Neil Lane has done a lot of service for the country -- everything from advising President Clinton to babysitting Socks, the former first cat.

Yesterday, Lane discussed his adventures on Capitol Hill in a lecture entitled "Confessions of a President's Science Adviser -- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished!"

Lane served as the assistant to the president for science and technology and the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology under former President Bill Clinton.

"We wanted someone to speak on science policy, as that's been controversial under [the Bush] administration," said John Mathews, the director of the communications and space sciences laboratory.

Lane discussed the tricky job of selling science in a political environment, amid such difficulties as low appropriations, slimming budgets and presidential sex scandals.

"You can't step over the line too often; you can't take anything personally," he said while discussing the traits he needed to succeed in his job. "You've got to work as a team, but you also can't take too much crap."

Lane first worked in Washington, D.C., in 1993, when he was the director of the National Science Foundation, an organization that receives about 30,000 proposals for research grants per year. After five years there, he was promoted to position of the president's science adviser.

It was while he was in that position that the story of the Clinton and Monica Lewinsky affair broke.

"That was a horrible period to be in the White House," he said. "I'm going around selling science and part of Congress wants to kick the president out."

He recalled one time when Clinton gathered some senior members for a heart-to-heart.

"I'm sorry my personal problems are making your jobs more difficult. The American people put me here to do a job, and I'm going to do that job and I hope you will," Lane quoted Clinton as saying. "And we did."

Another story Lane shared was about the time he took Socks home for a weekend.

"What if Socks gets out?" he asked. "Do you ask your neighbors, 'Have you seen a cat that looks like the president's cat?' "

When asked if he'd go back and do it again, Lane had mixed feelings, but ultimately said he would.

"If you asked me two years after, I'd probably be so focused on the painful times," he said. "Now looking back, I see the whole pie. The answer is yes, but I hope I don't have the opportunity," he chuckled.

Arpan Ghosh (graduate-electrical engineering) called Lane's talk "insightful" and said it shed light on the difficult balance Lane had to maintain.

"It seems like it'd be a wonderful opportunity," he said, "but it also seems like there's a lot of pressure from different groups with different demands."

Lane is scheduled to speak again at 8 tonight in 104 Keller for the 2007 Arthur H. Waynick Memorial Lecture. Today's talk is entitled "Science and Global Change -- the Earth's Climate and Other Issues," a topic that Lane said can be pessimistic.

"At a time when there seems to be so many insurmountable obstacles, it's hard to feel optimistic, but I do," he said. "The reason I am is because of students. We have super bright young people who care about the world."