title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: "The Handmaid's Tale"s first season won eight Primetime Emmy Awards from 13 nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series. It is the first show produced by Hulu to win a major award as well as the first series on a streaming service to win an Emmy for Outstanding Series. It also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Drama. Elisabeth Moss was also awarded the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series and the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Television Drama Series.


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: In a world where fertility rates have collapsed as a result of sexually transmitted diseases and environmental pollution, the totalitarian, theonomic government of Gilead establishes rule in the former United States in the aftermath of a civil war. Society is organized by power-hungry leaders along with a new, militarized, hierarchical régime of religious fanaticism and newly created social classes, in which women are brutally subjugated. By law, women in Gilead are forced to work in very limited roles, including some as natal slaves, and they are not allowed to own property, have careers, handle money, or read.


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: Worldwide infertility has led to the enslavement of fertile women in Gilead determined by the new régime to be fallen women, citing an extremist interpretation of the Biblical account of Bilhah. These women often include those who have entered marriages following divorce (termed "adulteresses", as divorce is not recognized under Gileadian law), single or unmarried mothers, lesbians (homosexuals being termed "gender traitors"), non-Christians, adherents of Christian denominations other than the "Sons of Jacob", political dissidents, and academics.


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: These women, called Handmaids, are assigned to the homes of the ruling elite, where they must submit to ritualized rape (referred to as "the ceremony") by their male masters ("Commanders") in the presence of their wives, to be impregnated and bear children for them. Handmaids are given names created by the addition of the prefix Of- to the first name of the man who has them. When they are transferred, their names are changed.


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: Along with the Handmaids, much of society is now grouped into classes that dictate their freedoms and duties. Women are divided into a small range of social categories, each one signified by a plain dress in a specific color. Handmaids wear long red dresses, heavy brown boots and white coifs, with a headcovering surrounded by a larger white coif (known as "wings") to be worn outside, concealing them from public view and restricting their vision.


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: June Osborne, renamed Offred, is the Handmaid assigned to the home of the Gileadan Commander Fred Waterford and his wife Serena Joy. The Waterfords, key players in the formation and rise of Gilead, struggle with the realities of the society they helped create. During "the time before", June was married to Luke and had a daughter, Hannah.


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: At the beginning of the story, while attempting to flee Gilead with her husband and daughter, June was captured and forced to become a Handmaid because of the adultery she and her husband committed. June's daughter was taken and given to an upper-class family to raise, and her husband escaped into Canada. Much of the plot revolves around June's desire to be reunited with her husband and daughter and the internal evolution of her strength to its somewhat darker version.


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: Hulu's straight-to-series order of "The Handmaid's Tale" was announced in April 2016, with Elisabeth Moss set to star. Based on the 1985 novel of the same name by Margaret Atwood, the series was created by Bruce Miller, who is also an executive producer with Daniel Wilson, Fran Sears, and Warren Littlefield. Atwood serves as consulting producer, giving feedback on some of the areas where the series expands upon or modernizes the book. She also played a small cameo role in the first episode. Moss is also a producer.


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: In June 2016, Reed Morano was announced as director of the series. Samira Wiley, Max Minghella, and Ann Dowd joined the cast in July 2016. Joseph Fiennes, Madeline Brewer, and Yvonne Strahovski were cast in August 2016, followed by O-T Fagbenle and Amanda Brugel in September 2016. In October 2016, Ever Carradine joined the cast, and Alexis Bledel was added in January 2017.


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: Filming on the series took place in Toronto, Mississauga, Brantford, Hamilton, Burlington, Oakville, and Cambridge, Ontario, from September 2016 to February 2017. Hulu released the first full trailer of the TV series on YouTube, on March 23, 2017. The series premiered on April 26, 2017.


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: On May 3, 2017, "The Handmaid's Tale" was renewed for a second season which premiered on April 25, 2018.


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: Moss told the news media that the subsequent episodes would cover further developments in the story, filling in some of the unanswered questions and continuing the narrative already "finished" in the book. The second season consists of 13 episodes and began filming in fall 2017. Alexis Bledel returned as a series regular.


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: Showrunner Bruce Miller stated that he envisioned 10 seasons of the show, stating, "Well, you know, honestly, when I started, I tried to game out in my head what would ten seasons be like? If you hit a home run, you want energy to go around the bases, you want enough story to keep going, if you can hook the audience to care about these people enough that they're actually crying at the finale." Season 2 was filmed in Ontario, primarily in Toronto, but some scenes were shot in Hamilton and Cambridge.


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: On May 2, 2018, Hulu renewed the series for a third season, which premiered on June 5, 2019. Season 3 started production in Toronto in October 2018. Scenes for season 3 were also filmed in Cambridge and Hamilton, Ontario as well as in Washington, D.C. Season 3 saw the show's long-serving Director of Photography, Colin Watkinson, make his directorial debut with the episode "Unknown Caller". Cambridge, Ontario was nominated by the Location Managers Guild International for "Outstanding Film Office" for their work on this season. This was the first time that a Canadian Film Office was nominated for this honor.


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: On July 26, 2019, the series was renewed for a fourth season. Season 4, consisting of 10 episodes, began production in March 2020, with Elisabeth Moss filming her directorial debut, but work had to be halted after only a few weeks, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In June 2020, Hulu announced that the fourth season would premiere in 2021. Production on season 4 resumed in September 2020 and wrapped on February 25, 2021, with Moss having directed three episodes.


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: On December 10, 2020, ahead of the fourth season premiere, Hulu renewed the series for a fifth season. Season 5 started production in Toronto in February 2022 and continued through July 2022. In May 2022, Alexis Bledel departed the series ahead of the fifth season, and stated, "After much thought, I felt I had to step away from "The Handmaid's Tale"". On September 8, 2022, ahead of the fifth season premiere, Hulu renewed the series for a sixth and final season.


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: The first three episodes of the series premiered on April 26, 2017; the subsequent seven episodes were released on a weekly basis. In Canada, the series is broadcast weekly by CTV Drama Channel and the streaming service Crave; the first two episodes premiered on April 30, 2017. In Scandinavia, the series is available on HBO Nordic. In the United Kingdom, the series premiered on May 28, 2017, on Channel 4.


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: In New Zealand, the series was released on the subscription video on demand service Lightbox on June 8, 2017. After satellite service provider Sky acquired Lightbox and merged it into its streaming service Neon on July 7, 2020, Neon acquired the distribution rights to the series in New Zealand.


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: In Australia, the series premiered on the TV channel SBS's video streaming service SBS on Demand, on July 6, 2017. The series also released on the subscription video on demand service Stan on December 12, 2018.


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: In Ireland, the series premiered on February 5, 2018, on RTÉ2, with a showing of the first two episodes. RTÉ also became the first broadcaster in Europe to debut Season 2, Season 3 and Season 4 following its broadcast in the US and Canada. In Brazil and Latin America, the series premiered on March 7, 2018, on Paramount Channel.


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: In India, the series premiered on February 5, 2018, on AXN and ran for the first two seasons before moving to Amazon Prime Video for Season 3, which made all three seasons available for viewing on January 31, 2020.


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: The first season was released on Blu-ray and DVD on March 13, 2018, the second season on December 4, 2018, and the third season on November 19, 2019, by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: "The Handmaid's Tale" was ranked as the 25th and 38th best TV series of the 21st century by "The Guardian" and "BBC", respectively. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the overall series has an approval rating of 83%. While on Metacritic, another aggregator website, it has an average score of 81 out of 100.


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, 94% of 259 reviews are positive for the first season, with an average rating of 8.65/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Haunting and vivid, "The Handmaid's Tale" is an endlessly engrossing adaptation of Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel that's anchored by a terrific central performance from Elisabeth Moss." On Metacritic, the season has a weighted average score of 92 out of 100 based on 41 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: Daniel Fienberg of "The Hollywood Reporter" called it "probably the spring's best new show". Jen Chaney of "Vulture" gave it a highly positive review, and wrote that it is "A faithful adaptation of the book that also brings new layers to Atwood's totalitarian, sexist world of forced surrogate motherhood" and that "this series is meticulously paced, brutal, visually stunning, and so suspenseful from moment to moment that only at the end of each hour will you feel fully at liberty to exhale".


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: There was much debate on whether parallels could be drawn between the series (and by extension, the book it is based on) and American society during the Presidency of Donald Trump. Comparisons have also been made to the Salafi/Wahabbi extremism of ISIS, under which enslaved women of religious minorities are passed around and utilized as sex objects and vessels to bear new jihadis.


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, 89% of 340 critics have given the season a positive review, and an average rating of 8.35/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Beautifully shot but dishearteningly relevant, "The Handmaid's Tale" centers its sophomore season tightly around its compelling cast of characters, making room for broader social commentary through more intimate lenses." Metacritic assigned the season a weighted average score of 86 out of 100 based on 28 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: Some critics perceived the second season's depictions of violence as excessive. "The Atlantic"s Sophie Gilbert wrote: "There came a point during the first episode where, for me, it became too much." Lisa Miller of "The Cut" wrote: "I have pressed mute and fast forward so often this season, I am forced to wonder: 'Why am I watching this'? It all feels so gratuitous, like a beating that never ends." "The Daily Telegraph"s Rebecca Reid admitted she had an anxiety attack watching an episode of the show.


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: For the third season, Rotten Tomatoes reports that 82% of 301 reviews are positive, and the average rating is 6.9/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""The Handmaid's Tale"s third season reins in its horrors and inspires hope that revolution really is possible – if only the story would stop spinning its wheels and get to it already." Metacritic compiled 14 critic reviews and an average score of 68 out of 100, signifying "generally favorable reviews".


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: Kelly Lawler of "USA Today" gave it a positive review, scoring it three out of four stars. She claimed it is an improvement over the second season, "that rights many – though definitely not all – of Season 2's wrongs." Overall, she wrote, "The new season is more propulsive and watchable, although it doesn't quite reach the heights of that first moving season. But "Handmaid's" regains its footing by setting off on a new path".


