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.