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— CH. 1 · INTRODUCTION —

Bill Clinton

~13 min read · Ch. 1 of 8
8 sections
  • Bill Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III on the 19th of August 1946, in Hope, Arkansas, three months after his father died in an automobile accident. His mother, Virginia, left him with her parents while she studied nursing in New Orleans. By the time he finished law school, shook hands with John F. Kennedy as a Boys Nation senator, and heard Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech on television, the trajectory of his life had already been set. He became the 42nd president of the United States in 1993, and his eight years in office would encompass the longest peacetime economic expansion in American history, a landmark impeachment trial, and a governing philosophy so distinctive it earned its own name: Clintonism. How did a boy from a small Arkansas town who never knew his biological father become one of the most consequential and scrutinized political figures of the twentieth century? And what does his record reveal about the costs of ambition when it collides with personal failing?

  • Virginia Kelley returned from nursing school in 1950 and married Roger Clinton Sr., who co-owned an automobile dealership in Hot Springs. The family moved there that same year. Roger Clinton Sr. was, by Bill's own account, a gambler and an alcoholic who regularly abused his family. The physical abuse stopped only when a fourteen-year-old Bill confronted his stepfather and told him to stand and face him; the verbal abuse continued. Bill would eventually forgive Roger Sr., but the encounter shaped him. It was not until he was fifteen that Bill formally adopted the Clinton surname as a gesture toward the man who had made his home life so difficult.

    At Hot Springs High School, Clinton played the tenor saxophone well enough to win first chair in the state band's saxophone section. He performed for two years in a jazz trio called The 3 Kings alongside Randy Goodrum, who later became a professional pianist. He briefly weighed a music career, but concluded his skills would never match the best musicians and turned toward politics instead. The path became clearer in a high school Latin class, where he argued the defense of the ancient Roman senator Catiline in a mock trial. Afterward, he told his Latin teacher Elizabeth Buck that the experience made him realize he would one day study law.

    Two moments in 1963 crystallized the direction. Clinton visited the White House as a Boys Nation senator and shook hands with President Kennedy. He also watched Martin Luther King Jr. deliver the "I Have a Dream" speech on television, and was so moved he later memorized it. These experiences pointed him toward public life with a force he would never fully resist.

  • Georgetown was the only university Clinton applied to, and he earned his Bachelor of Science in foreign service in 1968. Between 1964 and 1967, he clerked in the office of Arkansas senator J. William Fulbright, an early exposure to foreign policy thinking that would leave a lasting mark. He then won a Rhodes Scholarship to University College, Oxford, where he befriended fellow American scholar Frank Aller. When Aller received a draft letter in 1969 ordering deployment to Vietnam, the two young men talked openly about the war. Aller died by suicide in 1971, a loss that Clinton said had an influential impact on him.

    Sara Maitland, a British writer who knew both men at Oxford, recalled the three of them in a pub on Walton Street in the summer of 1969. She remembered Clinton saying that feeling bad about the napalming of civilians was not good enough, and that it was the first time she encountered the idea that liberal sensitivities required action, not just sentiment.

    Clinton's own relationship with the draft was tangled. He received educational deferments, organized a Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam event in October 1969, and ultimately arranged to join the ROTC program at the University of Arkansas. He then declined to join, writing to the officer in charge that he opposed the war but did not think it honorable to use ROTC or Reserve service as cover for avoiding Vietnam. He registered for the draft and received a high number of 311, making it unlikely he would be called up. The highest number actually drafted was 195. Colonel Eugene Holmes, the Army officer involved in the ROTC application, later issued a notarized statement saying he believed Clinton had manipulated the process to avoid service. The controversy resurfaced during the 1992 campaign, where Clinton's campaign manager James Carville chose to make the letter public, betting that many voters who had also opposed the war would find Clinton's position understandable.

  • After earning his law degree at Yale in 1973, Clinton returned to Arkansas and became a law professor. His first run for office, a 1974 House race against incumbent Republican John Paul Hammerschmidt, came close. Hammerschmidt had received 77 percent of the vote in 1972 and defeated Clinton by only a 52-48 margin, a result shaped partly by public anger over the Watergate scandal.

