“I did not have sexual relations with that woman…” – Bill Clinton, January 26, 1998

It’s been exactly twelve years since President Clinton uttered what has become–sadly, astonishingly–the most memorable quote of his two terms in office. Ask anyone to name a Clinton quote and I expect nine out of ten will pick the key line from his brief and awkward address to the press soon after the Lewinsky scandal broke.

But I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I’m going to say this again. I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time – never. These allegations are false. And I need to go back to work for the American people.

I’m partial to a different Clinton quote, spoken by the president during a deposition given to the Starr Commission:

It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is. If the–if he–if ‘is’ means is and never has been, that is not–that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement….Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true.

“It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”  Is there a quote that more precisely captures the essence of a president’s personality than that one? As Timothy Noah wrote in Slate at the time, “This is way beyond slick. Perhaps we should start calling him, ‘Existential Willie.'”

The main competition for Quote That Most Accurately Reflects A President’s Essence has to be the dripping-with-passive-aggression “last press conference” of former Vice President Richard Nixon .  This quote may deserve an asterisk, as it was delivered by Nixon the day after losing his bid to become the governor of California, over six years before he became president.

For 16 years, ever since the Hiss case, you’ve had a lot of fun, a lot of fun. And you’ve had an opportunity to attack me and I think I’ve given as good as I’ve taken. I leave you gentlemen now and you will now write it, you will interpret it, that’s your right. But as I leave you, I want you to know … just think how much you’re going to be missing. You don’t have Nixon to kick around anymore. Because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference and I hope that what I have said today will at least make television, radio, the press, recognize that they have a right and a responsibility, if they are against a candidate, give him the shaft, but also recognize, if they give him the shaft, put one lonely reporter on the campaign who will report what the candidate says now and then. Thank you, gentlemen and good day.

The resentment, the repressed rambling, the thin-skinned pettiness, the paranoia about the press.  Remind you of anyone?

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