Interview With Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone Magazine - part 2 - President Bill Clinton - Interview

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Dec 11, 2000

November 2, 2000

Mr. Wenner. Thank you for your time; I appreciate it. It takes time to do something like this.

The President. Good.

2000 Presidential Election

Mr. Wenner. Why do you think the race is so tight, given the economy, the issues, the incumbency? How could it get to be this close?

The President. Well, I think for one thing, things have been good for a long time, and I think a lot of people may take it for granted and may not have--they may not be as clear as they should be, which I hope we can use the last week to do, on what specific policies contributed to it and what could undermine it. I think that's one issue.

I also think that, you know, there's not as much general awareness as there might be about the differences between the two parties on health care, education, the environment, and crime, where I believe that the things we've done over the last 8 years had a measurable impact on all those things going in the right direction.

And a lot of--most Presidential races are fairly close, you know, because a lot of Presidential voting is cultural.

Mr. Wenner. The way you were raised.

The President. Well, the way you were raised and sort of the neighborhood you live in, your socioeconomic and ethnic background. I mean, a lot of it's cultural. So I think there are a lot of reasons it's close.

Also, keep in mind, in the history of our Republic, only two Vice Presidents have ever been directly elected President. One of them--when Martin Van Buren succeeded Andrew Jackson, we were effectively a one-party country then. And the other, when George Bush defeated Michael Dukakis, the country was not in as good a shape as it is now, but it was in pretty good shape, and Bush basically destroyed Dukakis. It was a hugely negative campaign with a lot of charges that were never effectively rebutted.

So this has been a much more positive race. There have been differences on the issues, but neither one of them has called each other's patriotism into question or whether they're normal Americans. Basically, the rap that was put on Dukakis was like reverse plastic surgery. So I think that that explains it largely.

Demands of the Presidency

Mr. Wenner. At the end of the interview, I'm going to ask you to make a bet with me.

What physical change in you says that you've served 8 years and it's a job that really takes a toll?

The President. Well, I think I'm in better shape, better health than I was 8 years ago, in a lot of ways. My hair is gray. I think that's about it. I've got a few wrinkles I didn't have 8 years ago.

But I've held up pretty well. I've had a good time. I've enjoyed it. I couldn't help my hair going gray. It would probably have gone gray if I hadn't become President.

Oklahoma City and Columbine

Mr. Wenner. One of the most important jobs that you, as a President, have is to talk to the country in the wake of national tragedies, frame the issues for the American people. I'm going to ask you about two of the things that happened during your two terms: the Oklahoma City bombing and the Columbine shootings.

Where were you when you first heard about the Oklahoma City bombing, and what was your first reaction, personally? And then how did you think you should frame that to the American people, to help them understand what's really a national trauma? And where were you when you heard it?

The President. I was in the White House. I believe I was in the White House, because I remember making a statement at the beginning, right in the Rose Garden, saying what you would expect me to say, expressing the Nation's sympathy for the loss but also urging the American people not to jump to conclusions about who had done it.

Remember in the beginning, there were a lot of people saying it was obviously some sort of act of foreign terrorism. There was one man that was brought back on an airplane. He was flying out of the country through to London, and he was brought back, suspected of maybe being involved, and he wasn't. And of course, subsequently, it was a domestic terrorist act.

But then when I went to Oklahoma, at the memorial service, what I tried to do was to elevate what the people who had been working in that building were doing. They were all public servants, and it was at a time when it was quite fashionable to bash the Government. And I told myself, even, that I would never refer to people who worked for the Government--even in agencies I thought weren't performing well--as bureaucrats again, because this whole--we have gotten, for more than a dozen years, a sort of demeaning rhetoric about the nature of Government and the nature of public service. And I tried to point out that these people were our friends and our neighbors and our relatives, and they were an important part of America's family and that their service ought to be honored in that way.

And also, obviously, I took a strong stand against terrorism. And I was able-later I went to Michigan State and gave a commencement speech and tried to amplify on that. But I really believe that was the turning of the tide in the venom of anti-Government feeling.