    By 1978, Clinton entered the gubernatorial primary at 31 years old, one of the youngest such candidates in the state's history. He won, becoming the youngest governor in the country at the time and the second youngest in Arkansas history. His youth was notable enough that he became known as the "Boy Governor." His first term was derailed by an unpopular motor vehicle tax and public fury over the escape of Cuban refugees from the Mariel boatlift, detained at Fort Chaffee in 1980. A little-known candidate named Monroe Schwarzlose, of Kingsland in Cleveland County, pulled 31 percent of the vote against Clinton in the 1980 Democratic primary, a warning sign Clinton did not heed in time. He lost the governorship that November to Republican Frank D. White.

    He returned to office in 1982 and held it for a decade. Among his most consequential achievements was the overhaul of Arkansas's education system. The Arkansas Education Standards Committee, chaired by Hillary Clinton, proposed more school funding through a sales-tax increase, higher teacher salaries, compulsory teacher competency exams, and better vocational education. The reforms passed in September 1983 after Clinton called the longest special legislative session in Arkansas history. Many observers later considered this the greatest achievement of his governorship. He removed the sales tax on medications for senior citizens and increased the home property-tax exemption. He chaired the National Governors Association from 1986 to 1987, giving him a national platform far beyond Arkansas's borders.

  • Clinton's 1992 presidential run nearly collapsed before it found its footing. At the Iowa Caucus, the first primary contest, he finished a distant third to Iowa senator Tom Harkin. Then, during the campaign for the New Hampshire primary, reports emerged that Clinton had engaged in an extramarital affair with Gennifer Flowers. He fell far behind former Massachusetts senator Paul Tsongas in the polls. Clinton and Hillary appeared on 60 Minutes after Super Bowl XXVI to address the allegations. The appearance was a calculated risk. He finished second to Tsongas in New Hampshire, but because he had trailed so badly and closed the gap to within single digits, the press branded him "The Comeback Kid."

    He locked up big delegate prizes in Florida, Texas, and the Southern primaries on Super Tuesday. Former California governor Jerry Brown continued to win contests, and Clinton needed to prove he was not simply a regional candidate. A strong victory in New York City settled the question. He secured the Democratic nomination with a final win in Brown's home state of California.

    On the 26th of March 1992, at a Democratic fundraiser, AIDS activist Robert Rafsky confronted Clinton and demanded to know what he would do about the epidemic. Clinton replied, "I feel your pain." The televised exchange brought AIDS into the 1992 campaign as a formal issue. A month later, Clinton met with members of ACT UP and other leading AIDS advocates and agreed to make a major policy speech on the subject.

    Clinton won 370 electoral votes against incumbent George H. W. Bush's 168. Independent Ross Perot, running on domestic issues, received no electoral votes. The victory ended twelve years of Republican White House control and gave Democrats control of Congress for the first time since the presidency of Jimmy Carter.

  • Clinton was inaugurated on the 20th of January 1993, and the early weeks were rough. His first nominee for Attorney General, Zoe Baird, had to withdraw after it came out she had employed an undocumented immigrant as a nanny; his second nominee, Kimba Wood, withdrew for the same reason. A $16-billion stimulus package was killed by a Republican filibuster in the Senate.

    What survived was the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which required large employers to allow unpaid leave for pregnancy or serious illness. Two days after taking office, Clinton reversed Reagan-era and Bush-era restrictions on domestic and international family planning programs, saying abortion should be kept "safe, legal, and rare." Over the eight years of his administration, the abortion rate declined by 18 percent.

    The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 passed Congress without a single Republican vote. It cut taxes for 15 million low-income families, made tax cuts available to 90 percent of small businesses, and raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.2 percent of taxpayers. On the 30th of November 1993, Clinton signed the Brady Bill, mandating federal background checks on firearm purchases and imposing a five-day waiting period.

