Backstage at the Finale

摘要

He'd been up for days. Red-eyed and puffy faced, his voice hoarse with fatigue, Bill Clinton sat in the Oval Office for hours on his last night as president, talking with friends and aides as he sorted through eight years' worth of photographs, books and mementos. At3:30 a.m., he was still up, tossing things into moving boxes marked CHAPPAQUA, NEW YORK and LIBRARY. Hillary begged her husband to quit talking and go to bed. The White House stewards, scurrying to get the place ready for George W. Bush's arrival in just a few hours, worried that the outgoing president would never box everything in time. But Clinton insisted on packing up the Oval himself.