View source for Bill Clinton

{{Infobox Officeholder
|name          = Bill Clinton
|image         = Bill Clinton.jpg
|office        = [[List of Presidents of the United States|42nd]] [[President of the United States]]
|vicepresident = [[Al Gore]]
|term_start    = January 20, 1993
|term_end      = January 20, 2001
|predecessor   = [[George H. W. Bush]]
|successor     = [[George W. Bush]]
|order2        = [[List of Governors of Arkansas|40th and 42nd]] [[Governor of Arkansas]]
|lieutenant2   = [[Winston Bryant]]<br>[[Jim Guy Tucker|Jim Tucker]]
|term_start2   = January 11, 1983
|term_end2     = December 12, 1992
|predecessor2  = [[Frank D. White|Frank White]]
|successor2    = [[Jim Guy Tucker|Jim Tucker]]
|lieutenant3   = [[Joe Purcell]]
|term_start3   = January 9, 1979
|term_end3     = January 19, 1981
|predecessor3  = Joe Purcell <small>(Acting)</small>
|successor3    = [[Frank D. White|Frank White]]
|office4       = 50th [[Arkansas Attorney General|Attorney General of Arkansas]]
|governor4     = [[David Pryor]]<br>Joe Purcell <small>(Acting)</small>
|term_start4   = January 3, 1977
|term_end4     = January 9, 1979
|predecessor4  = Jim Tucker
|successor4    = Steve Clark
|birth_date    = {{Birth date and age|1946|8|19}}
|birth_place   = [[Hope, Arkansas|Hope]], Arkansas, U.S.
|death_date    = 
|death_place   = 
|party         = [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]]
|spouse        = [[Hillary Rodham Clinton|Hillary Rodham]] <small>(m. 1975)</small>
|children      = Chelsea <small>(b. 1980)</small>
|alma_mater    = [[Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service|Georgetown University]]<br> [[University College, Oxford]]<br>[[Yale Law School]]
|profession    = Lawyer
|religion      = [[Baptists|Baptist]]
|signature     = Signature of Bill Clinton.svg
|signature_alt = Cursive signature in ink
|website       = [http://www.clintonlibrary.gov/ Clinton Presidential Library]
}}
'''William "Bill" Jefferson  Clinton''' (born '''William Jefferson Blythe III''' on 19 August [[1946]])<ref name="whitehouse.gov bio">[http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/bc42.html Biography of William J. Clinton], ''[[The White House]]''</ref> was the forty-second [[President of the United States]], serving from 1993 to 2001. He was the [[List of United States presidents by age at ascension to office|third-youngest president]], older only than [[Theodore Roosevelt]] and [[John F. Kennedy]]. He became president at the end of the [[Cold War]], and as he was born in the period after [[World War II]], is known as the first [[Baby Boomer]] president.<ref>Marc Sandalow, [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/01/14/MN71509.DTL Clinton Era Marked by Scandal, Prosperity: 1st Baby Boomer in White House Changed Notions of Presidency], San Francisco Chronicle; January 14, 2001</ref> He is the husband of [[New York]] [[United States Senator|Senator]] and [[United States presidential candidates, 2008|2008 Democratic presidential candidate]] [[Hillary Rodham Clinton]].

==Life==
Clinton was described as a [[New Democrats|New Democrat]] and was largely known for the [[Third Way (centrism)|Third Way]] philosophy of governance that came to epitomize his two terms as president.<ref>Joe Klein, 'The Natural': The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton, 2003, ISBN 0-7679-1412-0</ref>  His policies, on issues such as the [[North American Free Trade Agreement]] and [[welfare reform]], have been described as "centrist."<ref>[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE5D91F39F935A35751C1A965958260 William Safire, "Essay; Looking Beyond Peace," ''New York Times'', December 6, 1993].</ref><ref>[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,979697,00.html?iid=chix-sphere Michael Duffy, "Secrets Of," ''Time Magazine'', Nov 29, 1993].</ref>  Clinton presided over the longest period of peace-time economic expansion in American history, which included a balanced budget and a reported federal surplus.<ref name = "economic expansion">[http://clinton4.nara.gov/textonly/WH/Work/040299.html whitehouse.gov -- April 2, 1999: The Longest Peacetime Expansion in History]</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/?&dbname=cp105&sid=cp105AqBYv&refer=&r_n=hr648.105&item=&sel=TOC_627612&|title=Library of Congress - House Report 105-648 - DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS BILL, 1999}}</ref> Based on Congressional accounting rules, at the end of his presidency Clinton reported a surplus of $559 billion. On the heels of a failed attempt at [[Clinton health care plan|health care reform]] with a [[Democratic Party of the United States|Democratic]] [[United States Congress|Congress]], for the first time in forty years, [[Republican Party of the United States|Republicans]] [[Republican Revolution|won control]] of the [[United States House of Representatives|House of Representatives]].<ref>[http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=2154881707717 H-net Online Book Review:] Benjamin Ginsberg and Alan Stone, eds. Do Elections Matter. Third Edition. Armonk, N.Y. (1997)</ref> In his second term he was [[Impeachment of Bill Clinton|impeached]] by the [[United States House of Representatives|U.S. House]] for [[perjury]] and [[obstruction of justice]],<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/events/clinton_under_fire/latest_news/238784.stm Clinton impeached] December 19, 1998</ref> but was subsequently [[acquittal|acquitted]] by the [[United States Senate]] and completed his term.<ref>[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/clinton.htm Washingtonpost.com] Clinton Accused - Special report.</ref> 