    Health care reform was the greatest legislative failure of the first term. A plan aimed at universal coverage, overseen by a task force Hillary Clinton chaired, collapsed in August 1994 when compromise legislation by George J. Mitchell failed to gain majority support. Clinton biographer John F. Harris attributed the failure partly to poor coordination inside the White House. On the 1st of January 1994, Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement into law, a move that revealed the ideological fault lines within his own party: it passed the House with 234 votes in favor and 200 opposed, with the supporting bloc a mix of Republicans and Democrats.

    After Democrats suffered a heavy defeat in the 1994 midterms, losing Congress for the first time in forty years, Clinton shifted rightward on domestic policy. He signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, overhauling welfare. He also signed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, which defined marriage for federal purposes as between one man and one woman. GLAAD later honored him for his pro-gay stances and his eventual reversal on that law. In January 1994, his administration launched the first official White House website, whitehouse.gov, part of a broader push to move federal agencies and courts onto the internet.

    The Congressional Budget Office reported budget surpluses of $69 billion in 1998, $126 billion in 1999, and $236 billion in 2000. Clinton appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer to the Supreme Court. He won re-election in 1996 with 379 electoral votes, defeating Republican Bob Dole and again outpacing Ross Perot, becoming the first Democrat to win two consecutive presidential elections since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

  • In 1993, two U.S. helicopters were shot down over Mogadishu by rocket-propelled grenades, trapping soldiers behind enemy lines. The resulting urban battle killed 18 American soldiers, wounded 73, and took one prisoner. Television coverage showed supporters of warlord Mohammed Aidid desecrating the corpses of troops. Public backlash prompted a more cautious approach to military intervention for the rest of Clinton's presidency.

    In April 1994, genocide broke out in Rwanda. Intelligence reports indicate Clinton was aware that a "final solution to eliminate all Tutsis" was underway long before his administration used the word "genocide" publicly. Fearing a repeat of Somalia, Clinton chose not to intervene. He has since called this one of his main foreign policy failings, saying, "I don't think we could have ended the violence, but I think we could have cut it down. And I regret it."

    In Bosnia, Clinton pressured European leaders to adopt a firm military posture against Bosnian Serbs. U.S. and NATO aircraft bombed Bosnian Serb targets in 1995 to halt attacks on UN safe zones, and Clinton deployed peacekeepers to uphold the subsequent Dayton Agreement. In November 1995, he became the first president to visit Northern Ireland, examining both divided communities of Belfast during a ceasefire in the Troubles. He played a key role in the peace talks that produced the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

    In 1994, Clinton declared Iran a "state sponsor of terrorism" and a "rogue state", the first American president to use that term. In response to al-Qaeda's 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa, which killed 224 people including 12 Americans, Clinton ordered cruise missile strikes on terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and on the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan. The factory was destroyed. One employee died and 11 were wounded. U.S. officials later acknowledged no evidence existed that the factory was manufacturing or storing nerve gas. The attack drew criticism from journalists and academics including Christopher Hitchens and Seymour Hersh.

    Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act on the 31st of October 1998, instituting a policy of "regime change" against Iraq without providing for direct U.S. military intervention. That December, he launched a four-day bombing campaign, Operation Desert Fox, against Iraqi targets. In 1999, he authorized NATO's Operation Allied Force against Yugoslavia to halt what his administration described as ethnic cleansing of Albanians in Kosovo. General Wesley Clark served as Supreme Allied Commander. The UN Security Council Resolution 1244, signed on the 10th of June 1999, ended the bombing and placed Kosovo under UN administration. In 2001, the UN-supervised Supreme Court of Kosovo ruled that genocide had not occurred but recognized a systematic campaign of terror including murders, rapes, and arsons.

  • In early 1998, it became public that Clinton had engaged in an eighteen-month sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, who was 22 years old. The revelation grew into a constitutional crisis. Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives on the 19th of December 1998. The House voted 228-206 to impeach him for perjury to a grand jury and 221-212 for obstruction of justice. He became only the second president to be impeached, after Andrew Johnson.

