词条 | Clinton, Bill |
释义 | Clinton, Bill president of United States Introduction byname of William Jefferson Clinton, original name William Jefferson Blythe III born August 19, 1946, Hope, Arkansas, U.S. ![]() Early life Bill Clinton's father was a traveling salesman who died in an automobile accident three months before his son was born. His widow, Virginia Dell Blythe, married Roger Clinton, and, despite their unstable union (they divorced and then remarried) and her husband's alcoholism, her son eventually took his stepfather's name. Reared in part by his maternal grandmother, Bill Clinton developed political aspirations at an early age; they were solidified (by his own account) in July 1963, when he met and shook hands with President John F. Kennedy (Kennedy, John F.). Clinton enrolled at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., in 1964 and graduated in 1968 with a degree in international affairs. During his freshman and sophomore years he was elected student president, and during his junior and senior years he worked as an intern for Senator J. William Fulbright (Fulbright, J. William), the Arkansas Democrat who chaired the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Fulbright was a vocal critic of the Vietnam War, and Clinton, like many young men of his generation, opposed the war as well. He received a draft deferment for the first year of his studies as a Rhodes (Rhodes scholarship) scholar at the University of Oxford in 1968 and later attempted to extend the deferment by applying to the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) program at the University of Arkansas School of Law. Although he soon changed his plans and returned to Oxford, thus making himself eligible for the draft, he was not chosen. While at Oxford, Clinton wrote a letter to the director of the Arkansas ROTC program thanking the director for “saving” him from the draft and explaining his concern that his opposition to the war could ruin his future “political viability.” During this period Clinton also experimented with marijuana; his later claim that he “didn't inhale” would become the subject of much ridicule. After graduating from Yale University Law School in 1973, Clinton joined the faculty of the University of Arkansas School of Law, where he taught until 1976. In 1974 he ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1975 he married a fellow Yale Law graduate, attorney Hillary Rodham (Hillary Clinton (Clinton, Hillary Rodham)), who thereafter took an active role in his political career. In the following year he was elected attorney general of Arkansas, and in 1978 he won the governorship, becoming the youngest governor the country had seen in 40 years. Governor of Arkansas After an eventful two-year term as governor, Clinton failed in his reelection bid in 1980, the year his daughter and only child, Chelsea, was born. After apologizing to voters for unpopular decisions he had made as governor (such as highway-improvement projects funded by increases in the state gasoline tax and automobile licensing fees), he regained the governor's office in 1982 and was successively reelected three more times by substantial margins. A pragmatic, centrist Democrat, he imposed mandatory competency testing for teachers and students and encouraged investment in the state by granting tax breaks to industries. He became a prominent member of the Democratic Leadership Council, a group that sought to recast the party's agenda away from its traditional liberalism and move it closer to the centre of American political life. ![]() Presidency The Clinton administration got off to a shaky start, the victim of what some critics called ineptitude and bad judgment. His attempt to fulfill a campaign promise to end discrimination against gay men and lesbians (homosexuality) in the military was met with criticism from conservatives and some military leaders—including General Colin Powell (Powell, Colin), the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In response, Clinton proposed a compromise policy—summed up by the phrase “Don't ask, don't tell”—that failed to satisfy either side of the issue. Clinton's first two nominees for attorney general withdrew after questions were raised about domestic workers they had hired. Clinton's efforts to sign campaign-finance-reform legislation were quashed by a Republican filibuster in the Senate, as was his economic-stimulus package. Clinton had promised during the campaign to institute a system of universal health insurance. His appointment of his wife to chair the Task Force on National Health Care Reform, a novel role for the country's first lady, was criticized by conservatives, who objected both to the propriety of the arrangement and to Hillary Rodham Clinton's feminist views. They joined lobbyists for the insurance industry, small-business organizations, and the American Medical Association to campaign vehemently against the task force's eventual proposal, the Health Security Act. Despite protracted negotiations with Congress, all efforts to pass compromise legislation failed. Despite these early missteps, Clinton's first term was marked by numerous successes, including the passage by Congress of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which created a free-trade (free trade) zone for the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Clinton also appointed several women and minorities to significant government posts throughout his administration, including Janet Reno (Reno, Janet) as attorney general, Donna Shalala as secretary of Health and Human Services, Joycelyn Elders as surgeon general, Madeleine Albright (Albright, Madeleine) as the first woman secretary of state, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Ginsburg, Ruth Bader) as the second woman justice on the United States Supreme Court (Supreme Court of the United States). During Clinton's first term, Congress enacted a deficit-reduction package—which passed the Senate with a tie-breaking vote from Gore—and some 30 