particularly prominent if you put something on your roof is yours. but it is within your control. it is a smart investment to make. thank you very much. by the book. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

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historian troy talks to 60 minutes correspondent lesley

about the impact of the clinton administration on foreign and domestic politics and culture. [applause] i have to turn my phone off before we do anything. wouldn't that be something if it went off? i was told you that i know grill because he is a presidential historian and i met him when he did his book and we met at the reagan library and he's the most generous person. >> he was helping me. i didn't know what i was doing out there. he taught me how to work in a presidential library so we have been friends ever since. this book is wonderful having read every word. because it's not just a portrait of a president and his life butn

that ten years he calls at theft age of clinton so we learned about the '90s in general. so i guess with my first question is you call them the gilded age. how much of that prosperity anda a sense of well-being that we had in the '90s do you attribute this to clinton and bute the choices that he made? >> it was a pleasure to be heres it's not only that we bonded over the library but we also bonded over the way to issue ths backroads. ipo the fund ofrt providing the book is the balance between bill clinton as a political figure and as a cultural figure and thn

question gets to the heart oftoe that bill clinton's policies for examplet the budget bill that passes through help to prosperity. >> by raising taxes. >> and by the way we also have to give what we call the '90s props to george h. w. bush who's no new taxes violated the pledge and that bill heard the presidency also created aeate background of the '90s or t prosperity.0s so, we see the presidential mpat leadership has an impact butb also there areu so many otherups things. one of the superheroes of the book is the american people. ingenuity of the american people, extraordinary talent of the american people. this is the age of the baby boomers turning into grown-ups and creating the technological revolution that changes things. >> so is the force of history in those years determined more by

to clinton and his big personality and the directions he wanted tos take more is its technologyis it which change so dramatically? >> te ar >> these are the questions that keep me up hours and hours of. it's the dance. arthur celestine sure junior in his classic book tells these two amazing stories. he says in 1933 a man by the chl name of winston churchill is is just about to cross the street and deemed a british guy he looks at the wrong way and is almost hit by a car and somebody pulls him back. car. two months later, franklin roosevelt is next to the mayor of chicago and an assassin ss shoots mrs. roosevelt and arthud wasn't sure's question is what would have happened if churchill and roosevelt had died.use

we just deal with the words butr on the other hand we see in the 30s and also in the '90s thee 't readershiphe counts. le bill clinton shaped his times but he was also lucky. barack obama wasn't as lucky.n i remember in 2009 when you look at barack obama and you realize it is one thing to launch my wae campaign when everything lookeda like peace and prosperity and if you knew that it was going to crash but you realize all of a sudden that i've got work to do and bill clinton was blessed by god eight years of peace and prosperity. >> in some ways more portrait of clinton is that of a greek tragedy hero or antihero so here is what you wrote in the book. this is directly out of the buck. tal the ambition and triumphs.

economically unbalanced, too vulnerable to the evil plans of os osama bin laden and politically colorized.e bl hi you blame him for the polarization?? i'm surprised that surprised thr usian to be pinning it on him. if you look at the role he role he should have been the healer. thehave great uniter his visionf wi trying to compromise and to tbrg bring republicans together in the division to fix the liberals and the great society and saved essive from itself by bringing in somes of the republican ideas and conservative ideas ofthos the culture.

he himself is what makes him a tragic figure.aknses to his own weaknesses to help feed the problem we are facing even more.am they start emerging in the 1990s. but we see all kind of changeshr are occurring in we see the rise in media and us once upon a tima you have nbc, cbs as the ad arbiters who want to be neutral in the bias that we tried and we talked about what was important. they are bringing in a more ideological twist. you have washington changing.

