Portraits: Bill Clinton

Portraits: Bill Clinton 6 comments

Bill Clinton, Official White House Photo

William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton (1946 – )

The 42nd President of the United States, 1993 – 2001

AKA: Bubba, Slick Willy, The First Black President, The Comeback Kid, The Big Dog

From: Arkansas

College: Georgetown, Oxford, Yale

Married to: Hillary Rodham

Children: Chelsea

Party: Democratic

Previous Jobs: Campaign worker, teacher, Attorney General of Arkansas, Governor of Arkansas

In His Words: “I end tonight where it all began for me: I still believe in a place called Hope.”

Bill Clinton portrait by Nelson Shanks, from the National Portrait Gallery. This portrait suddenly became controversial 10 years after its unveiling … see the link “How To Be Unemployable,” below.

“Our democracy must be not only the envy of the world but the engine of our own renewal. There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.”

“When I was in England I experimented with marijuana a time or two — and didn’t like it — and didn’t inhale and never tried inhaling again.”

“The road to tyranny, we must never forget, begins with the destruction of the truth.”

“Now, I have to go back to work on my State of the Union speech. And I worked on it until pretty late last night. I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I’m going to say this again. I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time, never. These allegations are false, and I need to go back to work for the American people.”

“It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is. If the—if he—if ‘is’ means is and never has been, that is not—that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement. … Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true.”

“A preemptive action today, however well-justified, may come back with unwelcome consequences in the future. And because … I’ve done this. I’ve ordered these kinds of actions — I don’t care how precise your bombs and your weapons are, when you set them off, innocent people will die.”

“Being president is like running a cemetery: you’ve got a lot of people under you and nobody’s listening.”

Not true: In a shameless campaign speech for Obama in 2012, Clinton criticized Mitt Romney’s truthfulness:

“You’re laughing, but who wants a president who will knowingly, repeatedly tell you something he knows is not true?” Clinton asked, after discounting a claim in a recent Romney ad that the Obama administration’s auto bailout hurt American workers.

“When I was a kid, if I got my hand caught in the cookie jar, where it wasn’t supposed to be, I turned red in my face, and I took my hand out of the cookie jar,” Clinton added.

True: The future President was born William Jefferson Blythe III in Hope, Arkansas, but his father died in a traffic accident. When he was four years old, his mother wed Roger Clinton, of Hot Springs, Arkansas. In high school, he took the family name.

The Clinton family had a cat named Sox … the first Presidential pet to have its own website.

Paula Jones brought a sexual harassment suit against Clinton while he was President, for acts against her while Clinton was Governor of Arkansas. Clinton settled for $850,000.

Bill Clinton was the first President to appoint his First Lady to head a Presidential commission.

Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern, had a sexual relationship with Clinton. The result of this affair was Clinton being impeached by the House of Representatives – the first elected President to be impeached. In the Senate, he was acquitted of all charges.

He was the first President to use the Line-Item Veto.

The Official Portrait: When Simmie Knox unveiled his portrait of Bill (as well as one of Hillary) Clinton in 2004, he became the first African American to paint an official White House Portrait of a President.