Weblog

President Bill Clinton was in town recently for the 10th anniversary of the Tahoe Forum and to campaign for his wife Hillary (ok, so this isn’t news… I’m behind on my weblog postings!)

I took the afternoon off on Friday the 17th to attend the event- something that had been on my calendar for sometime. Hard to believe that it was ten years ago that Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore came to Lake Tahoe to see first hand the challenges facing the lake… there was no way I was going to miss the ten-year anniversary of the event. Getting a chance to meet a former President of the United States was just a bonus (ok, a very nice bonus!)

Much has been said about Bill Clinton’s amazing ability to soak up facts and figures, digest them, and then relate them on the stump as he argues passionately for whatever cause he has committed himself to solve. As he related from the podium at Tahoe: “America does best when we’re in the solutions business.”

What was remarkable was witnessing this mind up close and in person. Prior to his taking the stage, I had the opportunity to meet him along with a small group of other elected officials and dignitaries. One of the assembled was a scientist from the university who has done extensive research on the lake’s clarity. President Clinton made his way around the room greeting each one of us, and as soon as he met the scientist, you could see his mind light up and a barrage of questions ensued. His recall of the specific experiments demonstrated to him ten years prior was remarkable, and the scientist gladly updated him on the progress made on each issue facing the lake.

Taking the stage, I watched from the back of the crowd as he spoke off the cuff about his visit in 1997 and where we are today with the issues facing the lake- citing the conversation I had witnessed a mere hour before.

If you haven’t seen footage of President Clinton’s speech, the Reno Gazette-Journal still has a reel of highlights on it’s website (who knows how much longer it will be up…) The high point was his not so subtle plug for Hillary as someone who could continue the work protecting our gem that is Lake Tahoe:

I’m sort of an after thought in the sense that I’m the only person who’s speaking today who can not do a single thing to help you now… [laughter] …it’s sort of sad but that’s the way it is… however but I know someone who can!

Thanks for visiting us Mr. President and thanks for the work you did in setting a course to preserve Lake Tahoe.

Posted in Who's Your President?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.