I am profoundly grateful to you for twice electing me as your president, and I know you are just as grateful for all I did. My only regret is your regret too, I am sure: that the 22nd Amendment barred me from a third term.

First, I would like to box in my successor by saying right now that he better not go for a big tax cut or reverse my policy in the Balkans.

Second, I want you note how many great things I did here. If you do not yet know how much my administration accomplished, you might want to pick up a recent issue of any American magazine. It doesn't matter which one -- they all have exclusive interviews in which I talk about myself, my feelings and my many achievements.

For those of you without magazines, let me explain.

I have given you peace.

I have given you a booming economy.

I have given you a collection of wonderfully diverse Cabinet members, only five of whom have come under criminal investigation.

I have brought fresh and rewarding attention to the White House, particularly to the Lincoln bedroom.

I have brought the Republic of China into the world's family of free nations, and as a result they have taken a keen interest in our politics and my own career, and given impressively of their time and money.

Because I have kept a tight rein on government spending, you no longer hear any jokes about $600 toilet seats or $900 wrenches. This is all to the good, though I must admit we still get some good-natured joshing about the $500,000 cups of coffee served at our White House "coffees." I understand, by the way, that these beverages will be marked down for clearance tomorrow, our last day here. Look for a real bargain.

Most of all, perhaps, is that we have swept away the narrow moralism that inhibited many presidents from the full expression of natural functioning in the privacy of the Oval Office. You know what I'm saying here. I'm referring in a vague way to the Republican persecution of me over that Monica Lewinsky thing.

If you read the farewell magazine interviews with me, you know what a terrible trial this was for me and how strong I was standing up to the impeachment mess foisted on me by the Republicans for purely partisan reasons.

You may have heard that I had to pay a $25,000 fine, lost my law license for five years, and had to admit that I did not fully accomplish my goals in testifying about Ms. Lewinsky. But that's a small price to pay for standing up to injustice.

But I prevailed -- not that it was victory for me. It was a victory for you. In defeating the Republicans and getting such great approval ratings, I think you and I established a couple of points. One is that in a rising economy, nobody cares about a president's perjury and obstruction of justice if the thing he was trying to cover up was just having sex in the Oval Office. That's a good point, and it had to be made. Continued...