they lived in washington, d.c. so republicans and democrats they went to church together and little league andtoget school together.they now they fly home --.d how hy he it may have affected the sense of community or lack of it. i'm picking out all the juicy stuff. clinton exhibited some telltalee borderline behaviors of mannixcs in hysterics with his gargantua appetites and temper tantrums mareratic marriage, his self destructive sexual addictions and his politics and insatiable drive. what do you really think of this

guy? so have important is it to call this temperament how important is it to the tone of society and sociy? does it filter down? i was once a political>> scientist. my first course in college i'mee sitting in that they are trying to explain the science of politics and i say there is no science science of politics. what what excited me as contingency. it's about irrationality. so i think it does count and weu look at what they bill clinton and hillary clinton to people te that share a marriage and manyim commonm ideas that they function very dcifferently in the americn

political arena so bill clinton is a larger than life character and his strengths are in some ways superhuman but his pe weaknesses are so debilitating that we end up being part of the first hd or mass reality show. we couldn't be putting up with donaldup trump and all of his color if we hadn't had eight years of excusing rationalizing ri and justifying their behavior partially because he was so defectivebill c as well. i looked it up in the trunk of mp bill clinton and donald trump r e born within two months ofhse each other. this was written by a post-baby boomer what's going on under

collective personalities and we see in the collective persona of goodne bit of merit and goodness.es >> i'm going to get give to monica in a little bit. >> i was thinking of reading your book because u.s. the question suggested how did thiso man survived scandal. and i think that you survived because the db boomers who weir forgave him because he was oneho of us.. >> absolutely. >> >> in 1993 when the inauguration in 1993 there was a sense that we arrived. ar it is a baby boomer party andoor what -- >> that's what we got. ]er who were the stars, bill andtar? sallary but that barbrastei streisand and dare i say they. name bill cosby. [laughter]

and that saturday night live do to the disabled you realize it's the '90s it's not the 60s '90s and 70s because the cultural icons from the 60s and 70s are examples out, so one of thet stories we're seeing is a gender er th bender and that by the 1990s's there were all kind of changes attitudes towards sexuality and bill clinton benefits from an c that e> but you also talk about thedm number of jobs increased in crime dropped into these were things either he determined or it was just as you suggestedas incredible luck of the deficit, the deficit disappears, wages go up quites go a bit.et mput i let me put it this way. all of the president in our lifetime -- so let's go back to

fdr held as he stack up? up is he on the other end or the lower end, where do you put it?q >> it really frustrated bill clinton when there was an anniversary at hyde park and began arthur schlessinger junior and other roosevelt story andas scatter and they say this guy doesn't rank and he sends a letter to then defending himself favori he regretted the fact he didn't show his greatness. had [laughter] didn't >> you didn't look at the racytb parts? looke tonight i also looked at what was shown in the presidentialliy library all of these big tones

about abraham lincoln and about franklin roosevelt and leadership such a gift to your question i think bill clinton during the time didn't look like du he could stack up but you are right when you look at what he p accomplished and it was hisbut i accomplishment.t it's a big mistake right to beif distancing himself from the accomplishment in fighting crima it is because 100,000 police th were deployed in new york city and elsewhere because the new approach to fighting crimeed because the president of the united states realized crime was not just an issue for law andla order republicans it have to be an issue to help save progressive bu from itself butom democrats cared about because african americans were suffering as much if not more from the h favo crime wave than white americans.

on welfare reform and crime and the budget bill he was able toe push through compromises. what surprised you? and i know we've ask ed you to some bring some photographs because e you have we have a huge stack of incredibleu have photographs. so tell us what surprised you and let us look at the pictures. >> so there i am in the clinton library and i discovered this treasure trove of over a thousand photographs that are0 not digitized that are in these little booklets from a reporter named robert mcnally that the owed them in the campaign and one of the things we see is there were young ones.aret

they were taken after the democratic national convention where there was a surge of excitement and you also see is that through the operatic marriage, they are falling in te love again.hey areling and he may be the worlds greatest actor but hillary isn't and you can take some of that. it's like a major fashion faux pas with her little jacket and there they are submitting his birthday, and there is of course also this excitement with the other wonder couple of the 1990s and he is intelligent and he knows he isn't going to be one of those presidents that looks for it is different, he he once was similar to him to say these are going to be the baby boomers saving the world and you just see this tremendous excitement and energy going towards november, 1992 and in

