| At the other end of the hall were the main guest bedrooms, one of which had been Lincolns office and has one of his handwritten copies of the Gettysburg Address
Next to the Lincoln Bedroom is the Treaty Room, so named because the treaty ending the Spanish-American War was signed there in 1898For several years it had been the private office of the President, usually configured with multiple televisions so the Chief Executive could watch all the news programs at onceI believe President Bush had four TVs thereI decided I wanted it to be a quiet place where I could read, reflect, listen to music, and hold small meetingsThe White House carpenters made me floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and the staff brought up the table on which the Spanish-American War treaty had been signedIn 1869, it had been Ulysses Grants cabinet table, with space for the President and his seven department heads to sit around itSince 1898 it had been used for the signing of all treaties, including the temporary nuclear test ban under President Kennedy and the Camp David Accords under President CarterBefore the year was out, I would be using it too
I filled out the room with a late-eighteenth-century Chippendale sofa, the oldest piece of furniture in the White House collection, and an antique table bought by Mary Todd Lincoln, on which we put the silver commemorative cup from the 1898 treatyWhen I got my books and CDs in, and hung some of my old pictures, including an 1860 photo of replica miu miu Abraham Lincoln and Yousuf Karshs famous photograph of Churchill, the place had a comfortable, peaceful atmosphere in which I would spend countless hours in the years ahead
On my first day as President, I started out by taking Mother down to the Rose Garden, to show her exactly where I had stood when I shook hands with President Kennedy almost thirty years agoThen, in a departure from traditional practice, we opened the White House to the public, providing tickets to two thousand people who had been selected in a postcard lotteryAl, Tipper, Hillary, and I stood in line shaking hands with the ticket holders, then with others who waited in the cold rain for their time to walk through the lower south entrance into the Diplomatic Reception Room to say helloOne determined young man without a ticket had hitchhiked overnight to the White House with his sleeping bagAfter six hours, we had to stop, so I went outside to speak to the rest of the crowd gathered on the South LawnThat night, Hillary and I stood in line for another few hours, to greet our friends from Arkansas and classmates from Georgetown, Wellesley, and Yale
A few months after the inauguration, a book was published filled with beautiful photographs that capture the excitement and meaning of the inaugural week, with an explanatory text written by Rebecca Buffum TaylorIn her epilogue to the book, Taylor writes:
A shift in political values takes timeEven if successful, its clarity must wait until tiffany toggle necklace months or years have passed, until the lens has been extended and recedes again, until far and middle distance merge with what can be seen today
The words were penetrating, and probably correctBut I couldnt wait years, months, or even days to see if the campaign and the inauguration had effected a shift in values, deepening the roots and broadening the reach of the American communityI had too much to do, and once again the work quickly turned from poetry to prose, not all of it pretty
T he next year involved an amazing combination of major legislative achievements, frustrations and successes in foreign policy, unforeseen events, personal tragedy, honest errors, and clumsy violations of the Washington culture, which, when combined with compulsive leaking by a few staffers, ensured press coverage that often resembled what Id experienced during the New York primary
On January 22, we announced that Zo Baird had withdrawn her name from consideration for attorney generalSince we had learned about her employment of illegal immigrant workers and her failure to pay Social Security taxes for them during the vetting process, I had to say that we had failed to evaluate the matter properly, and that I, not she, was responsible for the situationZo had not misled us in any wayWhen the household workers were hired, she had just gotten a new job, and her husband had the summer off from teachingApparently, each assumed the other had handled the tax matterI white chanel purse believed her and kept working for her nomination for three weeks after she first offered to withdraw itLater, I appointed Zo to the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, where she made a real contribution to the work Admiral Crowes group did
On the same day, the press became infuriated with the new White House when we denied them the privilege, which theyd had for years, of walking from the press room, located between the West Wing and the residence, up to the press secretarys office on the first floor near the Cabinet RoomThis strolling allowed them to hang out in the halls and pepper whoever came by with questionsApparently, a couple of people high up in the Bush administration had mentioned to their new counterparts that this arrangement impeded efficiency and increased leaks, and the decision was made to change itI dont recall being consulted about it, but perhaps I wasThe press raised the roof, but we stuck with the decision, figuring theyd get over itTheres no question that the new policy contributed to freer movement and conversation among the staff, but its hard to say it was worth the animosity it engenderedAnd since, in the first few months, the White House leaked worse than a tar-paper shack with holes in the roof and gaps in the walls, its impossible to say that confining the press to quarters did much good
That afternoon, the anniversary of Roe vWade, I issued executive orders ending the Reagan-Bush ban on fetal-tissue research; abolishing the white chanel j12 watch so-called Mexico City rule, which prohibited federal aid to international planning agencies that were in any way involved in abortions; and reversing the Bush gag rule barring abortion counseling at family planning clinics that receive federal fundsI had pledged to take these actions in the campaign, and I believed in themFetal-tissue research was essential to finding better treatments for Parkinsons disease, diabetes, and other conditionsThe Mexico City rule arguably led to more abortions, by reducing the availability of information on alternative family planning measuresAnd the gag rule used federal funds to prevent family planning clinics from telling pregnant womenoften frightened, young, and aloneabout an option the Supreme Court had declared a constitutional rightFederal funds still could not be used to fund abortions, at home or abroad
On January 25, Chelseas first day at her new school, I announced that Hillary would head a task force to come up with a comprehensive health-care plan, working with Ira Magaziner as the lead staff person, domestic policy advisor Carol Rasco, and Judy Feder, who had led our health-care transition teamI was pleased that Ira had agreed to work on health careWe had been friends since 1969, when he had come to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar a year after I didNow a successful businessman, he had worked on the campaign economic teamIra believed delivering universal health coverage was both morally and economically knock off chanel earrings imperative |
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