SLICK WILLIE’S SLICK WILLIE
Bill Clinton often expressed his admiration for Jack Kennedy. Indeed, Bill traveled to Washington in 1963 as a member of the youth group Boy’s Nation, where he met JFK and shook his hand. But Clinton had more in common with his idol than politics. Like Kennedy, Clinton seemed to be a reckless, no-holds-barred, let’s-hope-my-wife-doesn’t-catch-me sex addict.
According to Christopher Andersen, author of Bill and Hillary: The Marriage, Clinton is rumored to have fondled a woman in the bathroom during the reception at his own wedding; two former Miss Arkansas winners have claimed to have had sex with him; and a woman named Juanita Broaddrick claimed that she’d been raped by Clinton in 1978. (Broaddrick’s husband made a scene at a 1980 campaign party, threatening to kill Clinton if he ever came near Juanita again.) He allegedly had a twenty-five-year affair with fellow lawyer Dolly Kyle and a fifteen-year affair with Susan McDougal (who would end up doing time for contempt of court in the Whitewater investigations). Arkansas trooper Larry Douglas Brown, who was engaged to the nanny of the Clintons’ daughter, Chelsea, swore in a deposition that he was charged with personally contacting hundreds of women to have sex with Governor Clinton. Brown also testified that Clinton showed a passion for having sex in locales that could easily be discovered. Such dangerous behavior was apparently part of the thrill.
JONES IN’
Then there’s Paula Jones. She claims that, in 1991, Clinton invited her up to a Little Rock hotel room and exposed himself. While investigating this charge, special prosecutor Kenneth Starr—intent on drumming up evidence that Clinton was predisposed toward having extramarital affairs—interviewed the president about Monica Lewinsky, who was rumored to have had a relationship with Clinton. He denied it. But when Lewinsky’s friend Linda Tripp produced a taped conversation in which Lewinsky admitted having an affair with Clinton, Starr had his proof. Clinton was forced to renege on his denial, and in 1998, Starr produced evidence that the president had lied during testimony in the Paula Jones suit. Clinton was also accused of coaching his secretary to mislead prosecutors and of using his political influence to get Lewinsky a job in New York to get her out of Washington. He became the first president since Andrew Johnson to be impeached by the House of Representatives. The Senate, however, failed to reach the two-thirds majority needed to remove him from office.
And for what did Bill Clinton suffer all this ignominious attention? What did he and Lewinsky share? Fellatio. Phone sex. Fondling. Could it have been good enough to risk a presidency?
IN DEEP WHITEWATER
By the time the Monica Lewinsky nonsense blew up in Clinton’s face, he had already experienced more than his fair share of scandals. In 1994, Clinton’s own attorney general, Janet Reno, appointed an independent counsel to investigate the long-standing allegations that Bill and Hillary Clinton had been involved in illegal financial dealings with a failed Arkansas development scheme called the Whitewater Development Corporation. Originally headed by Robert Fiske, the investigation was ultimately taken over by a ruthless Republican bloodhound named Kenneth Starr. Though Starr would ultimately be incapable of drumming up enough evidence concerning Whitewater to convict the first family of wrongdoing, his investigation would eventually take on the Paula Jones suit—which, as we know, ended up getting Clinton impeached. Here are some of the other scandals that, bit by bit, hacked away at Clinton’s credibility:
In 1993, the Clinton administration sacked the seven employees of the White House travel office and began using the services of an Arkansas-based travel company operated by an old Clinton friend. “Travelgate” resulted in predictably noisy criticism, jolting the Clintons into hiring back most of the original travel office employees.
White House counsel Vincent Foster committed suicide in 1993, possibly over fallout from Travelgate and other administration burdens. Hillary Clinton’s assistant Maggie Williams was seen leaving his office with files before the room could be cordoned off by the police—files that many have insisted could’ve indicted the Clintons for their Whitewater dealings.
The Clintons were accused of fundraising violations that included taking money from lobbyists for the Chinese government and a scheme in which campaign donors were rewarded with “sleepovers” at the White House.
Clinton couldn’t avoid scandal even after he left the White House. One of his final acts as president was to issue 140 pardons—some of which appeared to be in exchange for contributions to his presidential library or to wife Hillary’s Senate campaign. Many leaders in both parties were outraged, particularly regarding the pardon issued to Marc Rich, a billionaire who’d fled to Europe after getting socked with charges of tax evasion, racketeering, and fraud—and whose ex-wife donated $400,000 to the Clinton library foundation. Oof.
WAIT PROBLEM
On his inauguration day, Bill Clinton was twenty-seven minutes late for his customary courtesy call on the Bushes. It was a sign of things to come: The new president seemed almost incapable of keeping his appointments on time. He once kept Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist waiting forty-five minutes and even showed up late for his formal greeting of the king of Spain. It wasn’t just those in government who found themselves remaking their schedules around the president’s sloppy timekeeping—Air Force One once held up air traffic at the Los Angeles airport while Clinton got a $200 haircut from famed stylist Christophe.