the usage of the keyword sex appeal. i have this moment i'm on a job interview shortly after the election and it's a very clear serious female dean colleague said my girlfriends and i were passing out an e-mail chain of a 12 step program for getting over a crush on bill clinton. i'm like i'm a white male and its 1993, what am i going to say that there was this sense of what we forgot and 20 of eight. in 1992 of the people were saying he's our candidate. bill clinton is our guy cut he has that appeal and it was after all the headaches. >> with what you say are the common misconceptions about him and his presidency in this time? >> one of the other bobbins i had is that the governance was a

finger to the wind that he was pool driven and it was a creature can he was indeed sensitive to the polls it's true before he went on a family vacation he went to see what would be a respectful place but at the end of the day of the things i realized his bill clinton was as ideologically president was ronald reagan. he wasn't a right-winger that he had a take and you go back to the 1980s ended in mid-1980s there's the democratic leadership council that forms the southern moderates and they are looking at the failures of the great society. they are looking at the success of the revolution saying we want to save liberalism and you look at what is called the new orleans manifesto and bill clinton speeches. you look at his announcement speech in 1992 and realize that that is his governing plan.

what was the idea that we had to bring some of the sensitivity from that era towards the importance of culture and the importance of what's going on in america outside of the political arena into the political arena and the two key ideas are ones fighting crime as i said earlier in the second, ending welfare as we know it. in 1996 when bill clinton signed the welfare reform everybody said he's just giving doing it to win the reelection. if you go back to the speeches you realize part of it is he was doing it because he said this is my core ideology into the core ideology was this third way ideology tried to spread through tony blair and others. >> i think he sold himself as a liberal when he first ran so you're suggesting it's a little hypocritical?

in your book you even quote the departed christopher hitchens saying, and he says it in anger bill clinton walked in the revolution and to take criticism from even the central centrist democrats to get >> this is one of the struggles that hillary clinton is having now do you want the one hand hold onto your ideology while being sensitive to the voter changes going around and when bill clinton talked about the third way it was building on something that blumenthal and others in the old version of the republic called the conversation and it popped up in 1991, 92. how do we take the white house and there were two sides to it which bill clinton brought

together. one was tactical they were so disappointed in michael dukakis and with his suspense of liberalism and george j. -- h. w. bush that he wasn't selling ideology and he brought willie horton and they promised themselves that they were going to find a candidate that would fight like the dickens and they found up one but they also said how do we look under the hood and make sure that we can update it for the 1990s. >> while also keeping the core ideas. >> so what does this tell us about hillary should she become president would she do the same thing? she's moving as fast as she can.

does she have the same ideology that clinton had? >> it's really hard to know where hillary stands and which is running. is it that hillary who in the clinton white house was considered to be one of the liberals but despite their reputations, she was one of the people who turned to bill clinton after 1994 disaster where they lost the congress to the republicans and said we've got to bring in and go back to the center. she was one of the people who understood that were still operating and as the senator she was a much more mainstream standard democrat. and i think in 2008 when she was running for president, and now again, she's gotten so cautious that it's hard to know what she will bring to the white house.

>> there is a style of clinton governance that is one of the amazing things about bill clinton is that he loved policy and one of the things she loved policy, too and i think that energy we are going to wake up every day and stay deep into the night. he was calling people at 3 a.m. trying to convince them and to consult with them and play cards with them if they trim and turn in this energy and energy is very important. >> you've written about a lot of our president probably most of them with some of the survey books but concentrated on others. spirit all of which are on sale and we are building. >> can a person be a good president if they are not a good politician, they are not a great campaigner? you know why i'm asking that question. >> i think it's hard specialty in the 21st century we started seeing in the television age now

it's emerging very clearly politics is about public leadership. it's about leadership in a democracy and for someone to say i'm just going to be a policy person, i'm not going to play with politics is very problematic and we saw it with people like richard nixon and jimmy carter and i think it is one of the tensions with clinton. he bugs people, loves people, he's a people person like ronald reagan -- and we see the same with obama. >> so i'm asking that question in light of hillary and what people feel about her as a politician. she doesn't exude love of people into the job and that's part of the job description but let's say she came into politics in the back door. her mother dreamed of her becoming the first female chief justice of the supreme court as

