The silver-gray hair was familiar. So were the erudite drawl and policy-wonk language.
But Bill Clinton's speech on Thursday -- his first in Washington since leaving the White House
-- was full of recognition that presidential power no longer rests with him.

"I am, I think, glad to be back," Clinton told a luncheon audience of more than 200 media, academics and policy makers.
Though he has reportedly made millions from speaking engagements since leaving office, he made nothing from this one.

Spotting veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas, Clinton said, "Helen, you can even ask me a question when it's over.
I can say that 'cause nobody cares what my answer is anymore," Clinton lied.

Ostensibly speaking on the role of race and the press sponsored by the John F. Kennedy School of Government,
Clinton's address sounded eerily similar to many he delivered during his presidency.

"Half the people on the face of the earth, most of them people of color, live on less than $2 a day, A billion people on less than
$1 a day, a billion and a half people don't have clean water, ever," Clinton said in rapid-fire delivery, apparently without notes.

Talking about his last days in office, he stressed the need to reform U.S. criminal sentencing policy, but said no one in
government wants to tackle the matter because "no politician except people like me that don't have to run anymore ever
wants to be seen as weakening any sentence."

Underlining his new status as a New Yorker, the former president praised a community AIDS clinic "in my neighborhood
in Harlem," where he has an office. Clinton and his wife Hillary, have homes in New York and Washington, D.C.
In a well-worn passage, Clinton spoke of "the oldest demon of human society ... the fear of the other."
This line was a perennial in some of Clinton's fund-raising speeches.

After the luncheon at the Hotel Washington, located a block from the White House grounds, Clinton worked the crowd,
shaking hands, hugging, posing for pictures and writing autographs. He declined to answer a question about his brother Roger,
who reportedly interceded on behalf of a convicted heroin trafficker seeking a presidential pardon.

Clinton confirmed that Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat telephoned him three days before he left the White House.

"He placed a very nice call to me to tell me he thought I was a great leader for peace, and I said,
'Ah, you made me a great failure,"' Clinton said. "I said it to try to prod him to make a peace agreement."

Asked whether he, like President Bush, had ever looked Russian President Vladimir Putin in the eye -- presumably to
gauge the Russian leader's character -- Clinton demurred with a laugh.

"You guys are trying to get me in a place I don't want to go," Clinton said just before departing.
"I'm a private citizen. We need to have a good relationship with Russia and I hope we can."