43 GEORGE W. BUSH
July 6, 1946–
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Cancer
TERM OF PRESIDENCY: 2001–2009
PARTY: Republican
AGE UPON TAKING OFFICE: 54
VICE PRESIDENT: Richard Cheney
RAN AGAINST: Al Gore
HEIGHT: 5′11″
NICKNAMES: “Junior,” “Dubya”
SOUND BITE: “A key to foreign policy is to rely on reliance.”
On September 11, 2001, militant Islamic terrorists succeeded in crashing two jets into the World Trade Center and another into the Pentagon. It was the most tragic day in modern American history and one that would come to define the administration of George W. Bush. But if it was Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda organization that made Americans realize how vulnerable they were at home, it was, by a controversial turn of events, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq that would become the focus of George W. Bush’s administration—a fact that ultimately divided his country and the world.
In 1976, Bush was arrested for driving under the influence in Kennebunkport, Maine. He paid a $150 fine and temporarily lost his driving privileges.
George Walker Bush was raised in Texas but followed in his father’s footsteps by attending some of the most prestigious schools in the Northeast. After graduating from Andover, Bush partied his way through Yale, then joined the Texas Air National Guard, which spared him from service in Vietnam. Despite his below-average grades and binge drinking, he managed to get into Harvard and graduated in 1975 with an M.B.A. Then it was back to Texas, where Bush founded an oil and gas exploration firm, made an unsuccessful run for Congress, and became a managing partner in the Texas Rangers baseball team. Bush’s most valued asset seems to have been his father: Those willing to curry favor with the elder Bush did business with the younger one, and George W. soon became a rich man. He was elected governor of Texas in 1994, won a second term in 1998, and announced his bid for the presidency the following year.
Bush was a political lightweight whose Democratic opponent in the 2000 presidential race, Al Gore, was light-years ahead of him intellectually. But Gore had two strikes against him: His vice presidency under Bill Clinton, whose scandalous administration had exhausted the nation’s patience, and his stiff public persona, which made him appear like a talking two-by-four. Such failings were enough to damn Gore in many voters’ eyes, despite his opponent’s empty-headed campaign errors. (For example, Bush made a point of speaking at the preposterously conservative Bob Jones University, an anachronistic institution that banned interracial dating.)
In the end, more Americans
voted for Gore, but not enough to offset the shenanigans that resulted in an electoral college victory for Bush. When it looked as if voting machines in Florida were improperly processing voting cards and that the voting cards in some counties were confusing, Gore insisted on a hand count to ensure accuracy. After Florida’s secretary of state certified Bush the winner, the issue went to the Florida Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of an extension. As the new deadline approached, Bush—despite being an avowed states’ rights man—went over Florida’s head and appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. With most of the judges in the Republican camp, they sided with Bush, who then became the forty-third president.
George W. is the second son of a previous president to become president. And, like the last one to do it, John Quincy Adams, Bush secured his office without a mandate from the people. His problems didn’t stop there: The “tech wreck” of 2000 had sent the economy into a tailspin, and Bush’s appointment to the cabinet of such ultraconservatives as Attorney General John Ashcroft offended more than a few Americans. Then came the attacks of September 11. Americans rallied around the president as he attempted to lead the nation out of horror and disillusionment. While the scandals of Enron and WorldCom racked the people’s confidence in national corporate institutions, the Bush administration ramped up the war on terror with the creation of a Homeland Security Department and a mostly successful war against militant Islamic forces in Afghanistan.
As Bush’s relatively high approval ratings reflected confidence in his willingness to confront terrorism, his administration felt compelled to expand the conflict. Ever since the Gulf War of 1991, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had defied United Nations resolutions to account for weapons of mass destruction again and again, and Bush felt it was time to do something about it. Insisting on a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda, Bush—citing Saddam Hussein’s appalling record of invasion, murder, and chemical weapons programs—pushed for a disarmament of Iraq or else. This was all well and good; anybody with more than seven brain cells could see that Saddam was a sadistic cur. But skeptics in the U.S. and abroad raised plenty of important questions: Wasn’t Al Qaeda the real threat? Didn’t it take precedence? Was Dubya merely settling an old score, one that his pop had failed to finish? And where was the irrefutable evidence of complicity between Iraq and Al Qaeda? As U.N.-sponsored weapons inspectors combed Iraq for evidence of biological, chemical, and nuclear threats, U.N. members such as France, Germany, Russia, and China began to fear the reckless flexing of American muscle at least as much as anything Iraq might try. As Bush’s saber-rattling got louder, the world only became more and more wary of an America that seemed heedless of other nations’ desire to proceed cautiously.
Despite all the opposition, Bush and his British ally launched the military option against Iraq, and with predictable results. The Iraqi military was swept aside, leaving the world to decide how a democratic government should be created in a place that has known nothing but ruthless autocracy for decades. And, not surprisingly, Dubya’s approval ratings went back up. But as the 2004 campaign loomed, he faced a dilemma uncannily similar to the one his father faced at reelection: how to leverage military success abroad into political victory at home despite an economy that couldn’t seem to pull itself out of the toilet. Oh, and there’s still that Al Qaeda problem. Remember those guys?
