My life

On the security front, I asked for congressional support in combating “an unholy axis of new threats from terrorists, international criminals, and drug traffickers”; Senate approval of the expansion of NATO; and continued funding for our mission in Bosnia and our efforts to confront the hazards of chemical and biological weapons and the outlaw states, terrorists, and organized criminals seeking to acquire them.

The last section of my speech dealt with appeals to bring America together and look to the future: tripling the number of empowerment zones in poor communities; launching a new clean water initiative for our rivers, lakes, and coastal waters; providing $6 billion in tax cuts and research funds for the development of fuel-efficient cars, clean-energy homes, and renewable energy; financing the “next generation” Internet to transmit information up to a thousand times faster; and funding the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which, because of congressional hostility, didn’t have the resources to handle sixty thousand backlogged cases alleging discrimination in the workplace. I also proposed the largest increase in history for the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute, and the National Science Foundation so that “ours will be the generation that finally wins the war against cancer and begins a revolution in our fight against all deadly diseases.”

I closed the speech thanking Hillary for leading our millennium campaign to preserve America’s treasures, including the tattered old Star Spangled Banner, which inspired Francis Scott Key to write our national anthem during the War of 1812.

There wasn’t a word in the address about the scandal, and the biggest new idea had been to “save Social Security first.” I was afraid Congress would get into a bidding war for the coming surpluses and squander them on tax cuts and spending before we had dealt with the baby boomers’ retirement. Most Democrats agreed with me, and most Republicans didn’t, though over the coming years we would hold a series of bipartisan forums around the country in which, despite everything else that was going on, we searched for common ground, arguing about how to provide for retirement security rather than whether to do so.

Two days after the speech, Judge Wright ordered that all evidence related to Monica Lewinsky be excluded from the Jones case because it was “not essential to the core issues,” making Starr’s inquiry into my deposition even more questionable, since perjury requires a false statement about a “material”

matter. On the last day of the month, ten days after the firestorm began, the Chicago Tribune published a poll showing that my job approval rating had risen to 72 percent. I was determined to show the American people that I was on the job and getting results for them.

On February 5 and 6, Tony and Cherie Blair came to the United States for a two-day state visit. They were a sight for sore eyes for both Hillary and me. They made us laugh, and Tony gave me strong support in public, emphasizing our common approach to economic and social problems and to foreign policy. We took them to Camp David for a dinner with Al and Tipper Gore, and held a state dinner at the White House with entertainment by Elton John and Stevie Wonder. After the event Hillary told me that Newt Gingrich, who had been seated at her table with Tony Blair, had said the charges against me were

“ludicrous,” and “meaningless” even if true, and weren’t “going anywhere.”

At our press conference, after Tony said that I was not just his colleague but his friend, Mike Frisby, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, finally asked the question I had been waiting for. He wanted to know whether, given the pain and all the issues about my personal life, “at what point do you consider that it’s just not worth it, and do you consider resigning the office?” “Never,” I answered. I said I had tried to take the personal venom out of politics, but the harder I tried, “the harder others have pulled in the other direction.” Still, “I would never walk away from the people of this country and the trust they’ve placed in me,” so “I’m just going to keep showing up for work.”

In mid-month, as Tony Blair and I continued to build support around the world for launching air strikes on Iraq in response to the expulsion of the UN inspectors, Kofi Annan secured a last-minute agreement from Saddam Hussein to resume the inspections. It seemed that Saddam never moved except when forced to do so.