Clinton left office with an [[approval rating]] at 65%, the highest end of office rating of any President since [[World War II]].<ref>[http://uspolitics.about.com/od/polls/l/bl_historical_approval.htm Historical Presidential Approval Ratings - End Of Term Plus Current Ratings<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> Since leaving office, Clinton has been involved in public speaking and humanitarian work. To promote and address international causes, such as treatment and prevention of [[HIV]]/[[AIDS]] and [[global warming]], he created the [[William J. Clinton Foundation]]. In 2004, he released his autobiography, ''[[My Life (Bill Clinton autobiography)|My Life]]''.
===The White House (biography)===
: ''During the administration of William Jefferson Clinton, the U.S. enjoyed more peace and economic well being than at any time in its history. He was the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second term. He could point to the lowest unemployment rate in modern times, the lowest inflation in 30 years, the highest home ownership in the country’s history, dropping crime rates in many places, and reduced welfare rolls. He proposed the first balanced budget in decades and achieved a budget surplus. As part of a plan to celebrate the millennium in 2000, Clinton called for a great national initiative to end [[racial discrimination]].''

:''After the failure in his second year of a huge program of health care reform, Clinton shifted emphasis, declaring “the era of big government is over.” He sought legislation to upgrade education, to protect jobs of parents who must care for sick children, to restrict handgun sales, and to strengthen environmental rules. President Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946, in Hope, Arkansas, three months after 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.'' 

: ''He excelled as a student and as a saxophone player and once considered becoming a professional musician. As a delegate to Boys Nation while in high school, he met President John Kennedy in the White House Rose Garden. The encounter led him to enter a life of public service. Clinton graduated from Georgetown University and in 1968 won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University. He received a law degree from Yale University in 1973, and entered politics in Arkansas. He was defeated in his campaign for Congress in Arkansas’s Third District in 1974. The next year he married Hillary Rodham, a graduate of Wellesley College and Yale Law School. In 1980, Chelsea, their only child, was born.''

:'' Clinton was elected Arkansas Attorney General in 1976, and won the governorship in 1978. After losing a bid for a second term, he regained the office four years later, and served until he defeated incumbent George Bush and third party candidate Ross Perot in the 1992 presidential race. Clinton and his running mate, Tennessee’s Senator Albert Gore Jr., then 44, represented a new generation in American political leadership. For the first time in 12 years both the White House and Congress were held by the same party. But that political edge was brief; the Republicans won both houses of Congress in 1994.''

: ''In 1998, as a result of issues surrounding personal indiscretions with a young woman White House intern, Clinton was the second U.S. president to be impeached by the House of Representatives. He was tried in the Senate and found not guilty of the charges brought against him. He apologized to the nation for his actions and continued to have unprecedented popular approval ratings for his job as president. In the world, he successfully dispatched peace keeping forces to war-torn Bosnia and bombed Iraq when Saddam Hussein stopped United Nations inspections for evidence of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. He became a global proponent for an expanded NATO, more open international trade, and a worldwide campaign against drug trafficking. He drew huge crowds when he traveled through South America, Europe, Russia, Africa, and China, advocating U.S. style freedom.''<ref>[https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/william-j-clinton/ William J. Clinton]</ref> 

==See also==
*[[Jeffrey Epstein]]
*[[North American Free Trade Agreement]]

==External links==
* [http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/List_of_articles_by_William_L._Pierce_%28part_one%29#Bill_Clinton Dr. William Pierce's articles on Bill Clinton]
=== Encyclopedias ===
*[https://www.britannica.com/biography/Bill-Clinton Encyclopedia Britannica: Bill Clinton]
*[https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/us-history-biographies/bill-clinton Encyclopedia.com: Bill Clinton]

==References==
{{Reflist|3}}


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