Whether my historical analysis is right or not, I judge my presidency primarily in terms of its impact on people’s lives. That is how I kept score: all the millions of people with new jobs, new homes, and college aid; the kids with health insurance and after-school programs; the people who left welfare for work; the families helped by the family leave law; the people living in safer neighborhoods—all those people have stories, and they’re better ones now. Life got better for all Americans because the air and water were cleaner and more of our natural heritage was preserved. And we brought more hope for peace, freedom, security, and prosperity to people all over the world. They have their stories, too. When I became President, America was sailing into uncharted waters, into a world full of apparently disconnected positive and negative forces. Because I had spent a lifetime trying to bring together my own parallel lives and had been raised to value all people, and, as governor, had seen both the bright and dark sides of globalization, I felt I understood where my country was and how we needed to move into the new century. I knew how to put things together, and how hard it would be to do. On September 11, things seemed to fall apart again as al Qaeda used the forces of interdependence — open borders, easy immigration and travel, easy access to information and technology—to murder close to 3,000 people, from more than seventy nations, in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. The world rallied around our loss and the American people in our determination to fight terrorism. In the years since, the battle has intensified, with understandable and honestly held differences at home and around the world about how best to pursue the war on terror.
The interdependent world we live in is inherently unstable, full of both opportunity and forces of destruction. It will remain so until we find our way from interdependence to a more integrated global community of shared responsibilities, shared benefits, and shared values. Building that kind of world, and defeating terror, cannot be done quickly; it will be the great challenge of the first half of the twentyfirst century. I believe there are five things the United States should be doing to lead the way: fight terror and the spread of weapons of mass destruction and improve our defenses against them; make more friends and fewer terrorists by helping the 50 percent of the world not reaping the benefits of globalization to overcome poverty, ignorance, disease, and bad government; strengthen the institutions of global cooperation and work through them to promote security and prosperity and combat our shared problems, from terror to AIDS to global warming; continue to make America a better model of how we want the world to work; and work to end the age-old compulsion to believe that our differences are more important than our common humanity.
I believe the world will continue its forward march from isolation to interdependence to cooperation because there is no other choice. We have come a long way since our ancestors first stood up on the African savannah more than a hundred thousand years ago. In just the fifteen years since the end of the Cold War, the West has been largely reconciled to its old adversaries, Russia and China; more than half of the world’s people are living under governments of their own choosing for the first time in history; there has been an unprecedented degree of global cooperation against terror and a recognition that we must do more to fight poverty, disease, and global warming and to get all the world’s children in school; and America and many other free societies have shown that people of all races and religions can live together in mutual respect and harmony.
Our nation will not be undone by terror. We will defeat it, but we must take care that in so doing we do not compromise the character of our country or the future of our children. Our mission to form a more perfect union is now a global one.
As for myself, I’m still working on that list of life goals I made as a young man. Becoming a good person is a lifelong effort that requires letting go of anger at others and holding on to responsibility for the mistakes I’ve made. And it requires forgiveness. After all the forgiveness I’ve been given from Hillary, Chelsea, my friends, and millions of people in America and across the world, it’s the least I can do. As a young politician, when I started going to black churches, for the first time I heard people refer to funerals as “homegoings.” We’re all going home, and I want to be ready. In the meantime, I take great joy in the life Chelsea is building, the superb job Hillary is doing in the Senate, and my foundation’s efforts to bring economic, educational, and service opportunities to poor communities in America and across the world; to fight AIDS and bring low-cost medicine to those who need it; and to continue my lifelong commitment to racial and religious reconciliation. Do I have regrets? Sure, both private and public ones, as I’ve discussed in this book. I leave it to others to judge how to balance the scales.
I’ve simply tried to tell the story of my joys and sorrows, dreams and fears, triumphs and failures. And I’ve tried to explain the difference between my view of the world and that held by those on the Far Right with whom I did battle. In essence they honestly believe they know the whole truth. I see things differently. I think Saint Paul had it right when he said that in this life we “see through a glass darkly” and “know in part.” That’s why he extolled the virtues of “faith, hope, and love.”
I’ve had an improbable life, and a wonderful one full of faith, hope, and love, as well as more than my share of grace and good fortune. As improbable as my life has been, it would have been impossible anywhere but America. Unlike so many people, I have been privileged to spend every day working for things I’ve believed in since I was a little boy hanging around my grandfather’s store. I grew up with a fascinating mother who adored me, have learned at the feet of great teachers, have made a legion of loyal friends, have built a loving life with the finest woman I’ve ever known, and have a child who continues to be the light of my life.
As I said, I think it’s a good story, and I’ve had a good time telling it.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am particularly indebted to the many people without whom this book could not have been written. Justin Cooper gave up more than two years of his young life to work with me every day and, on many occasions in the last six months, all night. He organized and retrieved mountains of materials, did further research, corrected many errors, and typed the manuscript over and over from my illegible scrawling in more than twenty large notebooks. Many of the sections were rewritten a half dozen times or more. He never lost his patience, his energy never flagged, and by the time we got to the last lap, he sometimes seemed to know me and what I wanted to say better than I did. Though he is not responsible for its errors, this book is a testament to his gifts and efforts.
Before we began to work together, I was told that my editor, Robert Gottlieb, was the best there was at his craft. He turned out to be that and more. I only wish I’d met him thirty years earlier. Bob taught me about magic moments and hard cuts. Without his judgment and feel, this book might have been twice as long and half as good. He read my story as a person who was interested in but not obsessed with politics. He kept pulling me back to the human side of my life. And he convinced me to take out countless names of people who helped me along the way, because the general reader couldn’t keep up with them all. If you’re one of them, I hope you’ll forgive him, and me.
A book this long and full requires a mammoth amount of fact checking. This lion’s share of work was done by Meg Thompson, a brilliant young woman who carefully waded through the minutiae of my life for a year or so; then for the last few months she was assisted by Caitlin Klevorick and other young volunteers. They now have many examples of the fact that my memory is far from perfect. If any factual errors remain, it is not for lack of effort to correct them on their part. I can’t thank the people at Knopf enough, beginning with Sonny Mehta, the president and editor-inchief. He believed in the project from the beginning and did his part to keep it going, including giving me an amazed look wherever and whenever I ran in to him over the last two years; a look that said something like, “Are you really going to finish on time?”, and “Why are you here instead of at home writing?” Sonny’s look always had the desired effect.