Remarks at a Reception for Hillary Clinton in New York City - Transcript

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Sept 18, 2000

September 11, 2000

Well, if I were showing good judgment, I would say nothing after that. [Laughter] First, let me thank our host and hostess for making us feel so welcome in this beautiful, beautiful place.

I would like to thank all of you for the contributions you have made to America in these last years that I've been privileged to serve as President, because I sometimes think that most of what I did was to get the stumbling blocks out of your way. You did the rest--every one of you, each in your own way.

One of the things that bothers me as I travel around the world today is, I see everywhere I go, in the poorest village in Africa--I can sit with children for 10 minutes, and I see the light of intelligence in people's eyes. I see the energy, the belief, the hope. And I realize that so many times, people like me in positions of responsibility just mess it up for them, if people play games with power and create illusions in the minds of people about false values, and all of a sudden, all these brilliant children grow up and there's nothing for them to do; there's no education for them to get and no dreams for them to fulfill.

And so if I've had anything to do with what any of you have achieved in the last 8 years, I've just tried to make sure that we were doing the right thing so that you would be able to do what you do so well.

And I have to tell you, I think America is profoundly indebted to all of its immigrant people, and there are many people who came here from other countries, not from India, here in this room tonight, and I thank them as well.

But I think I should say a special word of appreciation to the Indian community in the United States which, of all of our more than 200 ethnic and religious groups, ranks first in education and in income, a great tribute to your efforts and to your values.

I loved my trip to India. And when Hillary and Chelsea came home, they told me that if I didn't go to another country before I left the Presidency, I had to go to India. So I did. As you know, I visited more briefly the rest of the subcontinent. I regret that I was not more help to you in the cause of peace, but I will keep trying.

I had to confess to a reporter the other day--I say this out of deference to my good friends John and Margo Catsimatidis, who are here, who have more than a passing interest in Greece and the relationships between Greece and Turkey and the problems in Cyprus. I do believe when I leave office, I will have made progress on every problem I tackled around the world except, so far, I can't say I moved the ball forward on the Indian subcontinent or in Cyprus. But I have tried, and I will keep trying. I promise you that.

I just want to say a couple of words about this election and about Hillary in particular. So many of you were kind to say things when you went through the line, and you wished I could run for a third term and all of that. But this is a country of citizens, and this has always been a country in which the citizens were the most important people.

When Harry Truman went home to Missouri after an enormously important period in our country's history, when he basically organized our world to deal with the cold war, he said that he was resuming his most important title, that of citizen. And so now that my party has a new leader and my family has a new candidate--[laughter]--I suppose my official title should be Cheerleader in Chief instead of Commander in Chief. [Laughter]

But I will say this because I think all of you who have enjoyed great success in our country will identify with it. If you work hard, you also have to work smart. Ideas have consequences. If you have a bad idea, it doesn't matter how hard you work with it; you still won't get good consequences out of it. And the important thing that I think that has been at the core of all my concern about this election is that I think it is easier for a free people to make a mistake when times are good than when times are bad.

The American people took a chance on me and Hillary and Al and Tipper Gore in 1.992, but it wasn't much of a chance, because we were in trouble, and everybody knew we had to change and try something new. So they gave us a chance. But we changed the economic policy, the education policy, the health care policy, the environmental policy, the criminal justice policy, and big parts of the foreign policy of our country.

You now have had a test run. And so, yes, I feel especially strongly, obviously, about Hillary. But the thing that matters to me as an American is that we keep changing but that we keep changing in the direction in which we are going, because we still have big challenges out there. There are still too many children living in poverty in this country when they should not be. There are still too many children that don't have excellence of education that they should have. There is still inadequate preparation for the aging of America when the so-called baby boom generation retires. And under present estimates, there will only be about two people working for every one person retired and on our Social Security system. We must not let the aging of America impose a burden on our children and their ability to raise our grandchildren.