| The provision was also part of the Republican Contract with America, and I had endorsed it in my 1992 campaignI was pleased that it had finally passed, and I thought its main utility would be in the leverage it gave future Presidents to keep wasteful items out of budgets in the first placeSigning the bill had one significant downside: Senator Robert Byrd, the most respected authority in Congress on the Constitution, considered it an unconstitutional infringement on the legislative branch by the executiveByrd hated the line-item veto with a passion most people reserve for more personal injuries, and I dont think he ever forgave me for signing the bill
On the day of Ron Browns memorial service, I vetoed a bill that banned a procedure its proponents called partial-birth abortionThe legislation as described by its anti-abortion advocates was highly popular; it prohibited a type of late-term abortion that seemed so heartless and cruel that many pro-choice citizens thought it should be bannedIt was a bit more complicated than thatAs far as I could determine, the procedure was rare, and it was predominantly performed on women whose doctors had told them it was necessary to preserve their own lives or health, often because they were carrying hydrocephalic babies who were certain to die before, during, or shortly after childbirthThe question was how badly damaged the mothers bodies would be if they carried their doomed babies to term, and whether doing so could render them unable to bear other childrenIn such cases, it was far from clear audra louis vuitton bag that banning the operation was pro-life
I thought it should be a decision for the mother and her doctorWhen I vetoed the bill, I stood with five women who had undergone partial-birth abortionsThree of them, a Catholic, an evangelical Christian, and an Orthodox Jew, were devoutly pro-lifeOne of them said she had prayed to God to take her life and spare her child, and all of them said they had consented to the late-term procedure only because their doctors had told them their babies could not have lived, and they wanted to be able to have other children
If you consider how long it took me to explain why I vetoed the bill, you understand why it was terrible politics to do soI vetoed it because no one had shown me evidence that the womens advocates had been untruthful in saying the procedure was necessary or that there was another alternative procedure that would have protected the mothers and their reproductive capacityI had offered to sign a bill banning all late-term abortions except in cases where the life or health of the mother was at riskSeveral states still permitted them, and such action could have prevented far more abortions than the partial-birth bill, but the anti-abortion forces in Congress killed itThey were looking for a way to erode Roe vWade; besides, there was no political advantage to a bill that even most pro-choice senators and representatives would support
On April 12, I named Mickey Kantor secretary of commerce and his able deputy, Charlene Barshefsky, the new UI also named Frank Raines, vice chairman of rolex watches for ladies Fannie Mae, the Federal National Mortgage Association, to be head of the Office of Management and BudgetRaines had the right combination of intellect, knowledge of the budget, and political skills to succeed at OMB, and was the first African-American ever to hold the job
On April 14, Hillary and I boarded Air Force One for a busy one-week trip to Korea, Japan, and RussiaOn South Koreas beautiful Cheju Island, President Kim Young-Sam and I proposed that we convene four-party talks with North Korea and China, the other signers of the forty-six-year-old armistice concluding the Korean War, in order to provide a framework within which North and South Korea could talk and, we hoped, make a final peace agreementNorth Korea had been saying it wanted peace, and I believed we had to discover whether they were serious about it
I flew from South Korea to Tokyo, where Prime Minister Hashimoto and I issued a declaration designed to reaffirm and modernize our security relationship, including greater cooperation in counterterrorism, which the Japanese were eager for after the sarin gas subway attackThe United States also pledged to maintain its troop presence of about 100,000 in Japan, Korea, and the rest of East Asia, while reducing our profile on the Japanese island of Okinawa, where criminal incidents involving Umilitary personnel had increased opposition to our presence thereAmerica had a big economic stake in maintaining peace and stability in AsiaThe Asians bought half our exports, and those purchases supported three million louis vuitton travel bags jobs
Before leaving Japan, I visited Uforces from the Seventh Fleet aboard the USS Independence, attended an elegant state dinner hosted by the emperor and empress at the Imperial Palace, made a speech to the Japanese Diet, and enjoyed a lunch hosted by the prime minister that featured American-born sumo wrestlers and an outstanding Japanese jazz saxophonist
To reinforce the importance of American-Japanese ties, I had named former vice president Walter Mondale as our ambassadorHis prestige and skill at handling difficult problems sent an unmistakable message to the Japanese that they were important to the United StatesOn April 19, the first anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, Al Gore went to Oklahoma to speak for the administration, while I marked the occasion during a visit to the Russian military cemetery and prepared for a summit on nuclear safety with Boris Yeltsin and the G-7 leadersYeltsin had suggested the summit to highlight our commitment to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, START I and START II, and our joint efforts to secure and destroy nuclear weapons and materialsWe also agreed to improve safety at nuclear power plants, end the dumping of nuclear materials in the oceans, and help Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma close the Chernobyl power plant within four yearsTen years after the tragic accident there, it was still running
On the twenty-fourth, I was back home, but not out of foreign affairsPresident Elias Hrawi of Lebanon was at the White House at a tense moment in the Middle EastIn response to a barrage of cartier pasha Katyusha rockets fired into Israel from southern Lebanon by Hezbollah, Shimon Peres had ordered retaliatory attacks that killed many civiliansI had much sympathy for Lebanon; it was caught up in the conflict between Israel and Syria, and was full of terrorist operativesI reaffirmed Americas steadfast support for UN Security Council Resolution 425, which calls for a truly independent Lebanon
The news from the Middle East was not all badWhile I was meeting with the Lebanese president, Yasser Arafat persuaded the PLO executive council to amend its charter to recognize Israels right to exist, a policy shift very important to the IsraelisTwo days later Warren Christopher and our Middle East envoy, Dennis Ross, secured an agreement among Israel, Lebanon, and Syria to end the Lebanese crisis and enable us to get back to the business of peace
Shimon Peres came to see me at the end of the month to sign an anti-terrorism cooperative agreement that included $50 million for our joint efforts to reduce Israels vulnerability to the kind of suicide bombings that had recently caused such havoc and heartbreak
Just a week earlier, I had signed the anti-terrorism legislation that the Congress had finally passed, a full year after Oklahoma CityIn the end, the bill had won strong bipartisan support after the deletion of the provisions requiring traceable markers in black and smokeless powder and giving federal authorities the ability to conduct the kind of roving wiretaps on suspected terrorists that already could be used against organized crime dior figures |
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