a more suited position of her. she was known as a brainiac. her nickname in high school assist or frigidaire. that's an old word for refrigerator. >> everyone knows what it is. [laughter] he just had that natural love. at this time we talked about the book he said something sizable about bill clinton he said he came from somewhere, and bill clinton came from the south and for all of his nonsense he was also rooted in not rumbling train into the linoleum floors and that sense of position and place in the south in the corner grocery store and that was important to him and that rooted him in the american tradition and understanding of what

america is and then as a small-town governor in a small state can you go to little rock arkansas he can go from that is extraordinary and you realize that he had that touch he understood people. >> i got to ask you about all the scandals and stumbles that dogged the two of them throughout the eight years and whether there was a right wing conspiracy and i ask you in light of kevin mccarthy who was withdrawn from the race of the speakership that he has now said that the committee was designed to destroy the candidacy so it makes me ask was there a right-wing conspiracy or did

they just make that up? >> the thing i love is unlike a washingtonian. i don't have to be just a left-wing or right-wing. i can find that balance. and when we look at that issue we say yes there is a conspiracy and there is a certain way which republicans look at bill and tony clinton. they steal the soul of republicans by which bothers liberals and conservatives who are hijacking some of our key ideas and that led to an obsession and we see it in the committee and we saw it with the whitewater investigation and tens of millions of dollars away that there is this need to take my inner mistakes but bill and hillary clinton make and turned them into high crimes so they have been unfairly treated. on the other hand this gets to the tragedy they have both of them again and again this blind

spot. it's extraordinary how people who know they are underskirt and they keep on doing things which they should know better not to do. the e-mail server, why do that. and the last days of the clinton administration, the last days of the administration you have a selloff of parties to mortgage and others based on access and influence which means the presidency. people like steven spielberg and other science and governors from new york are sitting tens of thousands. then they take about $30,000 of

furniture from the white house and they ship it off and you are saying why? because we were broke. she was already on her way to signing a 10 million-dollar contract. because they are so convinced they are so self righteous speaking of baby boomers. >> so, how in their opinions of all the scandals and particularly of monica how did that affect the course of the american history. if changes were brought about?

there was a certain sense of stockmarket booming. crime is going down as we mentioned mentioned the index working and bill clinton launches the important conversation about recent america and he gives a speech in san diego at a commencement in which he talks about the american future which is and just going to be a black-and-white future but the browning of america rather than being stuck in this dichotomy we will have this impact of the 1965 act is extraordinary and changing america and he sees that. that conversation dies as soon as the scandal begins. as a deep commitment to the african-american right and someone that welcomed the little rock nine through the doors of the schoolhouse where they've been barred from 50 years

earlier and both of them the president seats welcomes them and he had determined his love for african-americans in a tremendous the tremendous connection to african-americans. and just as gone. it's one example. >> and that is strictly -- >> is lost in that you see it in the rewriting of the state of the union speech in january, 1998. the monica scandal breaks a week for the state of the union. and they have to go through had to go through and pour over every word to make sure there isn't anything that can be turned into some thing. we have to be sure when he talks about values and family at the republican will not do him in what they do is they do the speech. now nevertheless it turns into a great moment in terms of when he says i want to govern and the american people ultimately say throughout that awful year in a specialty especially in the midterms, we want you to govern.

but his government was limited because of monica lewinsky. they argue that she doesn't want it does the patient either. but the "time" magazine's designation for better or for worse. her role in the scandal is changing the doors of the presidency. he would have been meeting with the lawyers and close the doors and come up to another office. i don't want to ignore the fact that a great part of this book is that the '90s.

maybe you can walk us through this. what were the big movies that you think sort of emblem a decade and what effect was clinton that reason that the movies came out or were the movies influencing him? >> to take a film like forrest gump. there is a long movie of someone who's good to be a huge hit and what's the story there it is trying to make sense of the

