Bill Clinton

Three days from the presidency, Bill Clinton confronts a worl already more perilous than the one that brought him victory less than 11 weeks ago. Old enemies are up to new tricks in the Middle East; the passing of the Cold War has raised a flurry of regional conflicts around the world. Meanwhile the economy continues to confound with conflicting signs of recovery and slide, and the deficit continues to grow. Mr. Clinton faces myriad challenges. But here are 10 widely viewed as the toughest, what he said about them during the campaign and the outlook for solution:1.

WHO WOULD benefit [from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's run for the presidency]? "New York, for starters. Or, at least, the glittering constellation of news and entertainment companies, Wall Street firms, political consultants, civic boosters, paid gossips, columnists, pundits and publicists ... who feed ... the impression that unless something happens in New York, it doesn't happen." So says the New Yorker. Women's world Depressing but fascinating story in Newsweek about female stars.

Martin O'Malley gave a very ordinary inaugural address yesterday, but it was blessedly short, and that counts for something. It was the coldest day of the year, and I'm sure everyone assembled in front of the State House sighed when the new governor ended his rap at about 1,400 words, with 206 of them devoted to thank-yous. Still, in every important speech, there should be at least one memorable line. This had none. My eyes started to glaze at the part about George Washington resigning his command.

THIS IS NEWS that does not bode well for those of us on the side of the sexual revolution that lost. It's the recent Washington Post headline that read: "Parents Are Alarmed by an Unsettling New Fad in Middle Schools: Oral Sex."Let me summarize the story in the least titillating and disgusting manner possible: 13- and 14-year-old pupils at an Arlington, Va., middle school gathered for oral-sex parties at the pupils' homes or in parks. Several educators in the Baltimore and Washington areas were quoted as saying that the Arlington middle school is not alone, that oral sex among middle-schoolers is a trend.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. -- Law Professor Ray Guzman is in full "Paper Chase" mode. His lecture on the rules of evidence is clipping along, he is surprising students with sudden questions -- "Miss Doherty, how would you rule?" -- and he's jumping from case to case to illuminate the finer points of admissibility.Guzman is training the next generation of lawyers with this time-honored, doze-off-and-die method, much as he's done almost continuously since the 1960s here at the University of Arkansas Law School.

When the textbooks of tomorrow are written, the part about Bill Clinton will almost certainly open with that phrase. His legacy will revolve around the tawdry affair with a young White House intern that led him to become only the second president ever tried for impeachable offenses.But what has been the impact of the Clinton scandal on the rest of us? Have the workings of government been affected? What about the press? The law? The American workplace?As events that became a part of our national consciousness start to recede into memory, members of The Sun's Washington bureau take a look at what's left behind and what has changed, now that the impeachment trial is over.

AT LAST the Senate has redeemed Congress and kept faith with the nation, its history and Constitution.The Senate acquitted Bill Clinton of high crimes and misdemeanors, because he did not commit them. It refused to convict him of unproven low crimes.Had the Senate removed Mr. Clinton from office, the Constitution would have been changed irrevocably. The finality of elections and stability of institutions would have been undermined.Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr dogged the president more than four years, turning an instruction to investigate impartially into a license to oust Mr. Clinton by any means.

WASHINGTON -- At a swank Democratic fund-raiser this month, Ann W. Richards, the mischievous former governor of Texas, warmly welcomed Hillary Rodham Clinton as "the next junior senator from New York."Then, after a pregnant pause, Richards added, "and of course, her lovely husband, Bill."It was a brief glimpse at a state of affairs that, Mrs. Clinton herself acknowledged at that event, "just brings an enormous smile to my face": the perpetual-pol Bill Clinton as a second-fiddle political spouse.

Feeling punky, bunky? Bummed out about the state of the republic and the presidency? Already sick of that numbing civics lesson in Washington? There's always this: 294 men and women from 70 countries raising their hands and swearing an oath to be loyal citizens of the United States in a big, grand ceremony in a big, grand chamber in downtown Baltimore. The nation they adopted might be awash in bizarre scandal and polarizing politics, their president might be impeached, but they took the oath anyway.

The nerve of Bill Clinton, carrying on as if he was still president.Dan Henson is a homes wrecker.The state school board may require half of middle-schoolers to attend summer school, which is not the same as reimbursing systems that air-condition their schools.At last, the Constellation looks her age, which is not what it used to be.Pub Date: 7/05/99

North Korea's surprise "special pardon" of two American television journalists may have reopened the channels of communication between the Obama administration and the secretive regime that for years has defied the world with its nuclear tests and political bombast. After a whirlwind 24-hour visit that capped months of quiet diplomatic negotiations, former President Bill Clinton left Pyongyang on a private jet with the reporters today following talks with leader Kim Jong Il, according to North Korea's state news media.

