Why is President Clinton giving his "leaving office" speech tonight? The tradition is for the leaving president to bow out gracefully and let the incomming president-elect become the president. Eisenhower did it for Kennedy, Johnson for Nixon, Nixon for Ford, Carter for Reagan, and Bush Sr. for Clinton*. George Bush, Sr. did it for Clinton. But President Clinton asked the networks for, and got, 7 minutes during inauguration week to give his speech. It's just rude.
*I left out some presidents to emphasize that previous presidents afforded incomming president-elects of the opposite party the respect to give their speech before inauguration week.