LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Late at night on a recent trip here, Bill Clinton wandered the halls of his presidential library, recording his thoughts on some of the milestones from his time in the White House. "There were lots of times when Republicans thought I was right about an issue, but they were determined not to let anything happen," Clinton says in a new audio tour of the library.
"I know that when I got elected president, a lot of those folks just went into denial," he says.
The library, along the Arkansas River in downtown Little Rock, will begin offering the audio tour Saturday. The tour was Clinton's idea and is a first for presidential libraries, said Jordan Johnson, spokesman for the William J. Clinton Foundation.
Visitors can pay an extra $3 for a device shaped like an oversized cordless phone. Each exhibit corresponds with a number, and when the number is pressed, Clinton recounts his thoughts and memories on the topic.
For the exhibit on the impeachment hearings, he describes the era as an ideological battle that went overboard.
"So when I won (the presidency), it was a profound sort of psychological shock to a lot of them," he says with a chuckle. "Then they went into overdrive fighting me. They weren't accomplishing anything, just banging away. Then they did what people who care too much about power do. They overdid it."
Clinton's commentary also addresses his childhood as well as issues such as crime, foreign affairs and the economy. He speaks of hosting state dinners for foreign leaders and his wife's role as first lady.
Clinton describes choosing a running mate as one of the most important decisions for a president. He says he chose Al Gore because the Tennessee Democrat complemented him and provided a more moderate perspective.
In the audio tour, Clinton says the Oval Office was "the best place in the world to work."
However, he had another favorite spot in the White House: his private office.
"I restored it to look the way it did after the Civil War and I brought in a desk, which was Ulysses Grant's cabinet table," Clinton says.
"And I would go in there, often after Hillary went to bed, or late at night (and) play my music, and that's where I did my reading and thinking and that's where my daughter would find me late at night when she called me from Stanford. I had a lot of happy times there."
Johnson said Clinton spent hours walking through the library while aides followed with a tape recorder. He recorded his thoughts in a handful of visits.
"Hopefully, visitors will go away with an experience that sheds some light on the personal experience of being president," Johnson said.
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On the Net:
Clinton Library http://www.clintonlibrary.gov