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: Daniel Fienberg of "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote a generally positive review, praising Elisabeth Moss's performance and the cinematography, but criticized the plot "that has become frustratingly repetitive". Overall, he wrote, "Still occasionally powerful, but rarely as provocative".


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the fourth season earned positive reviews from 70% of 46 critics, with an average rating of 7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Elisabeth Moss is better than ever, but scattershot plotting and an overbearing sense of doom may prove too grim for some viewers to really enjoy "The Handmaid's Tale"s fourth season." According to Metacritic, which collected 18 reviews and calculated an average score of 62, the season received "generally positive reviews".


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: Kristen Baldwin of "Entertainment Weekly" gave it a "C+" grade and wrote that the series "delivers on some long-delayed promises, but ultimately it's too little, too late." Matthew Gilbert of "The Boston Globe" wrote, "the dystopian drama has exceeded the natural lifespan of its story, as it plows forward with nothing new to say, tinkling cymbals and sounding brass." In a more positive review from Jen Chaney of "Vulture", she wrote, "Thankfully, season four finally regains some momentum and forward motion. Based on the eight out of ten total episodes made available to critics, this is the best "The Handmaid's Tale" has been since its first season."


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the fifth season earned positive reviews from 81% of 27 critics, with an average rating of 7.55/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""The Handmaid's Tale" has lost its urgency after spreading its once-arresting premise thin in a season focused on vengeance's consequences, but the women of Gilead are still played with compelling exactitude." On Metacritic, it received an average score of 63 out of 100, based on 7 reviews, indicating "generally positive reviews".


title: The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

text: Critics were given the first eight episodes of the season to review. Writing for "IGN", Tara Bennett gave it a "good" score of 7 out of 10 and wrote in her verdict: ""The Handmaid's Tale" remains the canary in the coalmine of TV shows [...]. Elisabeth Moss continues to give a livewire performance as former handmaid/now Canadian refugee June Osborne. [...] But overall, the series continues to suffer with very measured storylines that can't seem to recapture the kinetic energy of the first two seasons." Abby Cavenaugh of "Collider" graded it with a "B-" and said, "Season 5 is full of scarce highs and really low lows, lots of heavy-hitting drama, and emotional scenes. Some of the biggest events of this season lead to some pretty uncomfortable viewing, but viewers who stick with it will be rewarded with some huge moments that will have repercussions for the final season."


title: Oscar Isaac

text: Óscar Isaac Hernández Estrada (born March 9, 1979) is a Guatemalan-born American actor. Known for his versatility, he has been credited with breaking stereotypes about Latino characters in Hollywood. He was named the best actor of his generation by "Vanity Fair" in 2017 and one of the 25 greatest actors of the 21st century by "The New York Times" in 2020. His accolades include a Golden Globe Award, a National Board of Review Award and a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award. In 2016, he featured on "Time" list of the 100 most influential people in the world.


title: Oscar Isaac

text: When Isaac was an infant, he moved with his family to the United States. As a teenager, he joined a punk band, acted in plays and made his film debut in a minor role. An alumnus of the Juilliard School, Isaac was a character actor in films for much of the 2000s. His first major role was that of Joseph in the biblical drama "The Nativity Story" (2006), and he won an AACTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for portraying East Timorese political leader José Ramos-Horta in the Australian film "Balibo" (2009). After gaining recognition for playing supporting parts in "Robin Hood" (2010) and "Drive" (2011), Isaac had his breakthrough with the eponymous role of a singer in the musical drama "Inside Llewyn Davis" (2013), which earned him a Golden Globe nomination.


title: Oscar Isaac

text: Isaac's career progressed with leading roles in the crime drama "A Most Violent Year" (2014), the thriller "Ex Machina" (2015) and the superhero film "" (2016). He became a global star with the role of Poe Dameron in the "Star Wars" sequel trilogy (2015–2019). Isaac starred in the historical drama "Operation Finale" (2018)—which marked his first venture into production—the science fiction films "Annihilation" (2018) and "Dune" (2021), and the crime drama "The Card Counter" (2021). On television, he was the lead in three miniseries: "Show Me a Hero" (2015), for which he won a Golden Globe Award, "Scenes from a Marriage" (2021), and the Marvel Cinematic Universe's "Moon Knight" (2022). His stage work includes title roles in "Romeo and Juliet" (2007) and "Hamlet" (2017).


title: Oscar Isaac

text: Óscar Isaac Hernández Estrada was born on March 9, 1979, in Guatemala City to a Guatemalan mother, María Eugenia Estrada Nicolle, and a Cuban father, Óscar Gonzalo Hernández-Cano, a pulmonologist. He has an older sister, climate scientist Nicole, and a younger brother, journalist Mike. Isaac's family immigrated to the US when he was five months old, and they frequently moved around the country, living in Baltimore, New Orleans, and Miami, where they eventually settled. Isaac became a United States citizen in 2006. He has French origins through his grandfather and describes himself as "a big mix of many things". He speaks English and Spanish.


title: Oscar Isaac

text: Isaac attended the private grade school Westminster Christian School in southern Florida. Drawn to creating music and film content since a young age, he struggled growing up in Miami, which in his view was not "a flourishing place for the arts" due to its rather conservative nature. When he was four, he and his sister organized plays in their backyard. Around age10, Isaac made a home movie called "The Avenger", in which he played dual characters; he also participated in school plays. He wrote his first play in fifth grade; it was based on the Biblical story of Noah's Ark, and featured a doubtful platypus. He found great joy at performing in front of people, which proved to be a stress relief at a time when his parents were separating and his mother became sick.


title: Oscar Isaac

text: Growing up in a religious household, Isaac was a rebellious child and liked causing trouble at school. "I set off a fire extinguisher in the gym, defaced a mural, just stupid stuff", he recalled in a 2015 interview. At one point, his teacher screened off his desk from the rest of the class with a piece of cardboard. Isaac was eventually expelled. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew destroyed his family's home in Miami. Around this time, his parents divorced and he moved with his mother to Palm Beach where he attended a public high school. Isaac liked his new school and formed a band with boys he met in a trailer park. He learned music, played guitar and continued to make home movies, inspired by Quentin Tarantino's work: "action [films], with lots of blood and cars". Isaac spent his musical years living a "straight-edge" lifestyle.


title: Oscar Isaac

text: At age14, Isaac and his bandmates performed Nirvana's "Rape Me" at a talent show and lost. He attended Santaluces Community High School and graduated in 1998. Isaac joined a ska punk band named The Blinking Underdogs, which enjoyed some success, opening for Green Day. During this time, Isaac took a two-day workshop with a casting director and won a brief part in the independent film "Illtown" (1998). A chance encounter with artistic director John Rodaz at the Area Stage Company in Miami Beach resulted in several roles on stage. Isaac next secured parts in Joseph Adler's 2000 productions of "This Is Our Youth" and "Side Man" at GableStage. To avoid getting typecast as a "Latino gangster", he used Isaac as his surname at auditions. In his own words, "Being called Oscar Hernández in Miami is like being called John Smith; there are 15 pages of us in the phone book." To support himself financially, he worked as an orderly at the hospital where his father worked.


title: Oscar Isaac

text: Unsure about his career choice, Isaac considered enlisting in the Marines at one point. His father initially disapproved of this, but Isaac had recruiters convince him. Once he had taken the exam, Isaac said he wanted to do combat photography in military reserve, a job they did not offer. Instead, he studied performing arts at Miami Dade College and continued to act in plays. During a trip to New York City to play a young Fidel Castro in an Off-Broadway production of the play "When it's Cocktail Time in Cuba", he successfully auditioned to study at the Juilliard School. While a student there, he was cast in a production of "Macbeth" and worked on the film "All About the Benjamins" (2002). Isaac graduated from Juilliard with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2005.


title: Oscar Isaac

text: After graduating from Juilliard, Isaac continued to write music and performed in small New York clubs, and played Proteus in "Two Gentlemen of Verona" (2005) in The Public Theatre. The following year, he portrayed Federico García Lorca in New York City Center's production of "Beauty of the Father"; David Rooney of "Variety" remarked that his "injection of wry humor provides welcome levity". Also in 2006, he briefly appeared on the television series "", and played Joseph in the biblical epic "The Nativity Story", opposite Keisha Castle-Hughes. It was the first film to hold its world premiere in the Vatican City. Having grown up in a religious family, Isaac believed it was important to portray his character "as human as possible" and approach him like any other role. To understand Joseph's background better, he read a book titled "The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah". The film received mixed reviews and grossed $46million against a budget of $35million. A critic for "The Abbotsford News" wrote that Isaac brought the role "a freshness and vulnerability it usually" lacks. Toddy Burton of "The Austin Chronicle" found Isaac "endearing", yet thought that his character's selfless personality made him seem unreal.


title: Oscar Isaac

text: Isaac played Romeo alongside Lauren Ambrose in the Public Theater's "Romeo and Juliet" (2007). Michal Daniel of "The Record" believed that a "persuasively young and inexperienced" Isaac was overshadowed by Ambrose but had an enthusiastic speech and a passionate behavior. For much of the rest of the 2000s, Isaac played minor roles in films—the thriller "The Life Before Her Eyes" (2007), the biopic "Che" (2008), the spy thriller "Body of Lies" (2008) and the Spanish historical drama "Agora" (2009). In a book published by Rutgers University Press, which analyzes the performances of rising actors in the 2010s, Rick Warner believed that Isaac "momentarily steals the scene" as a United Nations interpreter in "Che". Isaac won the AACTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his role as José Ramos-Horta in "Balibo" (2009). Chris Barsanti of "PopMatters" opined that he played his role with "improbable charm". According to R. Kurt Osenlund of "Slant Magazine", Isaac became "a bona fide scene-stealer" after "Balibo".