1960s. how do they get ultimate vindication? the 1920s. they are putting the brakes on some of the excess and we pay for that in 2008. we are still paying for that but culturally, also you see a kind of celebration of money which is good because everybody wants some and that is the tension but it was also he's the first president after the cold war ends, so we are not just feeling prosperous, we are feeling like

we one this huge battle, this global battle and so we were feeling good in many ways. do the movies reflect that wonderful spirit that we had at that point in time? >> the code word is actually two different phenomena. on the one hand we are the hyperpower, we are the superpower, we can do anything that also leads to the sense of who are we, what i call the republic of nothing. it gave us a structure in a way of understanding life and justify all that we did. it's hard if you are doing it through the cold war lens.

he was part of the kremlin operation told the group of americans who were there that the cold war had ended and just what you are saying he told us you are not going to know who you are. you have to find yourself against us. we are evil and you are good you told your self. when you don't have us as your enemy, you aren't going to know who you are and you will be lost and i never forgot this. it looked back on the peace and prosperity and decide what do we do with this great gift. how can we do more good, and one of the things after september 11, 2001 hits we need to do better and there's a certain sweetness and idealism.

>> from that day. and we are all new yorkers here and we remember that incredible spirit. we have become strangely in our polarized place and i always thought it was because of technology. i guess we can blame al gore. we are becoming more withdrawn and isolated at polarized. i want to ask you again come and they are setting up microphones see you can ask questions yourself. i want to ask if it's right to blame the president for things like this it's almost out of our

control with what is happening to us. you mentioned television, the constant criticism that he president goes through but what we go through as individuals is inexorable. we can't fight the technological wave or reelect somebody or get a change. >> it's extraordinary. he talked about a bridged the 21st century. think about it the start of amazon is just a river, google is just a big number. paypal is something that the loan sharks say and all of a sudden these things that are now central parts of our lives become powerful and become inventive and it isn't because of bill clinton but i always give bill clinton credit because if we had a kind of political culture we would say not only al gore that bill clinton did invent the internet because they understood the way -- i didn't have the vision that these two have about the importance of wiring up america, the

importance of making sure that you wouldn't have high-tech haves and have-nots and the importance of understanding that this was going to change how we live so understanding that now we live in this world where things are virtual and one of the things that scares me is what scares you that we are so into our technologies and into our individual technologies that we have lost community and family and friendship, true communication and that is in the president's fault that presidents can get different. ultimately as a presidential historian that the but the reason i spent my time in this because i do think that leadership counts and i do think ideas matter and that personality affects things and if you put that together with uc is yes in a three decade there are and that's why i think you have to write this kind of a book and not just about the presidency but in the context of

the technical and ideological changes and cultural changes but also see who was that that ran in 1996 the same age as hillary today. i would have been different. >> is she younger than ronald reagan? >> almost a year. >> that we are living in the age when we live longer and we have part of the magic of medicine. so that's -- the point is that yes, there is a big overwhelming force that changes things. but why do we care so much about

the presidential campaign and about what another president did because the president also affects things and as a single individual not just in the united states but around the world who sets the tone that really makes a difference. >> having written this book, and it is a great book -- spinnaker going to get a check from my mother who's right over here to get >> is your mother here? >> my mother and father. [applause] >> having written the book are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future? >> that is a big question and the answer is yes. [laughter] >> now you sound like a politician. >> where i am optimistic is the weakest of the chapter i call it the function and we have a tendency we journalists and historians and citizens have a

tendency sometimes to focus so much on what we have so much of the problems that we forget the miracle of waking up in the morning and feeling safe when you walk on the streets. we pick up and you go to the elevator and plummet coming you skyrocket down safely. the magic of medicine, all these things going on in the world. but what really scares me about today is the loss of a certain sense of the american soul what i've been calling the republic of nothing and the republic of everything you need so much more open, welcome, pluralistic, tolerant than ever before to be a doctor used to be a certain sense that we have our limits and problems before that of america standing for something for the richard stands test, number for the republic for which it stands. we need to pass for which it

