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Bill Clinton: Coffee AchieverPage 1 | Page 2 Coffee With the Constituency For President Clinton, drinking coffee did not always signify another day at the Oval Office. He often got his coffee to go and had it on the road. Several news reporters saw fit to mention when Clinton ordered coffee during his travels about the United States. While we do not know what caliber of coffee he drank in the White House, the following excerpts from a May 1999 article by Russ Bynum of the Associated Press are evidence that Clinton had at least the occasional taste for the gourmet. ATLANTA -- The downtown market where President Clinton sampled gourmet coffee and sweet-potato cheesecake Tuesday had a hard time five years ago attracting anyone but vagrants with its grimy floors, leaky plumbing and nasty stench. . . . Clinton used his brief Atlanta trip to talk about a new package of economic incentives aimed at luring investors and big businesses to both inner cities and impoverished rural areas. The president perused rows and rows of vendors selling everything from watermelons and bananas to cow's feet and ox tails. He sipped Cameroon Boyo coffee at the Kaffee Shop and tried a bite of sweet-potato cheesecake at Sonya Jones' bakery. 'Boy, that's great,'' Clinton said after tasting the dessert. In the same month as this Atlanta trip, a much more tragic occasion brought Bill and Hillary Clinton to Littleton, Colorado to offer comfort and solace to the grieving family members of the students who had been killed. A Denver Post article by Michael Booth describes the Clintons with coffee in hand during these emotional times. The president came to the table with nothing more than a cup of coffee and his famous capacity for sympathy, but for the families of Columbine shooting victims, Bill Clinton's patented bear hug and reflective gaze were welcome consolation. President Clinton and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton spent a few minutes Thursday with each of 12 families of slain Columbine victims, walking from table to table for sit-down chats during a private audience at Light of the World Catholic Church. . . . Setting down cups of coffee when arriving at each table, the Clintons signed Columbine memorial books created by a secretary at Bear Creek Elementary School.
Grande Jury Testimony Even the consummate insiders of the Clinton White House seemed frustrated by their inability to completely understand Clinton. Says Woodward: Stephanopoulos couldn't pretend to discern the real Clinton. Clinton was uncomfortable with unanimity of opinion from his advisers, and he often liked contradictory things. There is one person, however, who could very credibly claim to know Clinton intimately: former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. While lower on the totem pole than most salaried White House employees, Lewinsky seemed well attuned to Clinton's tastes and cravings. While Lewinsky's book Monica's Story was not consulted for this article, the report compiled by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr is a telling and thoroughly researched work that offers us further insight on the subject at hand. The following excerpt from the Starr Report describes some of the gifts Lewinsky gave to her coffee-loving boss. When he testified to the grand jury, President Clinton acknowledged giving Monica Lewinsky several gifts, stating that 'it was a right thing to do to give her gifts back.'(190) He acknowledged giving her gifts on December 28, 1997,(191) just three weeks before the civil deposition. During the criminal investigation, the President has produced seven gifts that Ms. Lewinsky gave him. He testified to the grand jury that Ms. Lewinsky had given him 'a tie, a coffee cup, a number of other things I had.'(192) In addition, the President acknowledged that 'there were some things that had been in my possession that I no longer had, I believe.'(193) An Ongoing Salute to the Outgoing Chief Through his presidency and indeed through his entire life, Bill Clinton embodied many of the traits we might associate with a coffee drinker. He has always been a restless, driven, Type-A personality. Astute observers and insiders have given us plenty of evidence of Clinton's coffee drinking tendencies and his drive to stay wired whether on the campaign trail or discussing policy strategy with advisers in a White House room. He will be succeeded by a man who by all appearances is far less the busybody type than Bubba Clinton. The White House, to be certain, will continue to be populated by many java-guzzling subordinates, but we at INeedCoffee predict that the aroma of freshly brewed coffee is much less likely to waft through the Oval Office in the upcoming four years. No longer obligated to salute William Jefferson Clinton as the Commander-In-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, INeedCoffee instead salutes him for his many lasting credentials as a Coffee Achiever. Page 1 | Page 2 |
