Interview With Steve Holland and Debbie Charles of Reuters

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Jan 15, 2001

January 11, 2001

No Gun Ri

Q. We understand you made a foreign policy-related call shortly--

The President. Yes, I just talked to President Kim about the No Gun Ri incident and personally expressed my regret to him. And I thanked him for the work that we had done together in developing our mutual statement. We also set up this scholarship fund and did some other things that we hope will be a genuine gesture of our regret. It was a very-- you know, I had a good talk with him.

Q. Any particular reason why you used the word "regret" instead of "apology" in your statement?

The President. I think the findings were--I think he knows that "regret" and "apology" both mean the same thing, in terms of being profoundly sorry for what happened. But I believe that the people who looked into it could not conclude that there was a deliberate act, decided at a high enough level in the military hierarchy, to acknowledge that, in effect, the Government had participated in something that was terrible.

So I don't think there's any difference in the two words, on a human level, because we are profoundly sorry that it happened and sorry that any Americans were involved in it. But I think that in terms of the kind of responsibility the institution of the military that the facts were sufficiently unclear after all this time that the people who were reviewing it thought it was the appropriate language. And we worked it out with the Koreans and obviously shared whatever we could find with them.

These people have been our friends for 50 years. We didn't have--I told our guys to play it straight, that we didn't have an interest in trying to cover anything up or sugarcoat anything; we needed to try to get to the bottom of this. I think that we've done about the best we can do. And I hope that the people of Korea will accept our statement as genuine, and I hope it will bring some solace to the family members and the few people that still survived who were involved in it, who will never get over it.

California Electricity Shortages

Q. Let me ask you another topical question. California is on the verge of blackouts. Is there anything you can do in your remaining time in office?

The President. Well, I'm working at it. We have done some things. Secretary Richardson has worked very hard to make sure that the wholesalers kept selling the power to the utilities. But essentially, what happened was before--without any involvement from the Federal Government and before the previous administration in California, the deregulation was done in a way that made them vulnerable not to--in essence, to very high prices, maybe prices that aren't justified by market conditions on occasion.

They need to get all they can get from out-of-State generators and in-State generators, because they've grown so much. And they still have a regulation of prices to the ultimate consumer. So we've got a situation here which it seems to me might have been predictable at the time the deregulation legislation was done. But I, frankly, until this happened, I didn't know what the nature of the California deregulation law was. I didn't even know when it had been done, until this whole thing arose.

So we're dealing with the situation the best we can. But I also think we need to talk to some of the producers, see whether more power can be brought on line at economical rates more quickly. I actually talked to one of them myself just in the last 2 or 3 days. So I'm trying to get all of our options out there, and if there's anything else I can do, I will. I saw Governor Davis about a week ago, and I told him that.

But I do believe that the Governor and the people of California know that, through the Energy Department, we've done everything we can so far.

2000 Presidential Election

Q. Let me turn you to the election very quickly. You seemed to surprise everybody when you said that the Republicans only--that when they stopped the counting, that's the only way that George W. won. What point were you trying to make there?

The President. I was actually just having fun with Bill Daley in Chicago. We were home and his brother--he had introduced his brother. I think Bill did a very fine job running the Vice President's campaign. I was just having a good time, trying to put them all in a good humor. I wasn't trying to be sarcastic or hateful or even make any kind of deliberate point. I was basically having fun with what I think are the undisputed facts. I don't think there's much dispute about the facts. They didn't finish the vote count. There's really no--everybody knows that.

Q. Do you have any hard feelings about the election outcome and the way the Court, the conservative majority stepped in to stop the counting?

The President. Well, I don't have much to add to what I said. I think the Vice President said it all for us. We accept the principle of judicial review. It's a very important one. It has been since John Marsha wrote the opinion in Marbury v. Madison in the early 19th century. And it has helped us to have some finality in our law.