[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000-2001, Book III)]
[December 14, 2000]
[Pages 2704-2712]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Exchange With Reporters Aboard Air Force One
December 14, 2000
[The President's remarks are joined in progress]
European Union
The President. Seriously, what we were just talking about--maybe I
should make the general point I was going to just make. She said it was
so interesting to her when she goes to Europe, people are so interested
in these decisions, and Americans don't seem to be. But the truth is,
this is their lives, you know. I mean, for people in the Republic, they
live with sort of an open wound with all this trouble in Northern
Ireland. But for people in Northern Ireland, it's just being able to get
in your car and not worrying about going down the street and having a
bomb go off. It's worth a lot.
So, it matters to them that--some people, you know, questioned over
the last 8 years whether--first of all, whether I should have done that,
because it made the British mad, eventually. But in the end, they were
very glad we did. But when the United States is involved, even in a
small place, it has big psychological significance to the entire
Continent. It makes a big difference.
I mean, it's obvious what was at stake in Bosnia and Kosovo, but in
Northern Ireland it said to the rest of Europe that the U.S. still cares
about Europe; we're still involved with them. So it has an effect in
helping us, because we have all kinds of problems with Europe. You know,
we have all these tough environmental issues related to the trade issues
and then the trade issues themselves and all that, and we will have. And
they're going through all their growing pains.
You saw they just had this real tough meeting in, I think, Nice,
where they were arguing over how to aggregate the votes and whether
Germany should have more because they have more people. And they argue
they should have more, because they have more people and they have to
pay more money. So, if they have to pay more money and have more people,
they ought to have money.
And then you've got France, Italy, and Britain all at the same
population. They're all at 60 million, and then it's a pretty good drop
down to Spain. I think Spain has got like 40 million.
Q. But no recounts from what I understand.
The President. No. They all use hand ballots, pencil ballots. So go
ahead, what were you going to say about Ireland?
Northern Ireland Peace Process
Q. If you wanted to give some advice about Northern Ireland----
The President. To President-elect Bush?
Q. Yes, on Ireland. The people there are faced with a significant
amount--[inaudible]--on Gerry Adams. What was the makeup? How did you
come to that?
The President. Well, I reached the conclusion that it was worth the
risk for two reasons. And the risks were two. One is, would it do
irreparable damage to our relationship with Great Britain? And two,
would the IRA really declare a cease-fire and honor it, or would it look
like I gave a visa to him, and they were still getting money out of
Boston and New York for bad purposes that were still going on?
On the second, I felt based on people we knew in Ireland, starting
with the then-Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds,
that they would honor their word, because it was in their interest
[[Page 2705]]
to do so, and they had made a decision to try to work out a peace.
And on the first, I felt that the relationship between the U.S. and
Britain was so strong, and we agreed on so many foreign policy issues
related to Europe--like the expansion of NATO, the importance of trying
to solve the Balkans crisis, just to mention two--that if I put a lot of
my time and effort into going to the U.K. and working at it, that we
could work through it. And it turned out to be a good gamble.
And I had actually quite a good relationship with John Major. I mean, the British press just killed us for a while,
and they said, ``Clinton did this because Major and the Tories supported
President Bush, helped--look at Clinton's passport file.'' It was all
ridiculous. I didn't give a rip about that.
Q. But what finally made you----
The President. So my advice to the President-elect, I think--and I really haven't had a chance to talk about
it--is just sort of stick with the policy and work with the leaders,
because now, you know, you have a consensus in Great Britain and in
Ireland for continuing to work with the parties in Northern Ireland. And
they will have to make--there will be specific calls along the way they
will have to make. Maybe they will make them the same way I would; maybe
they wouldn't. But that's not as important as the general trend there,
because, you know, there are some problems that are unresolved where
time is running against you, so you might as well go ahead and bite the
bullet and do it.
I feel very strongly about that in the Middle East. They need to
reach some sort of new accommodation; that is, we have come to the end
of the road of the September '93 agreement, plus the Wye accord, plus
incremental measures. They need a new understanding. They need to--
they've got to either resolve it all or at least decide what the next
step up is, so they can get back to living in peace and the Palestinian
economy can start to grow.
With Ireland, the Irish Republic is the fastest growing economy in
Europe. Northern Ireland is now the fastest growing part of the U.K.
They come in from a low base, but they're catching up in a hurry.