title: Oscar Isaac

text: Isaac began the 2010s with the role of the villain King John in the film "Robin Hood". In preparation, he read about the character and shared ideas with director Ridley Scott on how to portray him. He liked playing a villain, as he said one does not worry about having to make them likable, enabling him to display more facets of his character. The film had a mixed critical consensus and grossed $321million against a budget of $200million. For R. Kurt Osenlund, Isaac skillfully overshadowed Russell Crowe (who played Robin Hood), "bringing new, magnetic venom to the done-and-done-again role". Rick Warner wrote, "In his early minor film roles, Isaac makes the most of the few lines he is given, supplying emotional complexity not just verbally but also through his attractive face and piercing stare."


title: Oscar Isaac

text: Isaac's profile expanded in 2011 as he gained recognition for several supporting roles. His first role that year was of an asylum orderly in Zack Snyder's "Sucker Punch", for which he applied extensive makeup. Isaac credited Snyder for his openness to actors' input on set. He played a security guard in Madonna's "W.E." (2011), a critical failure that "British Vogue" saw as his "one misjudgment", although Drew Taylor of IndieWire believed he was "one of the few worthwhile aspects" of the film. Isaac then portrayed a musician in "10 Years", in which he performed his own song "Never Had", and an ex-convict in Nicolas Winding Refn's critically acclaimed action drama "Drive" (2011). Initially hesitant about "Drive", he accepted the offer after working out a "more nuanced" and less stereotypical version of the character with Refn and screenwriter Hossein Amini. Todd McCarthy of "The Hollywood Reporter" praised Isaac's "unanticipated intelligence and sincerity"; Madison Diazm, writing for "Comic Book Resources" in 2022, called the film an early testament to Isaac's ability to create tension. "Drive" earned $81.3million against a production budget of $15million.


title: Oscar Isaac

text: Isaac had four film releases in 2012. His first, the Mexican epic historical drama "For Greater Glory", had him play a freedom fighter, for which he was nominated for an ALMA Award for Favorite Movie Actor – Supporting Role. After playing the main character's cousin in the comedy-drama "Revenge for Jolly!", Isaac appeared in the action thriller "The Bourne Legacy". Director Tony Gilroy originally considered Isaac for the lead role in the latter, but the film's production company decided against casting an unknown actor. Isaac instead won the brief part of a brainwashed assassin. The film was released to a mixed critical reception and box-office success. Lizzie Logan of "Vulture" opined that "Isaac took a character with very little screen time and turned him into a living, breathing, hurting person". "Won't Back Down", a drama on the American educational system, was Isaac's last film in 2012. It received negative reviews and was a box-office failure.


title: Oscar Isaac

text: In 2013, Isaac played the titular character of a struggling folk singer in 1961 Greenwich Village in the Coen brothers' musical drama "Inside Llewyn Davis". Isaac accepted the project due to his high regard for the Coen brothers, who in turn were impressed with his musical talent. In preparation for the part, Isaac learned the guitar technique Travis picking and worked with musicians Erik Frandsen and T Bone Burnett. Before production began, Isaac behaved and dressed like Davis to observe people's reaction to him. The film received acclaim, as did Isaac's performance in what proved to be his breakthrough role. Critics from "The Oregonian" and "St. Louis Post-Dispatch" added that Isaac "anchors this film with a star-making, soulful performance", and "has a gift for being appealing even when he's unpleasant". A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" wrote, "Isaac, a versatile character actor here ascending to the highest levels of his craft, refuses the easy road of charm. Like his character, he trusts his own professionalism and the integrity of the material." Scott opined that the musical performances elevated the film, especially Isaac's "The Death of Queen Jane" and "The Shoals of Herring". For the film, Isaac was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. He next starred as Laurent LeClaire, a man who seduces his friend's wife (Elizabeth Olsen) in the erotic thriller "In Secret" (2013). Michael Phillips of the "Chicago Tribune" praised Isaac as the film's prime asset, noting that his "sly delineation of the charismatic Laurent provides the through-line".


title: Oscar Isaac

text: In 2014, Isaac appeared in the thriller "The Two Faces of January", starring alongside Viggo Mortensen and


title: Oscar Isaac

text: Kirsten Dunst. He starred with Jessica Chastain in J. C. Chandor's "A Most Violent Year" (2014), replacing actor Javier Bardem. Described by Isaac as "a gangster movie without the gangsters", the film follows his character Abel Morales, the ambitious owner of a heating-oil company, who is determined to protect his business in a city plagued by violent crime. Chandor first met Isaac upon Chastain's insistence and, finding him "precise, wild and alive", cast him in the part. When Isaac noticed that Morales's background was missing in the script, Chandor allowed him to create it, for which he researched Latin Americans' history in the 1950s and 1960s. Fascinated by Morales's duality—"cold, calculating businessman" but also "highly emotional and highly passionate"—Isaac read books about sociopaths and "corporate America" to prepare for the part. The film failed to recoup its budget but was a critical success. Ann Hornaday of "The Washington Post" praised Isaac for "deliver[ing] a master class in that skill from the very first moment of "A Most Violent Year" to the last", adding, "he's a commanding screen presence, even when he's saying nothing." Tad Friend of "The New Yorker" believed that Isaac's portrayal was reminiscent of the work of actors Treat Williams, Dustin Hoffman, and Al Pacino. For his performance in the film, Isaac won a National Board of Review Award for Best Actor.


title: Oscar Isaac

text: In 2015, Isaac portrayed Nathan Hamlet Bateman, the reclusive inventor of a humanoid artificial intelligence, in the science fiction film "Ex Machina". He based his character's look and accent on director Stanley Kubrick and observed his speech patterns. Isaac modeled Bateman's personality on chess champion Bobby Fischer and played the game during filming to get "in that mode of constantly trying to be a few steps ahead". "Ex Machina" was a commercial and critical success, with praise for Isaac's performance. Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com commended Isaac for possessing "an electrifying star quality, cruelly sneering yet somehow delightful, insinuating and intellectually credible". Isaac followed with his first leading role on television—the 6-episode HBO miniseries "Show Me a Hero", in which he played politician Nick Wasicsko. Isaac was approached for the role shortly after he had finished filming for "". Although he found the story "fascinating", he was initially reluctant to sign on as it was "a little impenetrable" for him. He agreed after finding footage of Wasicsko interacting with the media. Because a show's length generally exceeds a film's, Isaac found filming the miniseries a little more difficult, and was skeptical about its six-hour format. Isaac's performance, which won him the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film, was lauded by critics. Emily Nussbaum of "The New Yorker" praised it as "a star performance agile enough to elevate scenes that might veer into agitprop".


title: Oscar Isaac

text: Isaac co-starred as Poe Dameron, an X-wing pilot, in the epic space opera film "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" (2015). Having liked "Star Wars" films since childhood, he initially considered himself unfit for the part, but director J. J. Abrams convinced him in a meeting. A fan of "Inside Llewyn Davis", Abrams described Isaac as "a far more sophisticated actor than one might get for a role". Isaac suggested to Abrams that his character be from the moon Yavin 4, which first appeared in "Star Wars" (1977) in scenes filmed in his country Guatemala; this idea was incorporated. While filming "The Force Awakens", Isaac initially felt insecure, but soon found a sense of belonging with co-stars Daisy Ridley and John Boyega, who were also newcomers to the film series. In preparation for the role, Isaac read about war, including a book called "What It's Like to Go to War". "The Force Awakens" received positive reviews and grossed $2billion worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing film of 2015. "Forbes" and "TheWrap" critics praised the cast additions, including Isaac, as "outright terrific", and "engaging performers" who "make strong impressions very quickly, and who are charismatic enough to make us care about their characters".


title: Oscar Isaac

text: Isaac agreed to play the titular villain in the film "" (2016) because he was a fan of X-Men comic books since childhood. He underwent extensive makeup and prosthetics, and wore a 40-pound suit; the full costume was uncomfortable, which forced Isaac to go to a cooling tent between takes. Critics Angelica Jade Bastién and Glenn Kenny believed Isaac, though a "charismatic and dynamic" actor, "feel[s] so torpid here", and "fares poorly through no fault of his own". Years after "Apocalypse" underwhelming critical performance, Isaac commented that he wished the film and his character had been better handled. Also in 2016, he starred alongside Charlotte Le Bon and Christian Bale in "The Promise", a historical drama about a love triangle set during the Armenian genocide. Critics were dismissive of the film, believing that the trio's talents were wasted. Richard Roeper of the "Chicago Sun-Times" wrote that the film was "derivative of better war romances" but was "bolstered by strong performances from Isaac and Bale, two of the best actors of their generation". The film's producers intended to donate the profits to charity, but it accrued a $102million loss. Outside film in 2016, Isaac narrated the Nike ad Unlimited You, and voiced a soldier trying to rejoin civilian life in the podcast series "Homecoming".


title: Oscar Isaac

text: About late 2016, Isaac spent most of his time caring for his dying mother. As her condition worsened, he began reading her "Hamlet" by Shakespeare, whose work he had been a fan of since childhood. In honor of his mother, who died later in February 2017, Isaac starred as Prince Hamlet in The Public Theater production of "Hamlet". The play, directed by Sam Gold, ran from July to September 2017. "The Hollywood Reporter" David Rooney praised Isaac as the production's prime asset, and Jeremy Gerard of "Deadline Hollywood" described him as "the rare actor as comfortable onstage as before the camera", highlighting his "committed, fully conceived performance". Also that year, Isaac played an insurance investigator in the black comedy "Suburbicon", written by the Coen brothers who directed Isaac in "Inside Llewyn Davis". Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" called Isaac's performance the film's best, and David Sims of "The Atlantic" wrote, "The film's only really electrifying moments are generated by Oscar Isaac[...] it's in his scenes that the darkly funny spark of the Coens' writing flickers to life." For the film, Isaac was nominated for a San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor. Isaac's final work in 2017 was in the sequel "", in which he reprised the role of Poe Dameron. J. J. Abrams originally intended to kill Dameron off in "The Force Awakens", but Isaac convinced him otherwise. "The Last Jedi" grossed $1.3billion becoming 2017's highest-grossing film.