    The perjury charge stemmed from Clinton's grand jury testimony about statements he had made in a sworn deposition during Paula Jones's sexual harassment lawsuit. The obstruction charge concerned his actions to conceal the Lewinsky relationship before and after that deposition. Clinton was represented by the Washington law firm Williams and Connolly. The Senate trial concluded on the 12th of February 1999, with a vote of 55 not guilty and 45 guilty on perjury, and an exact 50-50 split on obstruction of justice. Both fell short of the two-thirds majority required to convict. The final votes broke almost entirely along party lines, with no Democrats voting guilty.

    On the 19th of January 2001, Clinton's law license was suspended for five years after he acknowledged to an Arkansas circuit court that he had engaged in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice. Rather than appeal a subsequent Supreme Court suspension, he resigned from the bar entirely.

    On his last day in office, the 20th of January 2001, Clinton issued 141 pardons and 36 commutations. Controversy surrounded the pardon of Marc Rich, and federal prosecutor Mary Jo White was appointed to investigate; she was later replaced by then-Republican James Comey. The investigation found no wrongdoing on Clinton's part.

    Clinton left office with the joint-highest approval rating of any U.S. president. He created the Clinton Foundation to address international causes including HIV/AIDS prevention and global warming. He was named UN special envoy to Haiti in 2009, and after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, he founded the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund with George W. Bush. Following the death of Jimmy Carter in December 2024, Clinton became the earliest-serving living former president and the last surviving president to have served in the twentieth century. His presidency consistently ranks in the middle to upper tier of historical rankings, while his personal conduct has remained a subject of sustained scrutiny.

Common questions

When was Bill Clinton impeached and what were the charges?

Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives on the 19th of December 1998. The House voted 228-206 to impeach him for perjury to a grand jury and 221-212 for obstruction of justice, both related to his attempts to conceal his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. The Senate acquitted him on both charges on the 12th of February 1999.

What was Bill Clinton's Third Way or Clintonism philosophy?

Clintonism, also known as the Third Way, was a centrist approach to Democratic Party governance that emphasized fiscal conservatism, welfare reform, and smaller government alongside traditionally liberal causes. Clinton formally organized this movement through the Democratic Leadership Council and advocated that Democrats adopt a more centrist stance following Ronald Reagan's landslide victory in 1984.

What economic record did Bill Clinton leave when he left office?

Clinton presided over the longest peacetime economic expansion in American history up to that time. The Congressional Budget Office reported budget surpluses of $69 billion in 1998, $126 billion in 1999, and $236 billion in 2000, the first such surpluses since 1969. He left office in 2001 with the joint-highest approval rating of any U.S. president.

What were Bill Clinton's major foreign policy decisions?

Clinton ordered U.S. military intervention in the Bosnian and Kosovo wars and signed the Dayton Peace Agreement. He played a key role in the Northern Ireland peace process and the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO. He also signed the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 and ordered cruise missile strikes in Afghanistan and Sudan in response to al-Qaeda's bombing of U.S. embassies that killed 224 people.

How did Bill Clinton come to be known as the Comeback Kid?

Clinton earned the label during the 1992 New Hampshire primary after reports of an extramarital affair with Gennifer Flowers caused his poll numbers to collapse far behind Paul Tsongas. He and Hillary appeared on 60 Minutes after Super Bowl XXVI to address the allegations, and Clinton recovered enough to finish a close second in New Hampshire. The press interpreted his recovery from a severe polling deficit as a decisive comeback.

What were Bill Clinton's major domestic legislative achievements?

Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, the Brady Bill mandating federal background checks on firearm purchases, and the North American Free Trade Agreement on the 1st of January 1994. He signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, which cut taxes for 15 million low-income families and raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.2 percent of taxpayers. He also appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer to the Supreme Court.

