Bill Clinton :: Essays Papers

Bill ClintonBorn on Aug. 19, 1946, in Hope, Ark., William (Bill) Jefferson Blythe IV grew up in a roiled home. His father had died in an automobile accident three months before his sons birth, and his mother later was forced to leave her two-year-old son with his grandparents when she moved to New Orleans to stick with her nursing studies. The family settled in Hot Springs, Ark., after his mother married Roger Clinton, whose surname Bill later adopted. As a young man, Bill was unconquerable to succeed and frequently earned academic honors, including selection as a delegate to the American Legion Boys Nation program in Washington, D.C., where the 16-year-old Clinton met Pres. John F. Kennedy and located to embark on a political career. Attending Georgetown University to study international affairs, Clinton served as an intern for Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas before receiving his B.S. degree in 1968. After benignant a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University, Clinton retur ned to the United States to enroll at Yale Law School. In 1972 he helped to manage presidential candidate George McGoverns Texas campaign. After graduating from law school in 1973, Clinton returned to Arkansas to teach and to plan his political career. On Oct. 11, 1975, he married Hillary Rodham, a fellow law student he had met at Yale. After 12 years of republican control of the presidency, Clinton came to office amid high expectations for fundamental policy change. Early in his administration he reversed a number of Republican policies. He ended the federal prohibition on the use of fetal tissue for medical research, repealed rules restricting abortion counseling in federally funded health clinics, and used his appointment power to fulfill a promise to place many women and minorities in prominent government positions. Although backed by a relative controlled by the Democratic party, Clinton found it difficult to change the course of national priorities during his first two year s in office. Early in his administration some(prenominal) of his appointees encountered congressional disapproval. His proposal to end the ban on homosexuals in the military met with widespread opposition from Congress, the military, and the public and had to be altered substantially. Clinton had promised to reverse the Bush policy of returning Haitian refugees to their homeland, but he eventually decided to continue implementing his predecessors plan. The failure to enact comprehensive health-care reform proved to be a study setback for Clinton.