He also never allowed his ego to get in the way... He also never allowed his ego to get in the way of good decision making
George Stephanopoulos was leaving, tooHe had told me not long before the election that he was burned out and had to goUntil I read his memoir, I had no idea how difficult the pressure-packed years had been for him, or how hard he had been on himself, and meGeorge was going on to a career in teaching and television, where I hoped he would be happier
Within two weeks I had filled the remaining vacancies in the cabinetI named Bill Daley of Chicago to be secretary of commerce after Mickey Kantor, to my regret, told me he wanted to return to private lifeDaley was a talented man who had led our campaign for NAFTACharlene Barshefsky had been acting trade representative in the eight months since Mickey Kantor had gone to CommerceShe was doing a terrific job, and it was time to take the word acting out of her title
I also appointed Alexis Herman to succeed Bob Reich at the Labor Department; Assistant HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo to follow Henry Cisneros at HUD; Federico Pea to replace Hazel OLeary at Energy; Rodney Slater, the federal highway administrator, to succeed Pea as secretary of transportation; Aida Alvarez to become head of the Small Business Administration; Gene Sperling to head the
coco chanel jewelry National Economic Council on the departure of Laura Tyson; DrJanet Yellen, who had taught Larry Summers at Harvard, to be chair of the Council of Economic Advisers; Bruce Reed to be my domestic policy advisor, replacing Carol Rasco, who was going to the Department of Education to run our America Reads program; and Sylvia Matthews, a brilliant young woman who worked for Bob Rubin, to replace Harold Ickes as deputy chief of staff
Bob Reich had done a good job at the Department of Labor and as a member of the economic team, but it was becoming difficult for him; he disagreed with my economic and budget policies, believing I had put too much emphasis on deficit reduction and invested too little in education, training, and new technologiesBob also wanted to go home to Massachusetts to his wife, Clare, and their sons
I was heartsick about losing Henry CisnerosWe had been friends since before I ran for President, and he had done a brilliant job at HUDFor more than a year, Henry had been subject to an investigation by an independent counsel for making incorrect statements about his personal expenses in his FBI vetting interview for the HUD jobThe law made it a crime for a nominee to make a material misstatement, one that would affect the confirmation processSenator Al DAmato,
omega automatic seamaster watch whose committee had recommended Cisneross confirmation, wrote a letter saying that Henrys misstatement of the details of his expenses would not have affected his vote or that of any other senator on the committeeProsecutors from the Justice Departments public integrity office argued against a special prosecutor
Unfortunately, Janet Reno referred the Cisneros case to Judge Sentelles panel anywayTrue to form, they saddled him with a Republi-can special prosecutor: David Barrett, an active partisan who, though accused of no wrongdoing, reportedly had close ties with officials who were convicted in the HUD scandals of the Reagan administrationNo one had accused Henry of any impropriety in his job, but he had been plunged into Whitewater World anywayHenrys legal bills had left him deeply in debt and he had two kids in collegeHe had to earn more money to support his family and pay his lawyersI was just thankful he had stayed for the full four years
Though I had made a lot of changes, I thought we could maintain the spirit of camaraderie and teamwork that had marked the first termMost of the new appointees were transferring from other positions in the administration, and many of my cabinet members were staying put
There were several interesting developments in foreign
louis vuitton travel bags policy in DecemberOn the thirteenth, the UN Security Council, with the strong support of the United States, selected a new secretary-general, Kofi Annan of GhanaAnnan was the first person from sub-Saharan Africa to hold the postAs the UN undersecretary for peacekeeping during the previous four years, he had supported our efforts in Bosnia and HaitiMadeleine Albright thought he was an exceptional leader and had urged me to support him, as had Warren Christopher, Tony Lake, and Dick HolbrookeKofi was an intelligent, impressive man with a quiet but commanding presenceHe had given most of his professional life in service to the United Nations, but he was not blind to its shortcomings, nor wedded to its bad habitsInstead, he was committed to making the UNs operations more efficient and more accountableThat was important on the merits and vital to my ability to persuade the congressional Republicans to pay our UN dues billion in arrears, and since 1995, when the Republicans took over, the Congress had refused to pay until the UN reformed itselfI thought the refusal to pay our back dues was irresponsible and damaging to both the UN and the United States, but I agreed that reform was imperative
In the Middle East, Prime Minister Netanyahu and Chairman Arafat were trying to
louis vuitton purses resolve their differences, with Netanyahu going to Gaza for three hours of talks on Christmas Eve dayAs the year ended, my envoy, Dennis Ross, was shuttling back and forth between them, trying to close a deal on the turnover of Hebron to the PalestiniansIt wasnt done yet, but I began 1997 with more hope for the peace process than Id had in months
After spending the first days of the New Year on StVirgin Islands, a part of our nation Presidents rarely visit, my family went home to get ready for the inauguration and my fifth year as PresidentIn many ways, it would be the most normal year of my presidency so farFor most of the year, Whitewater World was just a low-grade fever that spiked up from time to time with the campaign finance investigations, and I was free to do my job
In the run-up to the inauguration, we held a series of events to emphasize that things were going in the right direction, highlighting 11 million new jobs in the previous four years, the largest decline in the crime rate in twenty-five years, and a 40 percent drop in the student-loan default rate
I corrected an old injustice by giving the Congressional Medal of Honor to seven African-American veterans of World War IIAmazingly, no Medals of Honor had ever been awarded to blacks who served in
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