I too need that arm around my shoulder. Your letters, flowers and e-mails were that arm for me. Thank you very much for caring.

I have always tried to be honest about my health. I feel good. Reasonably good. I’m not as strong as I used to be. I don’t have the energy I used to have, but I’m feeling better and better each day.

My assistant Bobbi Lamoon had promised to keep you updated about my health. I was the one, who asked her to stop posting. I had a major setback a few weeks ago. I had been outside in the rain. I had a common cold and I had to sneeze. This is very dangerous when your stitches haven’t healed yet. You know how your body jerks when you sneeze. One of the rerouted arteries could have snapped during a sneeze. It could’ve caused internal bleeding.

So for quite a while there was a major crisis. There was an ambulance on standby. The doctors did what they could, but the cold needed its time to go away. For quite a while I was pretty close to death, because of this and I needed round the clock attention.

If the media had known about the seriousness of my bad health, it would’ve sucked all the air out of John Kerry’s campaign. He needed all the media attention he could get. Voters didn’t really know him right then. That was the reason I kept my health a secret for a while, till I felt healthy enough to campaign for John Kerry.

But as I said I feel good right now.

We, Democrats lost the election. The elections. It breaks my heart to see all the progress we made disappear year after year. Election after election. How did our nation go from a road leading towards tolerance, respect and inclusiveness to a road leading towards divisiveness, disrespect and fear for “the other”?

My old friend James Carville is right. A party has only one purpose: win elections, put Democrats into office all over the country. Some Democrats were saying, well at least we got our message out. That’s not what a party is for. That’s what pressure groups like Greenpeace, Planned Parenthood and even churches are for.

We lost all these elections all over the country, because we forgot all about politics. Many, many times I had to really restrain myself from picking up the phone and telling Democrats, this is the way we can win. They wouldn’t have listened. The whole party was in some sort of delusional haze, which had nothing to do with the nuts and bolts of politics.

I don't want to criticize anybody, but we need to look at the future right now. The Democratic party lost, because we lost our way. The result? The Republicans have 4 more years to turn back the progress we made during the past 40 years. We cannot afford to lose again.

This is the reason I’ve decided to come back to this daily diary. The publisher started this weblog as a way to keep the people informed about my book tour. This election I got to see how extremely important the internet can be. Just think about the Dean campaign, MoveOn.org and the SwiftVets. A modern election can not be won without a massive internet presence.

After the sorrow, the tears, we must now begin preparations to win the congressional elections in ’06 and the presidential election in ’08. I want to help my party to win. This is the reason I’ve decided to use this medium to reach out, inform, educate, talk to, exchange views with the grassroots of our party. The internet is the right medium for me.

I want to be part of the rebuilding of our party into the majority party it once was. I have 35 years of experience. I will offer my advice. Whether Democrats decide to use it or not, is up to them.

From now on I’ll be posting regularly. My party is important to me.

Blog Business

2004-11-13T16:16:00.000-05:00

Mr. Clinton will continue this daily diary on Monday.

Bobbi Lamoon

Surgery and Recovery

2004-09-20T15:05:00.000-04:00

President Clinton is doing fine. He's making progress. He's doing his excercises, he's following his diet.

He's been reading a lot and listening to his record collection of golden oldies. I think they are Motown records.

There isn't much to say, except that things are going as they should.

Fight with Senator Clinton

2004-09-17T08:01:00.002-04:00

I want to apologize for not keeping you up to date about president Clinton's health for the past few days. Me and Mrs. Clinton had a fight. Everything is alright now. She apologized to me. We're friendly again. Actually I never had anything against her, she was the one who started the fight.

It was a few days ago, Mr. Clinton was feeling real bad and weak. I was reading the Washington Post to him. Mrs. Clinton came in to give Mr. Clinton his food. She asked me to go get some orange juice from the fridge. I did so. When I entered the room I saw Mrs. Clinton trying to force feed president Clinton. She was saying "Get better, Bill, Get better".

I could see president Clinton moving his head away, indicating he didn't want to eat. She kept saying "Get better, Bill, get better" and she kept trying to force a spoonful of mashed potatoes in his mouth. I saw she was hurting him. I went to her and told her to stop it.

She looked at me with these wild eyes and hit me on the head with the spoon. It hurt and that ain't cool. I tried to push her away, but I forgot I still had a glass of orange juice in my hand. It spilled all over her. Mrs. Clinton threw the spoon on the ground and lunged for my hair. She tried to hurt me and I defended myself as well as I could and she is much heavier than I am. I could hear Mr. Clinton say "stop it", but Mrs. Clinton went crazy. I saw from the corner of my eye he was trying to get out of bed, but he was too weak.

