Living History by Unknown (best non fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

one hundred thousand people jammed into the narrow streets and across the green to hear the American President speak. Bill exhorted the immense crowd to work for peace, saying that no conflict is too intractable to remain forever unresolved and that the Troubles too could yield to a peaceful future.

After another address, before the Irish Parliament, known as the Dáil, we hit the streets for some shopping and a visit to Cassidy’s Pub. Our advance teams used genealogical information to track down any Cassidy who might be related to Bill, and they joined us inside for a pint of Guinness. I soon concluded that all the Irish are related in some way or another.

At Ambassador Smith’s residence early that evening we were thrilled to meet Seamus Heaney, the Nobel Prize-winning poet, and his wife, Marie. Heaney’s poem “The Cure at Troy” had inspired Bill’s theme that this was a time in Ireland “where hope and history rhyme.” Ireland invigorated and inspired me, and I wished we could bottle up the good feelings and take them back home.

A TIME TO SPEAK

Bill’s parting words in Belfast―“may the Christmas spirit of peace and goodwill flourish and grow in you”-hadn’t penetrated Washington, where partisan battles continued into the holiday season. The annual Congressional Ball, hosted by the White House on December 5, was attended by the same people who were fighting Bill over the budget and decking our halls with subpoenas. Yet they were eager to wait in a long receiving line in the Diplomatic Reception Room to be photographed with us. Bill of course welcomed everyone warmly. It wasn’t until the next day that he showed the Republican leaders his steel when he vetoed the seven-year budget reconciliation bill for fiscal year 1996.

The Republicans had incorporated brutal cuts in environmental protections, education funding and programs that help poor women, children and seniors, including Medicaid and Medicare. Bill signed the veto with the same pen that Lyndon Johnson had used thirty years earlier when he signed Medicare into law. At stake, Bill pointed out, were “two very different futures for America.” He knew the Republicans didn’t have the necessary votes to override a presidential veto, and he urged them to soften their positions and negotiate with the White House to break the impasse. But Gingrich’s revolutionary freshmen refused to budge from their ideological crusade to dismantle the power of the federal government.

The government’s authority to spend money expired again at midnight on December 16. This time there was a “partial” shutdown―some federal workers were furloughed, working without a paycheck until the government reopened. It was a truly terrible hardship to impose on people, especially during the holidays. And before Congress recessed for its Christmas break on December 22, Gingrich Republicans added to the callousness by passing a radical welfare reform act that, if left to stand, would imperil millions of vulnerable women and children.

Welfare reform had been debated by Bill’s staff since the presidential campaign, when Bill promised to “end welfare as we know it.” I agreed that the system was broken and needed to be fixed, but I was adamant that whatever reform we advocated would ensure an adequate safety net that provided incentives for individuals to move from welfare to work. I expressed my opinions vigorously and often to my husband as well as to his staff members charged with shaping reform. I argued that any reform package must preserve Medicaid and provide child care for working mothers. Although I stayed out of the public debate, I actively participated in the internal one. I made clear to Bill and his policy advisers in the West Wing that if I thought they were caving in to a meanspirited Republican bill that was harmful to women and children, I would publicly oppose it. I understood Bill’s dilemma, and I wanted to influence his decision. Bill’s staff worked with mine and we made some real progress in framing a rebuttal to the Republicans. The President vetoed the Republican welfare bill as promised.

The Republicans finally were being held accountable for both the budget impasse and the shutdowns, and the drop in their approval ratings led to a fracturing of the party’s united front. By January, Senator Bob Dole, likely looking ahead to the launch of his presidential campaign in New Hampshire, started talking compromise. Gingrich’s strategy of “playing chicken” with Bill had failed, and I felt great relief that we could reopen the government and get workers back on the payroll now that Bill had prevailed.

As the second session of the 104th Congress opened on January 3, 1996, only three minor pieces of the Gingrich Contract had been signed into law. Bill had sustained eleven vetoes. He had managed to stave off disastrous cuts to Medicare and Medicaid and to save programs like AmeriCorps and Legal Aid services, which had been destined for the chopping block. By the end of the month both sides reached a compromise funding agreement and reopened the government.

One institution unaffected by the shutdown was the Senate Banking Committee, whose work was deemed “essential.” Without pause, it continued to haul our friends, lawyers and associates up to the Hill to fish for evidence of wrongdoing, while VA hospitals were prohibited from treating most patients, and other government employees were furloughed without pay.

On November 29, while we were in Europe, the Republicans’ key witness, L. Jean Lewis, had been crossexamined by Senator Paul Sarbanes of Maryland and the Democratic counsel on the D’Amato committee, Richard Ben-Veniste. Lewis was the RTC official who had filed a criminal referral in August 1992 with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney in Little Rock, naming as felony suspects not only the McDougals but everyone who contributed to a fundraiser McDougal held for Bill at Madison Guaranty in 1985. She listed Bill and me as possible witnesses. Ben-Veniste charged that Lewis was politically biased against us and had submitted this referral just before the 1992 election to affect the outcome.

According to the final Whitewater Report published in 2002,