There was a big headline, I don't know if you saw it, in one of the
papers during our trip that said that there had been 600 million pounds
in American investment alone in Northern Ireland, where it only has a
million-and-a-half people, in the 5 years since I went there the first
time.
So, in Ireland, all you got to do is just keep it going because the
people will stay a little ahead of the politicians. The people will not
let the politicians crater this deal as long as their lives are getting
better.
Q. Have you heard back from Belfast, sir, and has your trip had its
desired effect?
The President. Well, they all were happy with it. You know, that is,
all the parties that are actually involved in the Government and the
peace process support the Good Friday accords, are all happy, and we're
inching along. And they may get another breakthrough. The point is that
the atmosphere was much better.
I saw Sky TV. That's the European--the way they played the Northern
Ireland event--they had a little clip from me; they had little deal
about my swansong in Ireland and blah, blah, blah; and then they have a
little clip from me, a little clip from Tony Blair; and then they had a great line from David
Trimble's speech about how he wouldn't let us
go back to the--he had that one poetic line about the dark and the
hatred.
Q. Grudges.
The President. All that, that line. They played that on television.
Well, that's a huge deal because it reassures the Protestants that
they're supported, and it's immensely reassuring to the Catholic
community that, you know, he's still--even if they disagree with some
particular position that he's taking, that he's still on the track.
And so my belief is that they will eventually work this out if they
just give it enough time, because they're doing better every day. That's
the right strategy. So, I don't think this is going to be a difficult
challenge for President Bush.
Q. [Inaudible].
The President. That's entirely up to all of them, starting with him.
I don't think it's--I think the Irish--a lot of them asked me about it,
but it's only because they know me and they're comfortable. And once he
gets in there and has a good policy, they'll be fine.
So, if they ever needed me, I would do it. But I think, on balance,
it's not going to be essential. They'll do just fine with this.
Q. What do you see when people--when the Irish, for instance, asked
you to stay involved, or in the Middle East, a lot of people have
suggested you should stay involved? Is that an apprehension on their
part just about the
[[Page 2706]]
change? I mean, you also have a unique relationship with the people.
The President. I think that always happens. And we're going to have
a good transition. Al Gore made a fabulous
speech last night. The country will get into it. We'll adjust very
quickly, and so will all of them. They'll all adjust quickly. So it will
be fine. I think, you know, it will just be fine.
The essential thing about democracy is that no one is indispensable.
That's why you have a system like this. And you know, whenever you're
the first person to do something, people have a feeling about you.
That's a nice thing for me, personally. And if I can ever be helpful in
some--you know, if your President asks you to do something, you do it.
Bob Dole was on television last night talking about
how I had asked him to go to Bosnia and Kosovo and things we had done
together.
But it's not important. The most important thing is that we have a
good transition and that he get off to a good start. The rest of it will
take care of itself.
Conversation With President-Elect Bush
Q. Can we ask what you said to the President-elect?
The President. I congratulated him, and I told him that I thought he
made a fine statement last night, and I thought that Al had made a fine statement, and that I look forward to
seeing him. He said he was coming early next week, and we would get
together. That's all.
Conversation With Vice President Gore
Q. What about Vice President Gore? Did you have to console him at
all?
The President. I just called him--he was having his Christmas
party--I called him and told him how proud I was of the statement. I
told him that it was--I thought it was fabulous. I told him I wasn't
sure I could have done it as well as he did. It was just fabulous. And
he laughed. Al's got a friend that he went to college with who is a
standup comic, and he says his best line now is something like, ``Gore
got the best of all worlds: He won the popular vote and doesn't have to
do the job.'' It's a great line.
Northern Ireland Peace Process
Q. [Inaudible]--where they have to go now--a lot of it in our
country seems to be reconciliation, reconciliation for the U.S., as is
typical in a Presidential race, reconciliation for the issues that you
had to face in the last couple of years, reconciliation for Catholics
and Protestants, what would you take away from that? What advice would
you give to somebody----
The President. To the Irish? Well, they have to keep working
together. For example, it's hard for us as outsiders to appreciate the
significance of that event yesterday. But in that event yesterday, you
had huge numbers of Catholics and huge numbers of Protestants sitting in
a room together, a big room, clapping at the same lines. Now, that seems
like self-evident, say, ``Well, it's almost like the rhetoric of peace,
and so what's the deal here?''
But I'm not sure even 2 years ago we could have gotten that big a
crowd from both communities, from the young to the old--the kids would
have done it that were there yesterday, but all the adults, I don't know
that we could have done it, even 2 years ago. So, I really believe this
is largely a question of sustained personal contact.