All sources

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  83. 162magazineBill Clinton Backs Same-Sex MarriageMichael Tracey — July 14, 2009
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  155. 296webBill Clinton: A ReckoningCaitlin Flanagan — November 13, 2017
  156. 297newsShould Democrats turn their backs on Bill Clinton?Z. Byron Wolf — November 17, 2017
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  166. 320webJeffrey Epstein Visited Clinton White House Multiple Times in Early '90sSuzi ParkerEmily Shugerman Senior Reporter — July 24, 2019
  167. 321webJustice Department Releases Ghislaine Maxwell Interview TranscriptBrandi Buchman et al. — August 22, 2025
  168. 323webHow well did Bill Clinton know Jeffrey Epstein?James Hill — 18 November 2025
  169. 324newsJeffrey Epstein emails: Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew and moreDareh Gregorian et al. — November 12, 2025
  170. 330magazineAll the President's WomenDavid Plotz — January 29, 1998
  171. 332newsClinton Sex Allegation Lawsuit DroppedJosh Gerstein — February 22, 2001
  172. 335webBill Clinton Says He Opposed Iraq War from Start (UPDATED)Outside The Beltway — November 28, 2007
  173. 336newsLast-minute climate deals reachedDecember 10, 2005
  174. 337newsClinton Library open for businessNovember 18, 2004
  175. 338newsOprah Winfrey book deal tops Clinton's $12 mDan Glaister — May 22, 2006
  176. 340newsBest SellersSeptember 23, 2007
  177. 342web2006 Philadelphia Liberty Medal AwardConstitutioncenter.org
  178. 343newsSenior Bush, Clinton to Appear at Super BowlMark Maske — January 27, 2005
  179. 344newsBush, Clinton end tsunami visitFebruary 21, 2005
  180. 346webPlanetary Problem SolverJon Meacham — December 20, 2009
  181. 347webClinton Global InitiativeJune 19, 2011
  182. 350newsObama team turns scrutiny on Bill ClintonPeter Baker et al. — November 18, 2008
  183. 352newsClinton backs Prop. 87Peach Indravudh — UCLA — October 15, 2006
  184. 353newsBill Clinton 2007 speech haul tops $10 millionRobert Yoon — July 30, 2008
  185. 356webA Catharsis in Denver?Jonathan Alter — August 6, 2008
  186. 357newsBill Clinton vouches for Obama: now 'ready to lead'.Lynn Sweet — August 28, 2008
  187. 359newsBill Clinton Raffles Himself to Pay Hillary's Campaign DebtStephanie Condon — May 13, 2010
  188. 362newsBill Clinton and Journalists in Emotional Return to U.S.Mark Landler et al. — August 5, 2009
  189. 366newsClinton backs NTR's environment foundationEmmet Oliver — March 5, 2010
  190. 367webPresident Bill Clinton Delivers Keynote AddressNTR Foundation — March 4, 2010
  191. 368newsBill Clinton brings it for ObamaCNN — September 6, 2012
  192. 369newsBill Clinton Rallies for Hillary in WilmingtonWWAY News — October 26, 2016
  193. 370newsTrump goes after Bill Clinton over post-election commentsRebecca Shabad — December 20, 2016
  194. 372newsFormer presidents fundraise for Irma disaster reliefMallory Shelbourne — September 10, 2017
  195. 381webBill Clinton in WinterSeth Mandel — Commentary — November 4, 2024
  196. 382webClintons hope Trump, Vance 'will govern for all of us'Sarah Fortinsky — November 7, 2024
  197. 384newsDick Cheney's funeral was held today. Here's who spoke and how to watchKierra Frazier — CBS News — November 20, 2025
  198. 385newsEveryone Who Skipped Dick Cheney's Funeral and WhyMeredith Kile — People — November 20, 2025
  199. 386newsBill and Hillary Clinton visit Rev. Jesse Jackson in Chicago hospitalKade Heather — Chicago Sun-Times — November 21, 2025
  200. 387newsBill and Hillary Clinton visit Rev. Jesse Jackson at Northwestern Memorial HospitalEric Henderson — CBS Chicago — November 21, 2025