title: Oscar Isaac

text: Isaac filmed "Annihilation" (2018) simultaneously with "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" at the same studio. As such, he did not have enough time rehearsing for his role in the former and credited co-star Natalie Portman (who played his wife) for helping him film their intimate scenes with ease. The film received positive reviews. Tasha Robinson of "The Verge" complimented Isaac's chemistry with Portman, and Caryn James of the BBC took note of his ability to act well with a mere glance. Isaac debuted as a producer filming the historical drama "Operation Finale" (2018), in which he played Peter Malkin, the Israeli secret agent who captured Nazi fugitive Adolf Eichmann in 1960. When asked about his first time producing, he said he wanted to contribute to the stories he is part of. He believed that the film's topic still remains relevant in modern times, where extreme views are deemed acceptable. Critical consensus for "Operation Finale" was that it is "well-intentioned, well-acted, and overall entertaining, even if the depth and complexity of the real-life events depicted can get a little lost in their dramatization". Bhaskar Chattopadhyay of "Firstpost" thought Isaac was brilliant in certain scenes, but mainly highlighted the performances of the supporting actors. The film was a commercial failure. Isaac's other films in 2018 include "At Eternity's Gate" (where he played Paul Gauguin), "Life Itself" and "", which featured his voice during the post-credits. Isaac co-starred with Olivia Wilde in the box-office failure "Life Itself"; Caroline Siede of "Consequence" found the two leads unconvincing and their roles to be poorly written.


title: Oscar Isaac

text: After Isaac finished filming "" in October 2018, he intended to take a prolonged acting hiatus but was cast as Duke Leto Atreides in "Dune" (2021) a few months later. In the former, the final film in the "Star Wars" sequel trilogy, Isaac reprised the role of Poe Dameron. It received mixed reviews but was profitable. Earlier in 2019, Isaac starred as an agent working against a drug cartel in South America in J. C. Chandor's Netflix film "Triple Frontier". To avoid feeling exhausted during scenes in which he is running at high altitude, Isaac trained in a New York hall where one can decrease oxygen. He said that filming in a favela with no water or sewage made him realize his privileged life. Reviews for the film were generally positive. Critics Christy Lemire and Richard Roeper highlighted Isaac's screen presence as "charismatic" and "electric". Isaac next voiced the role of Gomez Addams in "The Addams Family" (2019), a computer-animated film based on the titular characters created by Charles Addams. For years, fans suggested Isaac be cast in the part as they claimed he resembled Raul Julia who played Gomez Addams in live-action films in the 1990s. "The Addams Family" received mixed reviews and grossed $203million on a $24million budget.


title: Oscar Isaac

text: Isaac's only role in 2020 was of a kindhearted prison officer in the short film "The Letter Room", for which he was also an executive producer. Roktim Rajpal of the "Deccan Herald" believed that Isaac "is the backbone of the short and makes an impact with his sincere performance", yet he fails to "internali[z]e the character as much as expected". The following year, he starred alongside Jessica Chastain in "Scenes from a Marriage". A remake of the 1973 Swedish series of the same name by Ingmar Bergman, it switches gender roles, and explores the themes of monogamy, marriage and divorce. To film the show, Isaac and Chastain employed their experiences from past relationships and parents' marriage. Isaac performed in a full frontal nude scene in the series. Reviews for the show were positive, particularly for the duo's chemistry. Carol Midgley of "The Times" praised them for giving "masterclass performances and delivering crackling, wounding dialogue faultlessly". He was nominated for the Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award and Primetime Emmy Award for Best Actor in a miniseries.


title: Oscar Isaac

text: To avoid what he saw as "green screen alien space land", Isaac starred as William Tell—a troubled, gambling military veteran—in the Paul Schrader-directed crime drama "The Card Counter". Because his character writes in his journal every night, Isaac took a penmanship course. To portray Tell's military experience, he drew inspiration from his time as a high-school graduate when he and his friend wanted to join the marines. Near the end, the film's production was halted due to the COVID-19 lockdown; per Isaac's suggestion, he finished it with only Schrader and the cinematographer on set. Critics praised "The Card Counter" and Isaac's performance, which for Eric Kohn of IndieWire was his career's best. Justin Chang of NPR lauded Isaac for "bring[ing] his usual sly, soulful magnetism to the role" and embodying his character's trauma in his "dark, haunted gaze". The film earned him a nomination for the London Film Critics' Circle Award for Actor of the Year. After reprising the role of Gomez Addams in "The Addams Family 2", Isaac starred in "Dune" as the father of the protagonist Paul Atreides (played by Timothée Chalamet). Based on the 1965 namesake novel by Frank Herbert, "Dune" premiered at the 78th Venice International Film Festival to mixed reviews but was nominated for 10Academy Awards. It earned over $400million against a budget of $165million.


title: Oscar Isaac

text: Isaac began 2022 with the black comedy "Big Gold Brick" in a brief role that Nick Schager of "Variety" found "out of left field". In the Marvel Cinematic Universe series "Moon Knight" (2022), he played the titular superhero, a man with dissociative identity disorder (DID) who serves as an avatar to the Egyptian moon god Khonshu. He also executive produced the show, which is based on Marvel Comics' namesake comic book. Initially reluctant to join another franchise, he had several conversations with Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige before signing on. Drawn to his character's complex mind, Isaac found manifesting each persona a technical challenge that took considerable energy. He read Robert B. Oxnam's book "A Fractured Mind" to research DID. To distinguish the three identities, Isaac gave them different nationalities. For example, he suggested that the persona Steven Grant be English, and was inspired by comedians Karl Pilkington (from the British travel comedy series "An Idiot Abroad") and Peter Sellers to develop his English accent. The third identity Jake Lockley speaks Spanish as Isaac wanted to add an aspect of his own life to the role. "Moon Knight" was released to a positive critical reception. In a review of the fifth episode, Matt Fowler of "IGN" took note of Isaac's "dynamic and dazzling performance" and "ace acting", highlighting the dramatic scene in which his character revisits his traumatic past. He was nominated for an MTV Movie Award for Best Hero.


title: Oscar Isaac

text: Isaac will star in and produce "The Great Machine", an adaptation of the comic "Ex Machina". He is set to star in "London", which will be directed by Ben Stiller. In December 2020, it was announced that Isaac would star as Solid Snake in the film adaptation of "Metal Gear Solid" directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts. In October 2021, he was cast in Martin McDonagh's untitled project; it co-starred Christopher Walken and Sam Rockwell.


title: Oscar Isaac

text: In 2023, Isaac is set to star in the revival of Lorraine Hansberry's "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window" opposite Rachel Brosnahan at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.


title: Oscar Isaac

text: Media publications like "Vanity Fair", "The Guardian" and "People" have positively commented on Isaac's looks. "Rolling Stone" and other media outlets have dubbed Isaac "the Internet's Boyfriend", a label he is skeptical about. Hoby Hermione of "The Guardian" took note of Isaac's "cheerful, vigorous presence", "energy and good humour". Melanie Haupt of "The Austin Chronicle" identified him as "polite, professional, serene". Joseph Adler, who directed Isaac in plays early in his career, was impressed with his "discipline", "professionalism" and "incredible intelligence". Nick Levine of "NME" wrote, "In the flesh, Oscar Isaac has a relaxed charisma that puts you at ease." Brett Martin of "GQ" commented on his "wide, easy smile", adding, "It's been a long time since we've had a leading man whose charisma comes packed with such tetchiness, so little naked desire to be liked."


title: Oscar Isaac

text: In 2016, "Time" named Isaac one of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2017, Isaac was described as the "best dang actor of his generation" by "Vanity Fair" chief critic Richard Lawson, who wrote, "He's a classically trained actor of true range, one who can sing and dance, do comedy, action, and drama with equal ease and authority. He's thrilling to watch, a prodigious mind sparking a nimble[...] form into action." The same year, "Esquire" Miranda Collinge added that after his roles of Hamlet and Poe Dameron, Isaac was becoming the most accomplished leading actor of his generation. In 2020, "The New York Times" ranked him 14th in its list of the 25 Greatest Actors of the 21st Century. "When I think about what makes him so credible as an actor", wrote the list's co-author A. O. Scott, "[is] whatever Isaac is pretending to do onscreen[...] I always believe that he really knows how to do it, and that I'm watching some kind of authentic mastery in action." Hossein Amini, who directed Isaac in "The Two Faces of January", remarked on his "ability to make the tiniest shifts in character incredibly quickly, without revealing any element of process".


title: Oscar Isaac

text: Martin identified an extent of "loneliness and menace" in Isaac's most memorable characters, attributing his growing success to "a series of brilliant but darkly idiosyncratic roles" ("Inside Llewyn Davis" and "A Most Violent Year"). Isaac himself noted "a sense of melancholy, anger, displacement" in these characters. For Rick Warner, Isaac's roles in these films and "Ex Machina" signify his "penchant for moody rumination" that "runs together with an expression of intellect that slips into egoism". Madison Diaz of "Comic Book Resources" praised Isaac for his inclination to "intense and complex" characters and for exploring their hardships and complicated pasts. Tom Shone of "The Guardian" identified common characters of "ambitious, slightly myopic men whose own movement quickens their fall" (an oil importer struggling to keep his business intact in "A Most Violent Year" and a doomed politician in "Show Me a Hero"). Shone noted, "He has made a career playing men for whom careerism doesn't work." Isaac's favorite roles depict "a lot more of the beauty and cruelty of life". He often looks for "the comic in the dramatic and the dramatic in the comic and where those things meet and the brackish waters in between". For Isaac, acting is "the only framework where you can give expression to such intense emotions. Otherwise anywhere else is pretty inappropriate, unless you're just in a room screaming to yourself."