The negotiations that led to former President Bill Clinton's secret mission to North Korea began when two U.S. journalists were seized by the isolated Stalinist state, and were spurred on by the administration's hope that they might lead to a resumption of gridlocked disarmament talks, according to people close to the process. The goal was a specific deal: If the United States showed respect by dispatching a high-level emissary to Pyongyang, the North would release journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who were arrested along the border with China on March 17. "This has been an orchestrated diplomatic process, carefully calibrated in both capitals," said a person who has been close to the exchanges since they began.

When Barack Obama enters the Oval Office for the first time tomorrow, the "In" basket on his desk will already be piled high. The new president has a couple of wars and an economy in a tailspin to deal with. If that were not enough, just about every constituency - from ecologists to dressmakers - seems to have a stake in his presidency. And they are all convinced they have Obama's ear. An analysis by PolitiFact shows that Obama made 510 promises while running for president - twice as many as George Bush and Bill Clinton - and the fact-checking Web site for the St. Petersburg Times is going to keep track of every one. Obama promised everything from ending the war in Iraq and cutting taxes to establishing programs to help animals survive global warming, according to the Web site.

WASHINGTON - Hoping to allay conflict-of-interest concerns as his wife prepares to become secretary of state, former President Bill Clinton yesterdayreleased a donor list that showed he had raised as much as $131 million from foreign governments - including Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Norway - for the William J. Clinton Foundation. More than 200,000 patrons who had given a combined $500 million to his foundation since its inception in 1997 were identified by name only. The disclosures reveal a veiled world of international intrigue with a charitable goal but a cast of characters that includes countries, companies and individuals with vital and sometimes less than altruistic interests in U.S. foreign policy.

It's stunning how fast Bill Clinton's stock plummeted - faster, it seemed, than the Dow Jones industrial average after the fall of Lehman Brothers. When Hillary Clinton launched her bid for the presidency, the question was: How would she deploy "the greatest politician in our generation"? Unfortunately, a few ill-timed comments caught on tape during the campaign transformed Bill almost overnight into the crazy uncle in the attic, an embarrassment to be kept largely out of public sight. Early in her campaign, Hillary called Bill "the most popular person in the world" and vowed to use him as a "roving ambassador."

Finally, blessedly, it's over. After the longest, most expensive campaign in American history, the voters have decided who will be the next Great Man to take the helm of our ship of state. Sen. Barack Obama has been swept into the presidency on a wave of contrasting yet complementary emotions. There is the positive enthusiasm generated by the 47-year-old's "transformational" identity, the idea millions of Americans have seized upon that here is a leader who reflects the multicultural, multiracial reality of present-day America, who seems thoughtful and careful and is a full generation younger than his opponent.

The first and only time I went to the national political conventions was in 1996 - first to San Diego for the GOP conclave, at which the elderly U.S. senator from Kansas, Bob Dole, was nominated to run against President Bill Clinton in his re-election bid. I remember that Mr. Dole was such a boring old politician that the Republicans were thrilled that he selected Jack Kemp, the former Buffalo Bills quarterback and proponent of "supply-side" economics, as...

WASHINGTON - Not so long ago, Bill Clinton was the man of the moment, the one who was going to put Democrats back in power and baby boomers in charge. His defeat of George H.W. Bush with 43 percent of the vote wasn't just a changing of the guard. It was a baton passing from one generation to the next. The rest you know: the triangulating, the interning, the squandering. Then came Hillary's turn. And then, apparently, it went. The primaries finally are over, and Sen. Hillary Clinton missed her date with destiny.

Back in 1996, President Bill Clinton's re-election campaign spot-welded the highly unpopular Newt Gingrich to Mr. Clinton's Republican challenger, Sen. Bob Dole. From television commercials to radio ads to speeches, the Darth Vader of the House of Representatives was continually morphed into any image or mention of Mr. Dole - to the point where some Americans actually thought Mr. Gingrich was Mr. Dole's running mate, or at the very least his Svengali. Was a strategy that basically ignored policy and the pressing issues of the time in lieu of a superficial and misleading attack effective?

DUNN, N.C. -- If Barack Obama wants to connect with white, working-class voters, he could take a lesson from William Jefferson Clinton. The former president has been on tour for months, almost exclusively in small towns and rural county seats, attracting adoring crowds and votes that are keeping his wife's candidacy alive. Of course, he's hurt her chances, too, perhaps fatally, with unscripted remarks that angered voters and aided Obama. Regardless of how the nomination turns out, Clinton's extraordinary efforts as a campaign surrogate - he's visiting 40 communities in North Carolina alone - far exceed those of any former president.