  201. 388webClintons Pay Off Legal BillsJune 14, 2005
  202. 389newsClintons made $109 Million in Last 8 YearsMike McIntire — April 5, 2008
  203. 393newsThe Bill and Hillary Clinton Money Machine Taps Corporate CashBrody Mullins et al. — July 1, 2014
  204. 394newsClinton Family Speeches Netted as Much as $26 Million for FoundationJennifer Epstein — Bloomberg News — May 22, 2015
  205. 396webHillary Clinton Defends High-Dollar Speaking FeesABC News and Good Morning America — June 9, 2014
  206. 397webBill's $500,000 Kuwait LectureSalameh Nematt — November 17, 2008
  207. 398newsClinton Eligible, Once Again, To Practice LawJosh Gerstein — January 17, 2006
  208. 399newsBill Clinton Ponders a Role as First GentlemanPatrick Healy — May 10, 2007
  209. 400newsForty Million Dollar Bill, Independent, 2007Daniel Bentley — February 24, 2007
  210. 401newsCash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium DealJo Becker et al. — April 23, 2015
  211. 403magazineThe Riddle of Bill Clinton's FaithPhilip Yancey — April 25, 1994
  212. 409newsBill Clinton in good spirits after heart procedureMark Egan — Reuters — February 11, 2010
  213. 410newsFrom omnivore to vegan: The dietary education of Bill ClintonDavid S. Martin — August 18, 2011
  214. 411webThis Is What Hillary Clinton EatsChris Heasman — April 16, 2018
  215. 415newsBill Clinton hospitalized with sepsisJoseph Choi — October 14, 2021
  216. 416newsBill Clinton back home after hospitalization from infectionHaven Daley — Associated Press — October 17, 2021
  217. 419newsFormer U.S. President Clinton tests positive for COVIDReuters — November 30, 2022
  218. 422newsFormer President Bill Clinton discharged from hospital after being treated for fluEdward-Isaac Dovere et al. — December 24, 2024
  219. 424webHonorary DegreesUNC-Chapel Hill Office of Faculty Governance — 1993
  220. 425webPresident Bill Clinton with an honorary doctorate of lawTulane University — May 19, 2006
  221. 426webClinton to address graduates, Honorary doctorate will be bestowedRIT News, Rochester Institute of Technology — May 18, 2007
  222. 427newsGU Honors Statesmen, Scientists, EducatorsTracey Hughes — May 24, 1980
  223. 430webClinton ElementaryCompton Unified School District
  224. 431webWilliam Jefferson Clinton Middle SchoolLos Angeles Unified School District
  225. 432webClinton School of Public serviceUniversity of Arkansas
  226. 433newsKosovo unveils Clinton's statueNovember 1, 2009
  227. 434newsKosovo to honor Bill Clinton with statueReuters — May 23, 2007
  228. 436newsDinner for a Presidential Library, Contributions WelcomeDon Jr. Van Natta — June 28, 1999
  229. 437newsStatue Watch: Bill Clinton EditionMike Nizza — May 23, 2007
  230. 438newsKosovo Struggles to Forge an IdentityDan Bilefsky — December 17, 2007
  231. 439newsKosovo: Forging an identity on eve of new eraDan Bilefsky — December 9, 2007
  232. 441magazineBill Clinton, Man of the YearJanuary 4, 1993
  233. 442newsKenneth Starr & Bill Clinton, Men of the YearNancy Gibbs — December 28, 1998
  234. 443bookThe Gallup Poll 1999Scholarly Resources Inc — 1999
  235. 444newsNAACP Honors, Cheers ClintonGreg Braxton — March 4, 2001
  236. 445newsPresident Bill Clinton BiographyAmericaLive — October 22, 2010
  237. 446web2007 TED Prize winner Bill Clinton on TEDTalksTED Blog — April 4, 2007
  238. 449webBill ClintonNovember 19, 2019
  239. 451web2005 AUDIE AWARDS®Audio Publishers Association
  240. 452newsObama awards Medal of Freedom to Clinton, Oprah, othersDavid Jackson — November 20, 2013