Bush lucked out when the Democrats found perhaps the only major political figure capable of losing a debate to W. and made him their 2004 presidential candidate. John Kerry had served for nearly two decades as a Massachusetts senator and won numerous military honors serving his country in Vietnam. But he was a stiff on the stump who seemed to be forever searching for the right thing to say. Kerry proved so unlikable that the Bush campaign even managed to turn the three Purple Heart medals Kerry had received in Vietnam against him, making claims through surrogates that he may have really deserved only two of them.
Things went from bad to worse during Bush’s second term, with many calling him the least effective president in U.S. history. The big turning point came in the summer of 2005, when Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans. The city’s overmatched levees failed and floodwaters raged through its downtown. Images of stranded refugees and dead bodies floating through a major American city appalled the nation and the world. As did W.’s response to it all—or lack thereof. Because while New Orleans and several other Gulf Coast communities drowned, Bush fiddled away on another long vacation at his Crawford ranch. When, a few days later, he finally showed up in New Orleans searching for a heroic photo op, it was too late.
With the economy faltering, gas prices skyrocketing (along with profits for oil companies), Osama bin Laden still on the loose, and U.S. troops fully entrenched in a WMD-free Iraq, W. ended his term with record low job-approval ratings. By the last year of his term, 80 percent of Americans believed the country had headed in the wrong direction during his presidency. In the 2006 midterm elections Republicans had lost control of both houses of Congress, and Bush served out the rest of his term as the lamest of lame ducks.
One More for the Road
Though rumors of Dubya’s alleged cocaine usage have remained unproven, there is no doubt that he was an avowed drinker in his younger days—and he has the police record to prove it. While driving (swerving, actually) near his family’s compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, on Labor Day weekend 1976, Bush was pulled over and arrested for driving under the influence. He was taken into custody and fined $150, and his driving privileges were suspended. Years later, Bush put his drinking days behind him: He became a teetotaler after his fortieth birthday in 1986.
OFF HE GOES, INTO THE WILD BLUE YONDER . . .
During the course of the Vietnam War, many young men joined the National Guard as a way of avoiding service in Southeast Asia. Guard units were far more likely to stay home than get shipped overseas. With this in mind, Dubya took some tests to join the Texas Air National Guard in 1968—and scored in the 25th percentile. Despite his low marks and a waiting list of five hundred, Bush got into flight school. How? According to author Paul Begala in Is Our Children Learning?, Texas House Speaker Ben Barnes pulled some strings on Dubya’s behalf at the request of Sid Adger, a friend of the Bush dynasty.
Once in uniform, however, Bush seems not to have taken his duties all that seriously. In 1972, he decided to help Alabama Republican Winton Blount in a race for the Senate and requested a transfer to the Alabama National Guard. But after getting his transfer approved, Bush—according to the records—failed to report to his new command. In fact, not a single person or sheet of paper can attest to Bush’s service in Alabama. It’s as if he spent all his time working on Blount’s behalf and shirked his military responsibilities. When he was pressed on the issue, Dubya’s response wasn’t exactly encouraging: “I can’t remember what I did.” Hmmm.
GIVING ’EM THE BUSINESS
George W. Bush is the first president to have an M.B.A. But though he’s a rich man, his business dealings seem rather unimpressive, if not downright suspicious. Dubya founded Arbusto, his Texas oil and gas exploration firm, in 1977. The start-up money came from some very wealthy guys who apparently wanted to get in tight with Dubya’s father, the other George Bush, who was by now a Washington bigwig. But despite some serious cash injections, Arbusto very nearly went el-busto, and Dubya was forced to sell the firm (now called Bush Exploration) to a firm called Spectrum 7—which, in turn, was bought by Harken Energy. Throughout the series of transitions, George W. exhibited a conspicuous lack of business sense or managerial skill. He did, however, leverage the Bush family name, which always persuaded companies like Spectrum 7 and Harken Energy to keep him on. When you’re the son of a vice-president turned president, you don’t need to make decisions—you just have to impress investors, which Dubya always did. His connections raised the cash.
Apparently not enough, however. Harken’s creditors eventually threatened to foreclose, and Bush—who was a director of the firm—sold two-thirds of his sto
ck in Harken in June 1990, making a titanic profit before the company bottomed out. Did he know that Harken was in trouble? Did he profit from the debacle? We may never know. But Bush failed to report his stock sale when it happened, waiting eight months after the legal deadline to file it.
TWISTED
On January 13, 2002, George W. Bush sat watching a football game. Suddenly, he slumped off the couch, his head thumping upon the floor, giving him an abrasion. A pretzel had become lodged in his throat, choking him and causing a brief period of unconsciousness. Times are tough indeed when the Secret Service has to start paying close attention to the White House snack food.
??????, TAKE 2
Like his father, George W. Bush has vocalized plenty of brain farts that are truly astonishing. Consider these examples:
“I understand small business growth. I was one.”
“If you’re sick and tired of the politics of cynicism and polls and principles, come and join this campaign.”
“Reading is the basics for all learning.”
“Governor Bush will not stand for the subsidation of failure.”
“We ought to make the pie higher.”
Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents Page 21