stands and stand for something. what do we stand for when it's all about the ipad handed me and more and now. that's what leadership is imported into the challenge i put out to bernie sanders and marco rubio and i should mention i'm not predicting anyone that is going to succeed or fail. we need a vision for this country. we need a sense to make us were sufficient to somehow bind us together and go forward and that is what i am not hearing. >> and/or not hearing it from any other candidates. >> there will be questions after my questions or if you have questions, think about it and then we will invite you up to the microphone. i don't get this. almost every president gets around to having a war that is

oppressed and it's always foolish and difficult because it's not going to get them anywhere but they do it. but i know that they would've warned that it makes no sense and they don't win with that kind of thing but they are still doing it. so tell us about that, where did that come from? they argue. they've been friends and came from the same schools and experiences and excitement of 1992 is generated our time has come and that leads to a greater sense of betrayal. let me step back and say when i was in washington doing research for this but i spoke to people who worked in the clinton administration and the bush

administration and i said who was giving the roughest time by the press? they talked about racism and bush talked about a kind of liberal conspiracy and they said they just hate us so there is a certain sense but in clinton was repeatedly warned not to do this and one of the things i say in the book aimed and that that's been the angriest because they also end up feeling that is a betrayal. i think maybe they felt it. they were on their side and so betrayal is the right word. they felt betrayed. republicans never thought the press was going to be on their side.

they had a great relationship in the washington press corps because there was no expectation they actually expected what we did and they had a good exchange with the press and understood the boundaries. >> they read all those stories and watched all of the fox news claims saying the press votes democratic and a member also said something else that goes back to your statement i mentioned earlier. they said you know what it was a kind of northeastern bias against southerners. they felt they were that they were not getting a fair shake because they were looked at in the that's the kind of rationalization of the reporter and writer who was a good friend of bill clinton who sat with him

up late at night. in the book he says don't fight the press. you're going to lose but clinton can't help himself the same way he can talk himself in other ways. [laughter] impulse control wasn't one of his strengths. >> anybody want to come up to the microphone because if you don't i'm going to keep going. here we go. >> what you think the presidency but be like and what some people have called the continuous education? >> clinton benefited from the peace and prosperity of the 1990s but he also regretted that he didn't have the challenges that barack obama was faced with and one of the greatest string switch i think

george w. bush and barack obama lacked was because he had been such an effective governor of arkansas for so long as he understood how to sit down and negotiate. the story of bill clinton and newt gingrich on the one hand, they eat each other and they all get each other as a symbol of all that they don't want to be and on the other hand they can sit down and talk and negotiate and there are amazing comprises the poker over the budget and welfare reform in the 1990s which we haven't seen in the bush era and in the obama era. so i think that is kind of leadership might be useful today. >> a question about camp david. it's always bothered me that in camp david at one point, they

said there was no connection between the jewish people and the land of israel and what was reported as clinton reacted very strongly with some select words i won't repeat. what are you talking about, are you crazy etc.. but it never seemed to have any policy implications that somebody who was leaving the pakistan people could be so far divorced from reality and this has also continued today, and it sort of got him thrown away and never implemented in terms of the policy change. >> one of the great greatest tragedies of the 1990s as the soviet union ends rather peacefully. south africa, south africa and apartheid, northern ireland comes to some kind of conclusion. >> these are all in the '90s. and there's an there is an assumption as all that magic is

happening at the same magic will occur with the israelis and palestinians and you have the oslo peace process which starts in norway but in the best way it hijacks and starts becoming a person who stands for it and he hosts more than any other foreign visitor in the clinton white house in the last days of the administration he comes to the white house being the schmoozer he says you are a very great man and he also had an assist i'm not a great man, i'm a failure because of you. >> and he basically says he had been cast by the united states of america to be nelson mandela and at the end of the day he was yasir arafat and if it was a huge policy mistake that people were still paying for but include hints defense he thought he couldn't pick. they had to pick their own leader and he just wanted them to have difficulty. >> he's a great example of how a

