The Kid From Hope

As I watched the judiciary committee hearings, I kept thinking back to that picture of a teenager named Bill Clinton shaking hands with President Kennedy in the Rose Garden of the White House back in the 1960s.

Here was a kid who had come from almost nothing, who went on to spend his whole life wanting to be president and against all odds pulled it off. 'Only in America,' as the cliche goes.

His message was that if only he had it all to do over again. He recited the familiar lines with the moving finger.

Whatever one thinks of him, there was something pathetic, even sorrowful of hearing someone who had spent his whole life trying to be president say that if Congress would just let him keep the office he would sign a statement saying he had dishonored it.

What do you suppose that kid who shook hands with President Kennedy would have thought about all of that?

Reported by Bob Schieffer
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