title: Oscar Isaac

text: Throughout his career, Isaac has avoided typecasting. Often noted for his versatility, he has played a wide range of nationalities, including Egyptian, Indonesian, Armenian, Greek, Welsh, East Timorese, and English. Rick Warner opined Isaac has "skillfully embodied several different affective dispositions—sensitive, flippant, romantically charming, hyperintelligent, neurotic, cynical, sinister, and menacingly violent". His performance in "A Most Violent Year" has been credited for a positive ethnic representation in American cinema. In a book published by Edinburgh University Press, which analyzed "great cinematic performances", author Charles Ramírez Berg wrote that Isaac's character—a self-acting businessman replacing the usual "barbarous, short-fused ethnic gangster"—broke "the tempestuous, hot-blooded Latino stereotype". In 2017, Isaac became "debatably" the first Latino actor to play Hamlet in a major US production. According to David Román of "Theatre Journal", it helped subvert the stereotype that Latinos cannot be proficient in English. Isaac believes that "the artist[...] should be borderless". If his character is Latino, he "take[s] that away and see[s] what's there. People will put that on top of a bland character to make them exotic, to add a little spice."


title: Oscar Isaac

text: Isaac is indifferent to his celebrity status and remains close with his family. According to a "New York Daily News" report, he was engaged to Maria Miranda in 2007. Isaac first met Danish film director Elvira Lind in 2012; they married in 2017. They have two sons: Eugene (born 2017) and Mads (born 2019). He lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.


title: Bill Clinton

text: William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again from 1983 to 1992, and as attorney general of Arkansas from 1977 to 1979. A member of the Democratic Party, Clinton became known as a New Democrat, as many of his policies reflected a centrist "Third Way" political philosophy. He is the husband of Hillary Clinton, who was a senator from New York from 2001 to 2009, secretary of state from 2009 to 2013 and the Democratic nominee for president in the 2016 presidential election.


title: Bill Clinton

text: Clinton was born and raised in Arkansas and attended Georgetown University. He received a Rhodes Scholarship to study at University College, Oxford and later graduated from Yale Law School. He met Hillary Rodham at Yale; they married in 1975. After graduating from law school, Clinton returned to Arkansas and won election as state attorney general, followed by two non-consecutive tenures as Arkansas governor. As governor, he overhauled the state's education system and served as chairman of the National Governors Association. Clinton was elected president in the 1992 presidential election, defeating incumbent Republican president George H. W. Bush and independent businessman Ross Perot. At 46 years old, he became the third-youngest president of the United States and the first president to be born in the Baby Boomer generation.


title: Bill Clinton

text: Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history. He signed into law the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, but failed to pass his plan for national health care reform. The Republican Party won unified control of Congress for the first time in 40 years in the 1994 elections, but Clinton was still comfortably re-elected in 1996, becoming the first Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second full term. Starting in the mid-1990s, he began an ideological evolution as he became much more conservative in his domestic policy, advocating for and signing the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, the State Children's Health Insurance Program and financial deregulation measures. He appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer to the U.S. Supreme Court. During the last three years of Clinton's presidency, the Congressional Budget Office reported a budget surplus—the first such surplus since 1969. In foreign policy, Clinton ordered U.S. military intervention in the Bosnian and Kosovo wars, eventually signing the Dayton Peace agreement. He also called for the expansion of NATO in Eastern Europe and many former Warsaw Pact members joined NATO during his presidency. Clinton's foreign policy in the Middle East saw him sign the Iraq Liberation Act which gave aid to groups against Saddam Hussein. He also participated in the Oslo I Accord and Camp David Summit to advance the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, and assisted the Northern Ireland peace process.


title: Bill Clinton

text: Clinton's second term was dominated by the Monica Lewinsky scandal which began in 1996, when he allegedly had a sexual relationship with 22-year-old Monica Lewinsky, an intern at the White House. In January 1998, news of the affair made tabloid headlines. The scandal escalated throughout the year, culminating on December 19 when Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives, becoming the second U.S. president to be impeached after Andrew Johnson. The two impeachment articles that the House passed were centered around Clinton using the powers of the presidency to obstruct the investigation and that he lied under oath. In 1999, Clinton's impeachment trial began in the Senate. Clinton was acquitted on both charges as the Senate failed to cast 67 votes against him, the conviction threshold.


title: Bill Clinton

text: Clinton left office in 2001 with the joint-highest approval rating of any U.S. president in the modern era, alongside Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. His presidency has been ranked among the upper tier in historical rankings of U.S. presidents. However, his personal conduct and allegations of sexual assault have made him the subject of substantial scrutiny. Since leaving office, Clinton has been involved in public speaking and humanitarian work. He created the Clinton Foundation to address international causes such as the prevention of HIV/AIDS and global warming. In 2009, he was named the United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti. After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Clinton and George W. Bush formed the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. He has remained active in Democratic Party politics, campaigning for his wife's 2008 and 2016 presidential campaigns.


title: Bill Clinton

text: Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946, at Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, Arkansas. He is the son of William Jefferson Blythe Jr., a traveling salesman who died in an automobile accident three months before his birth, and Virginia Dell Cassidy (later Virginia Kelley). His parents had married on September 4, 1943, but this union later proved to be bigamous, as Blythe was still married to his third wife. Virginia traveled to New Orleans to study nursing soon after Bill was born, leaving him in Hope with her parents Eldridge and Edith Cassidy, who owned and ran a small grocery store. At a time when the southern United States was racially segregated, Clinton's grandparents sold goods on credit to people of all races. In 1950, Bill's mother returned from nursing school and married Roger Clinton Sr., who co-owned an automobile dealership in Hot Springs, Arkansas, with his brother and Earl T. Ricks. The family moved to Hot Springs in 1950.


title: Bill Clinton

text: Although he immediately assumed use of his stepfather's surname, it was not until Clinton turned 15 that he formally adopted the surname Clinton as a gesture toward him. Clinton has described his stepfather as a gambler and an alcoholic who regularly abused his mother and half-brother, Roger Clinton Jr. He threatened his stepfather with violence multiple times to protect them.


title: Bill Clinton

text: In Hot Springs, Clinton attended St. John's Catholic Elementary School, Ramble Elementary School, and whites only Hot Springs High School, where he was an active student leader, avid reader, and musician. Clinton was in the chorus and played the tenor saxophone, winning first chair in the state band's saxophone section. In 1961, Clinton became a member of the Hot Springs Chapter of the Order of DeMolay, a youth group affiliated with Freemasonry, but he never became a Freemason. He briefly considered dedicating his life to music, but as he noted in his autobiography "My Life":


title: Bill Clinton

text: Clinton began an interest in law at Hot Springs High, when he took up the challenge to argue the defense of the ancient Roman senator Catiline in a mock trial in his Latin class. After a vigorous defense that made use of his "budding rhetorical and political skills", he told the Latin teacher Elizabeth Buck it "made him realize that someday he would study law".


title: Bill Clinton

text: Clinton has identified two influential moments in his life, both occurring in 1963, that contributed to his decision to become a public figure. One was his visit as a Boys Nation senator to the White House to meet President John F. Kennedy. The other was watching Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech on TV, which impressed him so much that he later memorized it.


title: Bill Clinton

text: With the aid of scholarships, Clinton attended the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., receiving a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service degree in 1968. Georgetown was the only school where Clinton applied.


title: Bill Clinton

text: In 1964 and 1965, Clinton won elections for class president. From 1964 to 1967, he was an intern and then a clerk in the office of Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright. While in college, he became a brother of service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He is a member of Kappa Kappa Psi honorary band fraternity.


title: Bill Clinton

text: Upon graduating from Georgetown in 1968, Clinton won a Rhodes Scholarship to University College, Oxford, where he initially read for a B.Phil. in philosophy, politics, and economics but transferred to a B.Litt. in politics and, ultimately, a B.Phil. in politics. Clinton did not expect to return for the second year because of the draft and so he switched programs; this type of activity was common among other Rhodes Scholars from his cohort. He had received an offer to study at Yale Law School, Yale University, and so he left early to return to the United States and did not receive a degree from Oxford.


title: Bill Clinton

text: During his time at Oxford, Clinton befriended fellow American Rhodes Scholar Frank Aller. In 1969, Aller received a draft letter that mandated deployment to the Vietnam War. Aller's 1971 suicide had an influential impact on Clinton. British writer and feminist Sara Maitland said of Clinton, "I remember Bill and Frank Aller taking me to a pub in Walton Street in the summer term of 1969 and talking to me about the Vietnam War. I knew nothing about it, and when Frank began to describe the napalming of civilians I began to cry. Bill said that feeling bad wasn't good enough. That was the first time I encountered the idea that liberal sensitivities weren't enough and you had to do something about such things". Clinton was a member of the Oxford University Basketball Club and also played for Oxford University's rugby union team.


title: Bill Clinton

text: While Clinton was president in 1994, he received an honorary degree and a fellowship from the University of Oxford, specifically for being "a doughty and tireless champion of the cause of world peace", having "a powerful collaborator in his wife," and for winning "general applause for his achievement of resolving the gridlock that prevented an agreed budget".


title: Bill Clinton

text: During the Vietnam War, Clinton received educational draft deferments while he was in England in 1968 and 1969. While at Oxford, he participated in Vietnam War protests and organized a Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam event in October 1969. He was planning to attend law school in the U.S. and knew he might lose his deferment. Clinton tried unsuccessfully to obtain positions in the National Guard and the Air Force officer candidate school, and he then made arrangements to join the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) program at the University of Arkansas.


title: Bill Clinton

text: He subsequently decided not to join the ROTC, saying in a letter to the officer in charge of the program that he opposed the war, but did not think it was honorable to use ROTC, National Guard, or Reserve service to avoid serving in Vietnam. He further stated that because he opposed the war, he would not volunteer to serve in uniform, but would subject himself to the draft, and would serve if selected only as a way "to maintain my political viability within the system". Clinton registered for the draft and received a high number (311), meaning that those whose birthdays had been drawn as numbers1 to 310 would be drafted before him, making it unlikely he would be called up. (In fact, the highest number drafted was 195.)