revolutionary that leads the movement cannot be the leader and cannot move out of the original role. >> and biggest reason the libraries they say what was going on with him he just couldn't make that move. >> even now with what you know what role do you see him playing in the campaign? and then what role do you see him playing in your administration? >> that is a great question that goes back to the central dance between that great joke in 1993 presidential motorcade is driving around and they run out of gas and they go to the gas station and the gas station attendant turns out to be an old boyfriend of hillary clinton's and bill clinton looks at him with all of that disdain for the working class and says if you had married him he would be the mrs. gas station attendant and she says if you haven't married

me he would be mr. gas station attendant. [laughter] and he would be mr. president. and that's always been the question of who helps who. >> one of the special things about the relationship is that he is the people person but she was also the spine and the one like nancy reagan who knew how to cut the losses and fire people. he so wants to be loved and she wasn't afraid sometimes to be hated. so it would be interesting to see he became a liability. he got so angry because talk about a betrayal. the fact that an african american community was trying on hand. that barack obama, this guy from nowhere, he hadn't paid his dues was emerging and destroying the clinton master plan it made him furious. and if you notice as the secretary of state hillary clinton had him off and the challenge was woodward due to

him if he becomes the first man. >> we think. we don't really know. what we ask you something. do you think that needing to be loved is a good quality for president? >> the first white house counsel and friends with hillary in the 1970s had an extraordinary history that says the biggest problem of bill clinton and it goes back to something that virginia kelley said about clinton and about her whenever they walked into a room they could sense it was the person who at least likes them and they would spend time trying to woo them and he said that is a major mistake for a leader. and he talks about his need of bill clinton to be loved which leads to him listening not to experienced hands like leon panetta, alice rivlin and the

grown-ups in the white house who had other careers and who have jobs, while practices to go back to. but instead of listening to the kids, george stephanopoulos so afraid of the press and the bad headlines but when the whitewater then emerge as they say go, the special prosecutor knows something. don't, don't. you're going to make a huge mistake for yourself because once you have a special prosecutor they have to justify themselves and bill clinton trying to be loved and trying to stop the negative headlines supports and signs that authorization and he says it's the biggest mistake i made. and it jumps off the page with frustration and anger. >> you mentioned that bill clinton regretted he never had a -- [inaudible] he did get involved. can you answer why he wasn't interested in getting involved in rwanda?

>> is a tragic mistake that he made. one of the awful things when you go back to the '90s you see the clinton white house at that moment was so much in damage control mode so headline driven and fearful of exercising american power that the big fight is against reporters and against human rights activists who were daring to call rwanda a genocide even those people were killed in a matter of months because of it's called a genocide committed in america is forced by treaties to step in and they don't want to intervene. and one of the interesting things that happens to those bill clinton in the white house is as there's a learning curve and he comes in as a dove uncomfortable with american power and you know who taught them how to salute, ronald reagan. clinton had no idea. this is a ronald reagan after he is elected and then reagan gives some lessons. >> and reagan moved it from the movies. [laughter]

he's afraid to assert power and the bosnian intervention leads into kosovo war is a reflection of the learning curve all presidents go through when he realizes that the time they say don't do anything he says i'm a president. i have have to leave and it's a moment of great political courage because he felt guilty about having left the situation to deteriorate he felt guilty about the massacres that occurred he felt guilty about rwanda and he changed it but we also see that the big mistake of the 1990s as the data. there is information that osama bin laden declared war on a serious threat and george w. bush failed to lead after he became president but president that he helped me on that, too mac. in 2000 no one is asking questions about terrorism on about osama bin laden. we learned al gore likes to

sleep naked. have to get that out of my head. [laughter] and george w. bush likes to eat tex-mex but we don't understand on terrorism because we were in massive collective denial. >> and bill clinton talked about his regrets many times over rwanda. >> he's great at regretting. >> thank you so much. [applause] and thank you always for coming and for being our wonderful members. the book is on sale in the museum store just to remind you of the the age of clinton in the 1990s, thank you all so much. goodnight. [applause]

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>> >>. >> host: mr. chairman is