Their interests are clearly far more served by what they have in
common than their differences. They just have to continue to build
trust. All these issues that they're debating now are basically trust
issues.
Immigration in Ireland
Q. In regard to that, the Celtic Tiger, the economy that's going so
strong--but a new component in Ireland is the idea of immigration to
their country, and the eight people killed in Ireland, immigrants, last
year----
The President. It's going to be a whole new challenge for them
because they're--it's funny, the Irish have emigrated all over the
world, and I don't believe there has been day since the United Nations
sent its first peacekeeping force out that there hasn't been an Irish
peacekeeper somewhere around the world involved in peacekeeping efforts.
It's stunning.
So, there is no nation on Earth as small as Ireland that has had the
impact and the outreach Ireland has had to the rest of the world, partly
because they had to come to America to live, the Potato Famine and
later, and significant numbers of them were still coming when I became
President. You know, there were an enormous number of nurses in Arkansas
from Northern Ireland when I was Governor.
Q. Which they'd like back now.
[[Page 2707]]
The President. Yes, which they would like back now, and they may
want to go home because they can make decent money now, but they never
had the reverse happen. Saint Patrick was an Englishman. He was
practically the last significant immigrant into Ireland, if you think
about it. I mean, he was an Englishman. There had never been a huge in-
migration. So, you know, it's tragic that those people were killed, but
they're dealing--this is going to be a whole new experience for them.
It's not like London. England has had--I saw some of this when I was
a student in England in the late sixties and 1970. They had--what was
that guy's name--I never thought I would forget that rightwing
politician's name that was leading all the anti-immigrant stuff?
Q. In America?
The President. In Great Britain. I can't believe I've forgotten his
name. But the point is, there was all this early tension. Now you walk
the streets of London, and the immigrants are there. They're all
intermarried, but they still have their communities and their
traditions. There are movies being made now about kind of like--I saw a
great movie on the plane about a--a British movie about a Pakistani
family, about the Pakistani family trying to preserve its traditions and
cultures, a Pakistani husband and English wife, but he wants his kids
all to have proper Muslim marriages with other Pakistani families. All
those things that are--they're still playing themselves out. But they're
operating at a highly, I think, functional level now compared to 30
years ago.
The Irish will work through this. They're basically incredibly
generous, spirited people, but they have had a very distinct Irish
culture and mentality for hundreds of years. And with the economic
success of the Irish Republic now and the romantic appeal of Ireland and
the great lifestyle--and Dublin is a fabulous city, you know; it's big
enough to be fascinating and not too big to be overwhelming--they're
going to have a lot of people who want to live there.
Q. Did Chelsea like it?
The President. Oh, Chelsea loves Dublin.
Chelsea loves Ireland. Chelsea loved Ireland before I ever got involved
in all of this. She was reading Irish historical novels when she was a
kid.
Q. Would she go to grad school there?
The President. I don't know. But if she
did, it would be fine with me. It would give me an excuse to go back.
But I think the Irish will do fine with this. They will just have to
work through it. I don't think people should be too judgmental or
alarmist because this is an experience they're dealing with that the
Americans had to begin dealing with at the turn of the century when we
had our big wave of immigrants, or even before, when the Chinese came to
build the railroad, and the British dealt with, in the middle of this
century, the last century, up through the 1960's and the early
seventies. And they're dealing with it.
You know, so you will have some of this stuff happen. It's terrible
and regrettable, but they will absorb them. And I think it will be quite
amazing 10 years from now to go there and see all these people with
different colored skin quoting Yeats' poetry.
President's Future Plans
Q. Mr. President, did this trip, and the fact that there is now a
President-elect, cement your thoughts about your own future any more?
The President. Not really. I'm thinking about it. I need to get a
little sleep here. I've worked pretty hard for the last 8 years, for the
last 27 years, and I'm going to just--I want to try to be a useful
citizen. But I will--I've got to build that library. I've got a lot of
things to do.
Q. So, you're tired. Does that mean that this is your last foreign
trip? You don't have that look about you, sir?
Q. We could do this all the way to North Korea.
The President. I don't have anything to say about that now.
[Laughter] I can't comment on that.
Q. I do have an example of Irish generosity, if you will hold on for
just a second.
The President. Do it.
President-Elect Bush
Q. Some people are comparing George Bush to you, saying that he has
the same type of--[inaudible]. Do you see that in him?