title: Bill Clinton

text: Colonel Eugene Holmes, the Army officer who had been involved with Clinton's ROTC application, suspected that Clinton attempted to manipulate the situation to avoid the draft and avoid serving in uniform. He issued a notarized statement during the 1992 presidential campaign:


title: Bill Clinton

text: During the 1992 campaign, it was revealed that Clinton's uncle had attempted to secure him a position in the Navy Reserve, which would have prevented him from being deployed to Vietnam. This effort was unsuccessful and Clinton said in 1992 that he had been unaware of it until then. Although legal, Clinton's actions with respect to the draft and deciding whether to serve in the military were criticized during his first presidential campaign by conservatives and some Vietnam veterans, some of whom charged that he had used Fulbright's influence to avoid military service. Clinton's 1992 campaign manager, James Carville, successfully argued that Clinton's letter in which he declined to join the ROTC should be made public, insisting that voters, many of whom had also opposed the Vietnam War, would understand and appreciate his position.


title: Bill Clinton

text: After Oxford, Clinton attended Yale Law School and earned a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree in 1973. In 1971, he met his future wife, Hillary Rodham, in the Yale Law Library; she was a class year ahead of him. They began dating and were soon inseparable. After only about a month, Clinton postponed his summer plans to be a coordinator for the George McGovern campaign for the 1972 United States presidential election in order to move in with her in California. The couple continued living together in New Haven when they returned to law school.


title: Bill Clinton

text: Clinton eventually moved to Texas with Rodham in 1972 to take a job leading McGovern's effort there. He spent considerable time in Dallas, at the campaign's local headquarters on Lemmon Avenue, where he had an office. Clinton worked with future two-term mayor of Dallas Ron Kirk, future governor of Texas Ann Richards, and then unknown television director and filmmaker Steven Spielberg.


title: Bill Clinton

text: After graduating from Yale Law School, Clinton returned to Arkansas and became a law professor at the University of Arkansas. In 1974, he ran for the House of Representatives. Running in the conservative 3rd district against incumbent Republican John Paul Hammerschmidt, Clinton's campaign was bolstered by the anti-Republican and anti-incumbent mood resulting from the Watergate scandal. Hammerschmidt, who had received 77 percent of the vote in 1972, defeated Clinton by only a 52 percent to 48 percent margin. In 1976, Clinton ran for Arkansas attorney general. Defeating the secretary of state and the deputy attorney general in the Democratic primary, Clinton was elected with no opposition at all in the general election, as no Republican had run for the office.


title: Bill Clinton

text: In 1978, Clinton entered the Arkansas gubernatorial primary. At just 31 years old, he was one of the youngest gubernatorial candidates in the state's history. Clinton was elected governor of Arkansas in 1978, having defeated the Republican candidate Lynn Lowe, a farmer from Texarkana. Clinton was only 32 years old when he took office, the youngest governor in the country at the time and the second youngest governor in the history of Arkansas. Due to his youthful appearance, Clinton was often called the "Boy Governor". He worked on educational reform and directed the maintenance of Arkansas's roads, with wife Hillary leading a successful committee on urban health care reform. However, his term included an unpopular motor vehicle tax and citizens' anger over the escape of Cuban refugees (from the Mariel boatlift) detained in Fort Chaffee in 1980. Monroe Schwarzlose, of Kingsland in Cleveland County, polled 31 percent of the vote against Clinton in the Democratic gubernatorial primary of 1980. Some suggested Schwarzlose's unexpected voter turnout foreshadowed Clinton's defeat by Republican challenger Frank D. White in the general election that year. As Clinton once joked, he was the youngest ex-governor in the nation's history.


title: Bill Clinton

text: Clinton joined friend Bruce Lindsey's Little Rock law firm of Wright, Lindsey and Jennings. In 1982, he was elected governor a second time and kept the office for ten years. Effective with the 1986 election, Arkansas had changed its gubernatorial term of office from two to four years. During his term, he helped transform Arkansas's economy and improved the state's educational system. For senior citizens, he removed the sales tax from medications and increased the home property-tax exemption. He became a leading figure among the New Democrats, a group of Democrats who advocated welfare reform, smaller government, and other policies not supported by liberals. Formally organized as the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the New Democrats argued that in light of President Ronald Reagan's landslide victory in 1984, the Democratic Party needed to adopt a more centrist political stance in order to succeed at the national level. Clinton delivered the Democratic response to Reagan's 1985 State of the Union Address and served as chair of the National Governors Association from 1986 to 1987, bringing him to an audience beyond Arkansas.


title: Bill Clinton

text: In the early 1980s, Clinton made reform of the Arkansas education system a top priority of his gubernatorial administration. The Arkansas Education Standards Committee was chaired by Clinton's wife Hillary, who was also an attorney as well as the chair of the Legal Services Corporation. The committee transformed Arkansas's education system. Proposed reforms included more spending for schools (supported by a sales-tax increase), better opportunities for gifted children, vocational education, higher teachers' salaries, more course variety, and compulsory teacher competency exams. The reforms passed in September 1983 after Clinton called a special legislative session—the longest in Arkansas history. Many have considered this the greatest achievement of the Clinton governorship. He defeated four Republican candidates for governor: Lowe (1978), White (1982 and 1986), Jonesboro businessmen Woody Freeman (1984), and Sheffield Nelson of Little Rock (1990).


title: Bill Clinton

text: Also in the 1980s, the Clintons' personal and business affairs included transactions that became the basis of the Whitewater controversy investigation, which later dogged his presidential administration. After extensive investigation over several years, no indictments were made against the Clintons related to the years in Arkansas.


title: Bill Clinton

text: According to some sources, Clinton was a death penalty opponent in his early years, but he eventually switched positions. However he might have felt previously, by 1992, Clinton was insisting that Democrats "should no longer feel guilty about protecting the innocent". During Clinton's final term as governor, Arkansas performed its first executions since 1964 (the death penalty had been reinstated in 1976). As Governor, he oversaw the first four executions carried out by the state of Arkansas since the death penalty was reinstated there in 1976: one by electric chair and three by lethal injection. To draw attention to his stance on capital punishment, Clinton flew home to Arkansas mid-campaign in 1992, in order to affirm in person that the controversial execution of Ricky Ray Rector, would go forward as scheduled.


title: Bill Clinton

text: In 1987, the media speculated that Clinton would enter the presidential race after incumbent New York governor Mario Cuomo declined to run and Democratic front-runner Gary Hart withdrew owing to revelations of multiple marital infidelities. Clinton decided to remain as Arkansas governor (following consideration for the potential candidacy of Hillary for governor, initially favored—but ultimately vetoed—by the First Lady). For the nomination, Clinton endorsed Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis. He gave the nationally televised opening night address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, but his speech, which was 33 minutes long and twice the length it was expected to be, was criticized for being too long and poorly delivered. Clinton presented himself both as a moderate and as a member of the New Democrat wing of the Democratic Party, and he headed the moderate Democratic Leadership Council in 1990 and 1991.


title: Bill Clinton

text: In the first primary contest, the Iowa Caucus, Clinton finished a distant third to Iowa senator Tom Harkin. During the campaign for the New Hampshire primary, reports surfaced that Clinton had engaged in an extramarital affair with Gennifer Flowers. Clinton fell far behind former Massachusetts senator Paul Tsongas in the New Hampshire polls. Following Super Bowl XXVI, Clinton and his wife Hillary went on "60 Minutes" to rebuff the charges. Their television appearance was a calculated risk, but Clinton regained several delegates. He finished second to Tsongas in the New Hampshire primary, but after trailing badly in the polls and coming within single digits of winning, the media viewed it as a victory. News outlets labeled him "The Comeback Kid" for earning a firm second-place finish.


title: Bill Clinton

text: Winning the big prizes of Florida and Texas and many of the Southern primaries on Super Tuesday gave Clinton a sizable delegate lead. However, former California governor Jerry Brown was scoring victories and Clinton had yet to win a significant contest outside his native South. With no major Southern state remaining, Clinton targeted New York, which had many delegates. He scored a resounding victory in New York City, shedding his image as a regional candidate. Having been transformed into the consensus candidate, he secured the Democratic Party nomination, finishing with a victory in Jerry Brown's home state of California.


title: Bill Clinton

text: During the campaign, questions of conflict of interest regarding state business and the politically powerful Rose Law Firm, at which Hillary Rodham Clinton was a partner, arose. Clinton argued the questions were moot because all transactions with the state had been deducted before determining Hillary's firm pay. Further concern arose when Bill Clinton announced that, with Hillary, voters would be getting two presidents "for the price of one".


title: Bill Clinton

text: Clinton was still the governor of Arkansas while campaigning for U.S. president, and he returned to his home state to see that Ricky Ray Rector would be executed. After killing a police officer and a civilian, Rector shot himself in the head, leading to what his lawyers said was a state where he could still talk but did not understand the idea of death. According to both Arkansas state law and federal law, a seriously mentally impaired inmate cannot be executed. The courts disagreed with the allegation of grave mental impairment and allowed the execution. Clinton's return to Arkansas for the execution was framed in an article for "The New York Times" as a possible political move to counter "soft on crime" accusations.


title: Bill Clinton

text: Bush's approval ratings were around 80 percent during the Gulf War, and he was described as unbeatable. When Bush compromised with Democrats to try to lower federal deficits, he reneged on his , which hurt his approval rating. Clinton repeatedly condemned Bush for making a promise he failed to keep. By election time, the economy was souring and Bush saw his approval rating plummet to just slightly over 40 percent. Finally, conservatives were previously united by anti-communism, but with the end of the Cold War, the party lacked a uniting issue. When Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson addressed Christian themes at the Republican National Convention—with Bush criticizing Democrats for omitting God from their platform—many moderates were alienated. Clinton then pointed to his moderate, "New Democrat" record as governor of Arkansas, though some on the more liberal side of the party remained suspicious. Many Democrats who had supported Ronald Reagan and Bush in previous elections switched their support to Clinton. Clinton and his running mate, Al Gore, toured the country during the final weeks of the campaign, shoring up support and pledging a "new beginning".