I was lucky. Chelsea entered the room, saw what her mother was doing and started shouting at us to stop fighting and that we were idiots for doing that in front of her dad. She jumped between us, that ended the fight. Hillary shouted at me to "Get out!". I looked at Mr. Clinton. He looked at all of us, motionless. He had tears in his eyes. I felt sorry. I left.

I've been working at the Kerry campaign headquarters for the past few days. Not yesterday, I didn't feel too good yesterday. I'm from the panhandle in Florida and hurricane Ivan, did a lot of damage there. I watched television all day long.

Yesterday, president Clinton called me to ask whether my family was alright. Thank God they are. Though my mother said Alford was ravished by the hurricane, but nobody was hurt. Mr. Clinton also asked me to come back to work for him. He told me Mrs. Clinton was sorry for what she'd done and that she was under a lot of pressure and that she was still shocked because of his heart problems.

Mrs. Clinton talked to me on the phone too. She apologized for her behavior. I accepted her apology. I told her I was sorry too for what had happened.

So now I'm back and I can keep you up to date about Mr. Clinton's health.

He's feeling good. He's able to walk outside and walk up and down the stairs. He's following his diet and I'm helping him with his exercises. I'm happy to be back.

Bobbi Lamoon

Discharge from Hospital

2004-09-12T10:43:00.000-04:00

President Clinton has been discharged from hospital. He is home. We've surprised him with a little intimate party to celebrate his homecoming. Mr. Clinton was moved to tears. He's feeling a lot better. Now comes the hard part for him. Following the doctor's diet.

Surgery and Recovery

2004-09-11T18:06:00.000-04:00

President Clinton is getting stronger and stronger. Today he was able to walk around the hospital and talk to other patients.

He still needs the IV. The doctors think he can go home either Monday or Tuesday.

I called Mr. Clinton's brother, Roger again. I managed to persuade him to visit his brother. He'll be here later tonight. President Clinton will be very happy to see him.

No Laptop

2004-09-10T16:07:00.000-04:00

Sorry, can't stay too long. I forgot my laptop. I'm using the administrator's. President Clinton is doing very well. He's able to walk around, though only for short times. Made a gaffe. Thought I'd cheer him up by bringing ice cream. Bad idea. The nurse was livid.

I called Mr. Clinton's brother. He was very unresponsive. Will be calling him again tonight. Everything going well.

Intensive Care Unit

2004-09-09T14:49:00.000-04:00

President Clinton left the intensive care unit yesterday. I'm stating it like this, because Mr. Clinton made a funny when he left the intensive care.

As he was slowly walking out of the intensive care unit and saw dozens of nurses and doctors and friends line the hall, he waved. "Ladies and gentlemen" he said imitating Elvis "Clinton has left the intensive care unit".

Everybody in the hall clapped their hands and cheered. Mr. Clinton rolled his eyes and shook his head.

I was probably the only one, who saw it. I guess we deserved that. He is a patient after all.

Hillary helped him to his room. Mr. Clinton was exhausted when we got there. He lay down on his bed and slept most of the day.

He felt a lot better today. He asked me to go out and buy him some books and DVD's. I bought him some thrillers and that book Unfit for Command.

When I got back, after visiting hours, I saw Mr. Clinton was crying. I asked him what was wrong, but all he could say was he was disappointed that his brother Roger hadn't visited him yet.

Seeing him cry like that almost broke my heart. There isn't much I can do, although I'm seriously considering calling his brother. I do have his phonenumber, because I have president Clinton's address book.

I tried to take him mind of things by reading Unfit for Command to him. I know he was really looking forward to reading that book.

He did ask me to make sure nobody visiting him saw the book. I guess I understand why. It's a secret between us he said. I had to laugh about that. That's typically him.

Mr. Clinton is feeling much better today.

Recovering from Surgery and Prada Shoes

2004-09-08T16:15:00.000-04:00

President Clinton is awake right now. Early this morning there was a temporary relapse. You will understand that all of us were very concerned. The doctor put something in Mr. Clinton's IV to take away the pain. Luckily it worked. President Clinton eased into a long sleep.

I'm afraid it was Chelsea and me, who woke him up. We were talking about the new Prada shoes. We were so into the conversation, we forgot all about Mr. Clinton. Until for some reason we both looked at his bed and saw him looking back at us, listening, smiling.

He has the most amazing smile. He will be alright. I'm sure of that. The nurse is feeding him right now.

Bobbi Lamoon

Surgery

2004-09-07T15:54:00.000-04:00

President Clinton woke up today. He's feeling pretty good. He doesn't need a machine to help him breathe anymore. That's a very good sign.

Mr. Clinton ate a few spoonfuls of mashed potatoes and carrots. The nurses and doctors here are treating him with a lot of affection and respect.

Mrs. Clinton and Chelsea are here too. Mr. Clinton slept most of the day. The doctors say he'll need two months to make a full recovery. According to them, he should be able to leave the hospital in a few days.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Bobbi Lamoon