|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|
 |
OPRAH TALKS TO BILL CLINTON 
The 42nd president of the United States—who had one of the most colorful, controversial, adored, reviled reigns in American history—opens up about his mesmerizing, story-laden new memoir and what it's really like being president.
"My conversation with Bill Clinton really began three days before I met him at his house in Chappaqua, New York, when the pages of his (then still unbound) autobiography, My Life (Knopf), were delivered to me. By the time I finished the last sentence, I felt as if I had walked with Clinton through every step of his life and through part of American history." —Oprah Oprah: You write that it's one thing to know of the presidency, another to be president. When were you able to wrap your brain around the fullness and depth of the idea: I am president of the United States? Clinton: For me, it happened in stages. I first came to grips with it after the election, when I began making decisions during the transition. The second stage came when I was given the military codes. I realized that in a couple of hours, I'd actually have this authority. After I was inaugurated, there were a few days when I didn't feel comfortable with everybody tending to my every need. That was stage three. The fourth stage was when I realized that I had the job, and I had a high level of confidence in my decisions. I also realized I'd be required to make decisions I couldn't know whether were right or wrong until we saw the consequences. Oprah: When do you trust your own judgment versus that of the people around you? Clinton: Your gut has to kick in. I'll never forget what Al Gore once told me—that becoming president requires decisions at a whole different level of difficulty and complexity. I had to be prepared to go ahead and make mistakes, then put them behind me. And in the end, if you make your mistakes in good faith, and you make more good choices than bad ones, it comes out all right. In writing the book, I wanted people to understand what it feels like to be president—and how it all happens at once. Oprah: I got it—and I wouldn't want it. There isn't enough money in the world to pay me to do that job! Clinton: I loved it. Even on the worst days, there was always something you could do that would make a difference. I had a big, ambitious agenda—big enough to choke a horse. Every president comes in with commitments. Contrary to what many think, virtually every president has tried to do what he said he would do when he got elected. You pursue the agenda, then other things intervene. I didn't run on Somalia. I didn't run on natural disasters. Things happen that you have no control over. George Bush ran on getting rid of Saddam Hussein, not on 9/11. You have to deal with the world as it unfolds, without giving up your vision of where you want to be at the end of your term. One measure of success is the extent to which you continue to pursue your agenda while dealing with the incoming fire. More of Bill Clinton and Oprah Oprah sat down with the former President on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Candid. Revealing. More of what you want to know.
Have you missed an Oprah's Cut? Listen in on other interviews with Nelson Mandela, Quincy Jones, Madeleine Albright, and more remarkable people.
To read the entire interview, pick up the August 2004 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine. Subscribe now!
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