major bills related to education, crime prevention, the environment, and women and family issues, including the Violence Against Women Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act. In January 1994 Attorney General Reno approved an investigation into business dealings by Clinton and his wife with an Arkansas housing development corporation known as Whitewater. Led from August by independent counsel Kenneth Starr, the Whitewater inquiry consumed several years and more than $50 million but did not turn up conclusive evidence of wrongdoing by the Clintons. The renewal of the Whitewater investigation under Starr, the continuing rancorous debate in Congress over Clinton's health care initiative, and the liberal character of some of Clinton's policies—which alienated significant numbers of mainstream American voters—all contributed to Republican electoral victories in November 1994, when the party gained a majority in both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years. A chastened Clinton subsequently tempered some of his policies and accommodated some Republican proposals, eventually embracing a more aggressive deficit-reduction plan and a massive overhaul of the country's welfare system while continuing to oppose Republican efforts to slow the growth of government spending on social programs. Ultimately, mainstream American voters found themselves more alienated by the uncompromising and confrontational behaviour of the new Republicans in Congress than they had been by Clinton, who won considerable public sympathy for his more moderate approach. ![]() ![]() ![]() In 1998 Starr was granted permission to expand the scope of his investigation to determine whether Clinton had encouraged a 24-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, to state falsely under oath that she and Clinton had not had an affair. Clinton repeatedly and publicly denied that the affair had taken place. His compelled testimony, which appeared evasive and disingenuous even to Clinton's supporters (he responded to one question by stating, “It depends on what the meaning of the word is is”), prompted renewed criticism of Clinton's character from conservatives and liberals alike. After conclusive evidence of the affair came to light, Clinton apologized to his family and to the American public. On the basis of Starr's 445-page report and supporting evidence, the House of Representatives in 1998 approved two articles of impeachment, for perjury and obstruction of justice. Clinton was acquitted of the charges by the Senate in 1999. Despite his impeachment, Clinton's job-approval rating remained high. ![]() ![]() Shortly before he left office, Clinton was roundly criticized by Democrats as well as Republicans for having issued a number of questionable pardons, including one to the former spouse of a major Democratic Party contributor. In subsequent years Clinton remained active in political affairs and was a popular speaker on the lecture circuit. His autobiography, My Life, was published in 2004. Later that year the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum opened in Little Rock. In 2005, after a tsunami in the Indian Ocean (Indian Ocean tsunami) had caused widespread death and devastation, Clinton was appointed by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to serve as a special envoy for relief efforts. In Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World (2007), Clinton encouraged readers to become involved in various worthy causes. ![]() Cabinet of President Bill Clinton Cabinet of President Bill Clinton Cabinet of President Bill ClintonThe table provides a list of cabinet members in the administration of President Bill Clinton. Additional Reading Clinton's speeches and statements are collected in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, William J. Clinton (1994– ). Biographical works include David Gallen and Philip Martin, Bill Clinton as They Know Him (1994), comprising comments and anecdotes from friends, reporters, and politicians; David Maraniss, First in His Class (1995), which covers his life up to the announcement of his presidential candidacy and is based on almost 400 interviews; and Nigel Hamilton, Bill Clinton: An American Journey (2003).The 1992 presidential campaign is chronicled in John Hohenberg, The Bill Clinton Story: Winning the Presidency (1994), with a brief discussion of Clinton's first year in office. Bob Woodward, The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House (1994), is a critical study focusing mainly on the economic policy of Clinton's early presidency. Other critical works include Elizabeth Drew, On the Edge (1994); William Bennett, Death of Outrage: Bill Clinton and the Assault on American Ideals (1998); Barbara Olson, The Final Days: The Last Desperate Abuses of Power by the Clinton White House (2001); and, from a different perspective, Christopher Hitchens, No One Left to Lie To: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton (1999). A qualified defense of Clinton's presidency is Joe Klein, The Natural: The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton (2002). William C. Berman, From the Center to the Edge: The Politics and Policies of the Clinton Presidency (2001), considers the domestic and foreign policies of the Clinton administration in historical perspective.Peter Baker, The Breach: Inside the Impeachment and Trial of William Jefferson Clinton (2001), is a well-researched account by a veteran Washington journalist. Kenneth Starr, The Starr Report: The Findings of Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr on President Clinton and the Lewinsky Affair (1998), outlines the case for impeachment and describes Clinton's encounters with Lewinsky in somewhat lurid detail. Critical discussions of the conservative opposition to Clinton include Joe Conason and Gene Lyons, The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton (2000); and Sidney Blumenthal, The Clinton Wars (2003). |
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