title: Bill Clinton

text: On March 26, 1992, during a Democratic fund raiser of the presidential campaign, Robert Rafsky confronted then Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas and asked what he was going to do about AIDS, to which Clinton replied, "I feel your pain." The televised exchange led to AIDS becoming an issue in the 1992 presidential election. On April 4, then candidate Clinton met with members of ACT UP and other leading AIDS advocates to discuss his AIDS agenda and agreed to make a major AIDS policy speech, to have people with HIV speak to the Democratic Convention, and to sign onto the AIDS United Action five point plan.


title: Bill Clinton

text: Clinton won the 1992 presidential election (370 electoral votes) against Republican incumbent George H. W. Bush (168 electoral votes) and billionaire populist Ross Perot (zero electoral votes), who ran as an independent on a platform that focused on domestic issues. Bush's steep decline in public approval was a significant part of Clinton's success. Clinton's victory in the election ended twelve years of Republican rule of the White House and twenty of the previous twenty-four years. The election gave Democrats full control of the United States Congress, the first time one party controlled both the executive and legislative branches since Democrats held the 96th United States Congress during the presidency of Jimmy Carter.


title: Bill Clinton

text: According to Seymour Martin Lipset, the 1992 election had several unique characteristics. Voters felt that economic conditions were worse than they actually were, which harmed Bush. A rare event was the presence of a strong third-party candidate. Liberals launched a backlash against 12 years of a conservative White House. The chief factor was Clinton's uniting his party, and winning over a number of heterogeneous groups.


title: Bill Clinton

text: In the 1996 presidential election, Clinton was re-elected, receiving 49.2 percent of the popular vote over Republican Bob Dole (40.7 percent of the popular vote) and Reform candidate Ross Perot (8.4 percent of the popular vote). Clinton received 379 of the Electoral College votes, with Dole receiving 159 electoral votes. With his victory, he became the first Democrat to win two consecutive presidential elections since Franklin D. Roosevelt.


title: Bill Clinton

text: Clinton's "third way" of moderate liberalism built up the nation's fiscal health and put the nation on a firm footing abroad amid globalization and the development of anti-American terrorist organizations.


title: Bill Clinton

text: During his presidency, Clinton advocated for a wide variety of legislation and programs, most of which were enacted into law or implemented by the executive branch. His policies, particularly the North American Free Trade Agreement and welfare reform, have been attributed to a centrist Third Way philosophy of governance. His policy of fiscal conservatism helped to reduce deficits on budgetary matters. Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history.


title: Bill Clinton

text: The Congressional Budget Office reported budget surpluses of $69 billion in 1998, $126 billion in 1999, and $236 billion in 2000, during the last three years of Clinton's presidency. Over the years of the recorded surplus, the gross national debt rose each year. At the end of the fiscal year (September 30) for each of the years a surplus was recorded, The U.S. treasury reported a gross debt of $5.413 trillion in 1997, $5.526 trillion in 1998, $5.656 trillion in 1999, and $5.674 trillion in 2000. Over the same period, the Office of Management and Budget reported an end of year (December 31) gross debt of $5.369 trillion in 1997, $5.478 trillion in 1998, $5.606 in 1999, and $5.629 trillion in 2000. At the end of his presidency, the Clintons moved to 15 Old House Lane in Chappaqua, New York, in order to satisfy a residency requirement for his wife to win election as a U.S. Senator from New York.


title: Bill Clinton

text: After his presidential transition, Clinton was inaugurated as the 42nd president of the United States on January 20, 1993. Clinton was physically exhausted at the time, and had an inexperienced staff. His high levels of public support dropped in the first few weeks, as he made a series of mistakes. His first choice for attorney general had not paid her taxes on babysitters and was forced to withdraw. The second appointee also withdrew for the same reason. Clinton had repeatedly promised to encourage gays in the military service, despite what he knew to be the strong opposition of the military leadership. He tried anyway, and was publicly opposed by the top generals, and forced by Congress to a compromise position of "Don't ask, don't tell" whereby gays could serve if and only if they kept it secret. He devised a $16-billion stimulus package primarily to aid inner-city programs desired by liberals, but it was defeated by a Republican filibuster in the Senate. His popularity at the 100 day mark of his term was the lowest of any president at that point.


title: Bill Clinton

text: Public opinion did support one liberal program, and Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which required large employers to allow employees to take unpaid leave for pregnancy or a serious medical condition. This action had bipartisan support, and was popular with the public.


title: Bill Clinton

text: Two days after taking office, on January 22, 1993—the 20th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in "Roe v. Wade"—Clinton reversed restrictions on domestic and international family planning programs that had been imposed by Reagan and Bush. Clinton said abortion should be kept "safe, legal, and rare"—a slogan that had been suggested by political scientist Samuel L. Popkin and first used by Clinton in December 1991, while campaigning. During the eight years of the Clinton administration, the abortion rate declined by 18 percent.


title: Bill Clinton

text: On February 15, 1993, Clinton made his first address to the nation, announcing his plan to raise taxes to close a budget deficit. Two days later, in a nationally televised address to a joint session of Congress, Clinton unveiled his economic plan. The plan focused on reducing the deficit rather than on cutting taxes for the middle class, which had been high on his campaign agenda. Clinton's advisers pressured him to raise taxes, based on the theory that a smaller federal budget deficit would reduce bond interest rates.


title: Bill Clinton

text: President Clinton's attorney general Janet Reno authorized the FBI's use of armored vehicles to deploy tear gas into the buildings of the Branch Davidian community near Waco, Texas, in hopes of ending a 51 day siege. During the operation on April 19, 1993, the buildings caught fire and 75 of the residents died, including 24 children. The raid had originally been planned by the Bush administration; Clinton had played no role.


title: Bill Clinton

text: In August, Clinton signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, which passed Congress without a Republican vote. It cut taxes for 15million low-income families, made tax cuts available to 90 percent of small businesses, and raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.2 percent of taxpayers. Additionally, it mandated that the budget be balanced over many years through the implementation of spending restraints.


title: Bill Clinton

text: On September 22, 1993, Clinton made a major speech to Congress regarding a health care reform plan; the program aimed at achieving universal coverage through a national health care plan. This was one of the most prominent items on Clinton's legislative agenda and resulted from a task force headed by Hillary Clinton. The plan was well received in political circles, but it was eventually doomed by well-organized lobby opposition from conservatives, the American Medical Association, and the health insurance industry. However, Clinton biographer John F. Harris said the program failed because of a lack of coordination within the White House. Despite the Democratic majority in Congress, the effort to create a national health care system ultimately died when compromise legislation by George J. Mitchell failed to gain a majority of support in August 1994. The failure of the bill was the first major legislative defeat of the Clinton administration.


title: Bill Clinton

text: On November 30, 1993, Clinton signed into law the Brady Bill, which mandated federal background checks on people who purchase firearms in the United States. The law also imposed a five-day waiting period on purchases, until the NICS system was implemented in 1998. He also expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit, a subsidy for low-income workers.


title: Bill Clinton

text: In December of the same year, allegations by Arkansas state troopers Larry Patterson and Roger Perry were first reported by David Brock in "The American Spectator." In the affair later known as "Troopergate", the officers alleged that they had arranged sexual liaisons for Clinton back when he was governor of Arkansas. The story mentioned a woman named "Paula", a reference to Paula Jones. Brock later apologized to Clinton, saying the article was politically motivated "bad journalism", and that "the troopers were greedy and had slimy motives".


title: Bill Clinton

text: That month, Clinton implemented a Department of Defense directive known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", which allowed gay men and women to serve in the armed services provided they kept their sexual preferences a secret. The Act forbade the military from inquiring about an individual's sexual orientation. The policy was developed as a compromise after Clinton's proposal to allow gays to serve openly in the military met staunch opposition from prominent Congressional Republicans and Democrats, including senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Sam Nunn (D-GA). According to David Mixner, Clinton's support for the compromise led to a heated dispute with Vice President Al Gore, who felt that "the President should lift the ban ... even though [his executive order] was sure to be overridden by the Congress". Some gay-rights advocates criticized Clinton for not going far enough and accused him of making his campaign promise to get votes and contributions. Their position was that Clinton should have integrated the military by executive order, noting that President Harry S. Truman used executive order to racially desegregate the armed forces. Clinton's defenders argued that an executive order might have prompted the Senate to write the exclusion of gays into law, potentially making it harder to integrate the military in the future. Later in his presidency, in 1999, Clinton criticized the way the policy was implemented, saying he did not think any serious person could say it was not "out of whack". The policy remained controversial, and was finally repealed in 2011, removing open sexual orientation as a reason for dismissal from the armed forces.


title: Bill Clinton

text: On January 1, 1994, Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement into law. Throughout his first year in office, Clinton consistently supported ratification of the treaty by the U.S. Senate. Clinton and most of his allies in the Democratic Leadership Committee strongly supported free trade measures; there remained, however, strong disagreement within the party. Opposition came chiefly from anti-trade Republicans, protectionist Democrats and supporters of Ross Perot. The bill passed the house with 234 votes in favor and 200 votes opposed (132 Republicans and 102 Democrats in favor; 156 Democrats, 43 Republicans, and one independent opposed). The treaty was then ratified by the Senate and signed into law by the president.


