August 17: This Day in 1998 - Clinton's Meaning of Is Is

August 17, 1998: On this day, during the grand jury hearings that sought to clarify President Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky, Clinton engaged in some semantic fine-tuning by stating:  "It depends on what your meaning of 'is' is.  If 'is' means 'is and never has been' that's one thing - if it means 'there is none,' that was a completely true statement." 

Clinton also parsed the meanings of "alone," "sexual relations" and "sex." His testimony was later televised to the nation on September 21.

Ahhh... good ol' semantics.

Comments

[Kimmie]

ha ha I totally remember that. oh Bill....... =)

[Tiger]

I think he was subliminally promoting the Yeah Yeah Yeah's e.p. "Is Is" lol.

[Lisa Skramstad]

Ya know, if I had my 'druthers, I'd take a slick talking womanizer over a functionally illiterate warmonger....thank goodness this time around we had a bit of a better option....Don't fuck it up, Obama!