His Side of The Story

(4 of 9)

The other thing that I learned about was the impact of my whole life on my marriage. You bring the person you are to the altar, not just the person you want to be. Hillary made me a heck of a lot better a fellow than I would have been otherwise. But I was still the person I was as a child. We dealt with all that, and I talked to my daughter about all that. It was really a good thing. I believe in this. I believe that even marriages that end in divorce, maybe even especially marriages that end in divorce, should have the benefit of this because then both parties will know in good conscience that they gave it their best shot.

On why he never fired FBI Director Louis Freeh

If I had known that when we tripled the counterterrorism funds none of it was put into improving the data processing and interconnecting with the CIA and other intelligence agencies, if I had known that the Executive Order I signed fairly early in my Administration ordering the CIA and the FBI to exchange high-level people and cooperate more hadn't been done, I might have done so.

But since the FBI chief gets a presumptive 10-year term, I didn't feel what I thought was outrageous treatment of us, particularly by him personally, was worth replacing him, because all of you [in the media] would have said, Well, he's doing it because he's got something to hide, and I didn't have anything to hide. I knew there was nothing to Whitewater, I knew there was nothing to the Paula Jones case--Ken Starr could have as many FBI agents as he wanted doing whatever they wanted to do.

On the challenges of the presidency

I'm trying to show [in the book] how everything happens at once. You come to office. If you're fortunate, you have a theory of the case. You know where America is, where America ought to go, and what you think you ought to do to take it there. And so you pursue that agenda. And then almost without exception, there are other things you have to deal with. First, unanticipated events. When I ran for President, I didn't dream that within a year I'd be dealing with what happened in Somalia. George Bush certainly didn't believe he'd be dealing with 9/11.

Then there's always an opposing party. And sometimes they see their job as to stop you from doing yours. So you have to find a way to work with them and, hopefully, to reach an honorable compromise without looking like you sold out. You have to make judgments about when to hold, when to fold. And I think that the whole American system was set up to force people to compromise. So I don't think it's a bad thing. But there are some things that aren't acceptable. That's why I try to go through in some detail in the welfare-reform section why I vetoed the two bills I vetoed, why I signed the bill I signed.