title: Bill Clinton

text: On July 29, 1994, the Clinton administration launched the first official White House website, whitehouse.gov. The site was followed with three more versions, with the final version being launched on July 21, 2000. The White House website was part of a wider movement of the Clinton administration toward web-based communication. According to Robert Longley, "Clinton and Gore were responsible for pressing almost all federal agencies, the U.S. court system and the U.S. military onto the Internet, thus opening up America's government to more of America's citizens than ever before. On July 17, 1996, Clinton issued Executive Order 13011—Federal Information Technology, ordering the heads of all federal agencies to utilize information technology fully to make the information of the agency easily accessible to the public."


title: Bill Clinton

text: The Omnibus Crime Bill, which Clinton signed into law in September 1994, made many changes to U.S. crime and law enforcement legislation including the expansion of the death penalty to include crimes not resulting in death, such as running a large-scale drug enterprise. During Clinton's re-election campaign he said, "My 1994 crime bill expanded the death penalty for drug kingpins, murderers of federal law enforcement officers, and nearly 60 additional categories of violent felons." It also included a subsection of assault weapons ban for a ten-year period.


title: Bill Clinton

text: After two years of Democratic Party control, the Democrats lost control of Congress to the Republicans in the mid-term elections in 1994, for the first time in forty years.


title: Bill Clinton

text: A speech delivered by President Bill Clinton at the December 6, 1995 White House Conference on HIV/AIDS projected that a cure for AIDS and a vaccine to prevent further infection would be developed. The President focused on his administration's accomplishments and efforts related to the epidemic, including an accelerated drug-approval process. He also condemned homophobia and discrimination against people with HIV. Clinton announced three new initiatives: creating a special working group to coordinate AIDS research throughout the federal government; convening public health experts to develop an action plan that integrates HIV prevention with substance abuse prevention; and launching a new effort by the Department of Justice to ensure that health care facilities provide equal access to people with HIV and AIDS.


title: Bill Clinton

text: On September 21, 1996, Clinton signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defined marriage for federal purposes as the legal union of one man and one woman; the legislation allowed individual states to refuse to recognize gay marriages that were performed in other states. Paul Yandura, speaking for the White House gay and lesbian liaison office, said Clinton's signing DOMA "was a political decision that they made at the time of a re-election". In defense of his actions, Clinton has said that DOMA was intended to "head off an attempt to send a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage to the states", a possibility he described as highly likely in the context of a "very reactionary Congress". Administration spokesman Richard Socarides said, "the alternatives we knew were going to be far worse, and it was time to move on and get the president re-elected." Clinton himself said DOMA was something "which the Republicans put on the ballot to try to get the base vote for Bush up, I think it's obvious that something had to be done to try to keep the Republican Congress from presenting that"; Others were more critical. The veteran gay rights and gay marriage activist Evan Wolfson has called these claims "historic revisionism". Despite this, it has been noted that other than a brief written response to a Reader’s Digest that questioned whether he agreed with it, Clinton had made no documented reference to the issue of gay marriage until May 1996. In a July 2, 2011, editorial "The New York Times" opined, "The Defense of Marriage Act was enacted in 1996 as an election-year wedge issue, signed by President Bill Clinton in one of his worst policy moments." Ultimately, in United States v. Windsor, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down DOMA in June 2013.


title: Bill Clinton

text: Despite DOMA, Clinton was the first president to select openly gay persons for administrative positions, and he is generally credited as being the first president to publicly champion gay rights. During his presidency, Clinton issued two substantially controversial executive orders on behalf of gay rights, the first lifting the ban on security clearances for LGBT federal employees and the second outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation in the federal civilian workforce. Under Clinton's leadership, federal funding for HIV/AIDS research, prevention and treatment more than doubled. Clinton also pushed for passing hate crimes laws for gays and for the private sector Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which, buoyed by his lobbying, failed to pass the Senate by a single vote in 1996. Advocacy for these issues, paired with the politically unpopular nature of the gay rights movement at the time, led to enthusiastic support for Clinton's election and reelection by the Human Rights Campaign. Clinton came out for gay marriage in July 2009 and urged the Supreme Court to overturn DOMA in 2013. He was later honored by GLAAD for his prior pro-gay stances and his reversal on DOMA.


title: Bill Clinton

text: The 1996 United States campaign finance controversy was an alleged effort by China to influence the domestic policies of the United States, before and during the Clinton administration, and involved the fundraising practices of the administration itself. Despite the evidence, the Chinese government denied all accusations.


title: Bill Clinton

text: As part of a 1996 initiative to curb illegal immigration, Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) on September 30, 1996. Appointed by Clinton, the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform recommended reducing legal immigration from about 800,000 people a year to about 550,000.


title: Bill Clinton

text: Ken Gormley, author of "The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr", reveals in his book that Clinton narrowly escaped possible assassination in the Philippines in November 1996. During his visit to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Manila, while he was on his way to meet with a senior member of the Philippine government, Clinton was saved from danger minutes before his motorcade was scheduled to drive over a bridge charged with a timed improvised explosive device (IED). According to officials, the IED was large enough to "blow up the entire presidential motorcade". Details of the plot were revealed to Gormley by Lewis C. Merletti, former member of the presidential protection detail and Director of the Secret Service. Intelligence officers intercepted a radio transmission indicating there was a wedding cake under a bridge. This alerted Merletti and others as Clinton's motorcade was scheduled to drive over a major bridge in downtown Manila. Once more, the word "wedding" was the code name used by a terrorist group for a past assassination attempt. Merletti wanted to reroute the motorcade, but the alternate route would add forty-five minutes to the drive time. Clinton was very angry, as he was already late for the meeting, but following the advice of the secret service possibly saved his life. Two other bombs had been discovered in Manila earlier in the week so the threat level that day was high. Security personnel at the Manila International Airport uncovered several grenades and a timing device in a travel bag. Officials also discovered a bomb near a major U.S. naval base. The president was scheduled to visit both these locations later in the week. An intense investigation took place into the events in Manila and it was discovered that the group behind the bridge bomb was a Saudi terrorist group in Afghanistan known as al-Qaeda and the plot was masterminded by Osama bin Laden. Until recently, this thwarted assassination attempt was never made public and remained top secret. Only top members of the U.S. intelligence community were aware of these events.


title: Bill Clinton

text: In the January 1997, State of the Union address, Clinton proposed a new initiative to provide health coverage to up to five million children. Senators Ted Kennedy—a Democrat—and Orrin Hatch—a Republican—teamed up with Hillary Rodham Clinton and her staff in 1997, and succeeded in passing legislation forming the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), the largest (successful) health care reform in the years of the Clinton Presidency. That year, Hillary Clinton shepherded through Congress the Adoption and Safe Families Act and two years later she succeeded in helping pass the Foster Care Independence Act. Bill Clinton negotiated the passage of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 by the Republican Congress. In October 1997, he announced he was getting hearing aids, due to hearing loss attributed to his age, and his time spent as a musician in his youth. In 1999, he signed into law the Financial Services Modernization Act also known as the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, which repealed the part of the Glass–Steagall Act that had prohibited a bank from offering a full range of investment, commercial banking, and insurance services since its enactment in 1933.


title: Bill Clinton

text: In November 1993, David Hale—the source of criminal allegations against Bill Clinton in the Whitewater controversy—alleged that while governor of Arkansas, Clinton pressured Hale to provide an illegal $300,000 loan to Susan McDougal, the Clintons' partner in the Whitewater land deal. A U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation resulted in convictions against the McDougals for their role in the Whitewater project, but the Clintons themselves were never charged, and Clinton maintains his and his wife's innocence in the affair. Investigations Robert B. Fiske and Ken Starr found insufficient to evidence to prosecute the Clintons.


title: Bill Clinton

text: The White House FBI files controversy of June 1996 arose concerning improper access by the White House to FBI security-clearance documents. Craig Livingstone, head of the White House Office of Personnel Security, improperly requested, and received from the FBI, background report files without asking permission of the subject individuals; many of these were employees of former Republican administrations. In March 2000, Independent Counsel Robert Ray determined there was no credible evidence of any crime. Ray's report further stated, "there was no substantial and credible evidence that any senior White House official was involved" in seeking the files.


title: Bill Clinton

text: On May 19, 1993, Clinton fired seven employees of the White House Travel Office. This caused the White House travel office controversy even though the travel office staff served at the pleasure of the president and could be dismissed without cause. The White House responded to the controversy by claiming that the firings were done in response to financial improprieties that had been revealed by a brief FBI investigation. Critics contended that the firings had been done to allow friends of the Clintons to take over the travel business and the involvement of the FBI was unwarranted. The House Government Reform and Oversight Committee issued a report which accused the Clinton administration of having obstructed their efforts to investigate the affair. Special counsel Robert Fiske said that Hillary Clinton was involved in the firing and gave "factually false" testimony to the GAO, congress, and the independent counsel. However Fiske said there was not enough evidence to prosecute.


title: Bill Clinton

text: After a House inquiry, Clinton was impeached on December 19, 1998, by the House of Representatives. The House voted 228–206 to impeach him for perjury to a grand jury and voted 221–212 to impeach him for obstruction of justice. Clinton was only the second U.S. president (after Andrew Johnson) to be impeached. Impeachment proceedings were based on allegations that Clinton had illegally lied about and covered up his relationship with 22-year-old White House (and later Department of Defense) employee Monica Lewinsky. After the Starr Report was submitted to the House providing what it termed "substantial and credible information that President Clinton Committed Acts that May Constitute Grounds for an Impeachment", the House began impeachment hearings against Clinton before the mid-term elections. To hold impeachment proceedings, the Republican leadership called a lame-duck session in December 1998.


title: Bill Clinton

text: While the House Judiciary Committee hearings ended in a straight party-line vote, there was lively debate on the House floor. The two charges passed in the House (largely with Republican support, but with a handful of Democratic votes as well) were for perjury and obstruction of justice. The perjury charge arose from Clinton's testimony before a grand jury that had been convened to investigate perjury he may have committed in his sworn deposition during "Jones v. Clinton," Paula Jones's sexual harassment lawsuit. The obstruction charge was based on his actions to conceal his relationship with Lewinsky before and after that deposition.