From: jfh@netcom.com (Jack Hamilton)
Subject: Bill Clinton on his ACA issues
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 03:02:53 GMT

From the San Francisco Examiner, Sunday, October 4, 1992.  BC is Bill
Clinton and CM is Christopher Matthews, the interviewer.  We're making
progress if people running for office can talk about these things. 

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CM: You had it tought growing up in a lot of ways.  Tell me about growing
up with your family.  Your stepfather was an alcoholic.  I mean, Ronald
Reagan's father was an alcoholic, too.  People like this have gone on to be
president, quite effectively.  [laughter from audience]  But it's a serious
question.  How do you think it affected you?

BC: My stepfather was an intermittent alcoholic, not every night.  And
sometimes he was a violent alcoholic; less so after I got big enough to
stop the violence in my home.  But I loved him very much, and he loved me,
and he was good to us.  But he had this terrible disease, this awful
weakness.  And when he hurt my mother, it wasn't because he hated her; it
was because he hated himself.  And all these things are pretty tough fo a
kid to take, and especially, I think, stopping the violence in my home,
when I finally mustered the guts to do it.  It was when I was -- 

CM: How old were you?

BC: The first time, 14; the second time, 15.  After that --

CM: Were you big? 

BC: Yeah, I was big.  When I was 15, I was about 5'11", weighed about 215
pounds.  So I was big.

CM: What was that like, that first physical confrontation when you met as
equals, physical equals? 

BC: I was terrified in all kinds of emotional ways.  I wasn't afraid of
him hurting me, because by the time I was 14, I was as big as he was.  But
I loved him, and yet I was furious at him; and it looked like we were
reversing roles.  You know, I was the father.  And I think one of things
that happens is that you always want to be a peacemaker after that.
Sometimes people have really - my opponents in political campaigns have
underestimated me, and I have been criticized by the press often as being
too accomodating.  They say, "Well, old CLinton compromises too much, and
he always wants everybody to get along."  And I think I do go out of my way
to do that.  And Reagan did too, you know. 

CM: Right. 

BC: Even though he had strong principles, people always talked about how
internally he was always trying to get everybody to get along.  And he
hated this sort of intense personal conflict. 

CM: Reagan would say, "There isn't a conflict here," like building a
defense budget through the roof and cutting taxes through the floor.  And
that, of course, added up to big deficits.  He didn't see the dysfunction
there, either.  (laughter)

BC: Yeah.  Well, I studied more arithmetic.  (laughter)  But I can only
tell you what it did for me.  For me it made me want to live a good life.
It terrified me of indulgence.  I was 22 years old before I ever even took
a drink of whiskey. 

I think children of alcoholics -- you can over-psychobabble this, I don't
want to do that.  But you do have to be aware of the fact that it gives you
certain strengths.  I empathize with other people's problems and their
weaknesses, and I'm pretty quick to pick up on it.  And I'm always trying
to encourage people not to give up on themselves or others, vecause of all
those experiences.  But I think that I also have to  -- I've worked on it,
and I wouldn't have run for president if I didn't think I'd gotten to the
point where I could do this -- to know when to accomodate and and when to
cut it.  You have to know when you can reach out and when you've just got
to draw the line and say, "No more." 

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Jack Hamilton   jfh@netcom.com   P. O. Box 281107   SF, CA   94128-1107