Good evening. Welcome to this Deadline News Special Report: The Clinton Administration: The First Thousand Seconds. I'm your host, Rex Veneer.
Bill Clinton has been President of the United States for precisely 1,000 seconds, so this seems an appropriate time to look back on his administration and ask some tough questions: has he fulfilled every campaign promise in his first 16 plus minutes in office? Why has his popularity plummetted in the last minute and a half of his reign? Has he reassessed his priorities in the minutes since his inauguration? Serious questions, all. These will be the focus of tonight's Deadline News Special Report.
Within 30 seconds of taking office, Clinton was embroiled in his first controversy: first domesticated non-human household member Socks Rodham Clinton was revealed to have once hired a nanny to look after a litter, paying in cash to avoid having to pay tax. The press immediately dubbed the affair "kittygate."
At first, Clinton defended Socks, claiming the practice was widespread; the press accused him of being soft on crime. Then Clinton backed down, saying he would review Socks' role in his administration; the press accused him of having no loyalty towards his friends. Later in the program, our panel of experts from across the political spectrum -- the far right, the moderate right and just right of centre -- will discuss the odds of kittygate destroying the President's chances of winning a second term.
Clinton weathered the storm, and his administration seemed to run smoothly for the next 37 seconds. Then, Clinton sent a bill to Congress which would have allowed the government to spend $32 billion on traffic lights to ease congestion in large cities. Senate Republicans, jealous that they hadn't had their pictures in the papers for over 20 seconds, filibustered. The bill was eventually killed by the resulting gridlock gridlock.
Around the same time, the press was reviving "The Hilary Factor" story. Many journalists, doubtless unhappy that First Lady Hilary Rodham Clinton had a higher IQ than they did, complained that she seemed to have too much influence over the President. There was an obvious nostalgia for former First Lady Nancy Reagan, who had the decency to manipulate President Reagan away from public scrutiny.
Responding to the criticism, Hilary Clinton said, "We love each other, we respect each other as human beings and value each others' opinions and we're raising a lovely daughter -- aren't we a good example of American family values?" The press replied by asking who did the cooking and cleaning around the house.
Around the three hundredth second -- that's what? Five minutes into the administration? -- another scandal threatened the President. Apparently, when he was Governor of Arkansas, Clinton was late paying his hydro bill one year. The press decided to ignore this, however, because it vaguely recalled that the term watergate had already been widely used in a different context.
Fortunately, an argument between Clinton and the United States Armed Forces blew up mere seconds later. One of Clinton's campaign promises had been to force the military to accept the principle that killing was "a bad, bad thing." When he put a bill to that effect before Congress, the Joint Chiefs of Staff pouted, "Well, of course killing is a bad thing. But it's the only thing we're really, really good at!" For as yet undisclosed reasons, the press decided to take the Joint Chiefs seriously.
We have to break for a commercial, but when we come back, we'll be looking at the three hundred to six hundredth seconds of the Clinton administration, including Bosniagate, Supreme Courtgate and Gatesgate. Please stay tuned for more of this Deadline News Special Report...
