| It was a tribute to the hard work of disability activists, especially my friend Justin Dart, a wheelchair-bound Wyoming Republican who was never without his cowboy hat and boots
All during the Christmas season we were looking forward to New Years Eve and the new millenniumFor the first time in many years, our family would miss Renaissance Weekend to stay in Washington for the millennium celebrationIt was all privately funded; my friend Terry McAuliffe raised several million dollars so that we could offer citizens a chance to enjoy the festivities, which included two days of public family activities at the Smithsonian Institution, and on the thirty-first a childrens celebration in the afternoon and a concert on the Mall produced by Quincy Jones and George Stevens, with a big fireworks displayWe also had a large dinner at the White House, filled with fascinating people from literary, artistic, musical, academic, military, and civic circles, and a long dance after the fireworks on the Mall
It was a wonderful evening, but I was nervous the entire timeOur security team had been on high alert for weeks due to numerous intelligence reports that the United States would be hit with several terrorist attacksParticularly since the embassy bombings in 1998, I had been focused intently on bin Laden and his al Qaeda supportersWe had rolled up a score of al Qaeda cells, knockoff gucci handbags captured terrorist operatives, broken up plots against us, and continued to urge Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to press Afghanistan give bin Laden upNow, with this new warning, Sandy Berger convened all of my top national security staff in the White House virtually every day for a month
One man with bomb-making materials was arrested crossing the Canadian border in Washington State; he had planned to bomb the Los Angeles airportTwo terrorist cells in the Northeast and one in Canada were discovered and broken upPlanned attacks in Jordan were thwartedThe millennium came to America with lots of celebration and no terror, a tribute to the hard work of thousands of people, and perhaps to a bit of luck as wellRegardless, as the new year, the new century, and the new millennium began, I was filled with joy and gratitudeOur country was in excellent shape, and we were moving into the new era in good condition
H illary and I began the first day of the new century and the last year of my presidency with a joint radio address to the American people, which was also televised liveWe had stayed up with the revelers at the White House until about two-thirty in the morning, and we were tired but eager to mark this dayA remarkable worldwide celebration had taken place the night before: billions of people had watched on television as midnight broke first in Asia, then in Europe, then in wholesale gucci messenger bag Africa, South America, and finally North AmericaThe United States was entering the new century of global interdependence with a unique combination of economic success, social solidarity, and national self-confidence, and with our openness, dynamism, and democratic values being celebrated the world overHillary and I said that we Americans had to make the most of this opportunity to keep making our own country better and to spread the benefits and share the burdens of the twenty-firstcentury worldThats what I intended to spend my last year doing
Defying historical trends, the seventh year of my presidency had been full of achievement because we had continued to work on the publics business through the impeachment process and afterward, following the agenda laid out in the State of the Union address and dealing with problems and opportunities as they aroseThe traditional winding down in the last half of a Presidents second term had not occurredI was determined not to let it happen this year, either
The new year brought the loss of one of my old partners, as Boris Yeltsin resigned and was succeeded by Vladimir PutinYeltsin had never fully recovered his strength and stamina after his heart surgery, and he believed Putin was ready to succeed him and able to put in the long hours the job requiredBoris also knew that giving the Russian people the chance to see Putin tiffany |
| 