The President. Well, I think he's, you know, trying to build good
will, which I think is important. And maybe the last few years have bled
enough poison out of the system where it will be possible. And I think
the Democrats, anyway,
[[Page 2708]]
are more generally inclined toward working--you know, we basically
believe in Government. We believe in the possibility of doing things.
And so I think that the Democrats will give him a honeymoon and an
opportunity to get his feet on the ground and pass some of his program
and do some things. And I think they ought to.
Discussions With Queen Elizabeth II
Q. Can I ask you about the visit with the Queen? You were saying
earlier that you actually discussed a little bit of politics.
The President. Yes. She's very careful, you know. She observes
strictly the British tradition of not making policy statements. But
she's a highly intelligent woman who knows a lot about the world. She
has traveled a lot. She has fulfilled her responsibilities, I think,
enormously well, and I always marvel, when we meet, at what a keen judge
she is of human events. I think she's a very impressive person. I like
her very much.
Q. Did you have tea?
The President. We had tea. We had proper tea, yes. Actually, I had a
little coffee, but Hillary had tea.
Souvenir Presentation
[At this point, a reporter presented the President with a box of tea.]
Q. Last time I went to Ireland with Hillary, she liked that.
The President. Yes, we do like this.
Q. And because you won't be having this, I think you deserve a
little memory of your time. [Laughter]
The President. Believe it or not, I don't have one of these.
Q. You can keep the limo and play with that, you know, up on the
desk.
The President. What I need is an automated tape of ``Hail to the
Chief'' so I know when I'm going into a room that I won't be lost.
[Laughter] This is great. Thank you.
Supreme Court Decision on Election
Q. Mr. President, you said in your statement this morning that the
Vice President spoke for a lot of people who disagreed with the Supreme
Court decision. Is there a way----
The President. But accept it. I agree with both the things he said.
He said it just right. Is there a way what?
Q. Do you think, though, there is the sense that the Court was
political or is--and that is bad for the country that the Court ever got
involved in deciding the election?
The President. I think that the statements of the Vice
President and the President-elect should stand on their own, and at this time I
should not say anything about it. I think it's just--I don't think I
should comment on it now.
Q. You said on Saturday that in order to bestow legitimacy on the
President-elect, the Supreme Court should allow the vote. Do you not
feel that same way now?
The President. No, I said I disagree with the Court decision, but I
accept it. The right of judicial review established by John Marshall in
Marbury against Madison, then involving review of executive actions of
the President, has been extended to every other aspect of our law
wherever there is a Federal question involved.
And somebody has to make the final call. And the American people
obviously make their judgments about it. And the Court, as you know,
often had different positions than they do now, that we've been through
a lot of, you know, a lot of cycles of this. Remember, the Supreme Court
struck down all the New Deal legislation until 1937. Then they turned
around, and they changed.
Plessy v. Ferguson was the law until the Warren Court came along and
basically redeemed the promise of the Civil War and the 13th and 14th
and 15th amendments. Before Abraham Lincoln and the war and the
amendments, the Supreme Court said in the Dred Scott case that even a
freed slave that--I mean a slave that escaped to a free State was still
property.
So, the Supreme Court--people can make their judgments there. No one
looking back on history would say that every decision they have made is
right. We could all find ones we agree and disagree with. But the
principle of judicial review is very important in this country, and
therefore we must all accept the decisions we don't agree with.
Q. Justice Stevens, in his dissent, said the one loser here is--I'm
paraphrasing, obviously--the belief of Americans in a nonpolitical
unbiased nature of the Court. [Inaudible] Is that what he said?
The President. I just don't want to comment on it. I don't think--I
can serve no purpose by commenting on it. If I did, I would not be
honoring what Vice President Gore said he
[[Page 2709]]
wanted us to do in his speech and what President-elect Bush said he was trying to establish in the country.
There will be time enough to comment on it. And a lot of law
professors and other people who understand the history of the
Constitution will comment on it. And the American people will read it
and discuss it. And at some future time, it might be appropriate for me
to put down somewhere my thoughts about it. But I don't think it's
right, now. I think that this is a period when we ought to let--get the
country going forward and give the President-elect a chance to put his transition in order. That's what's
best for the country, and I want to honor that.
Visits to Ireland
Q. What was your favorite trip to Ireland?
The President. My favorite trip to Ireland? It's very hard. But the
first time I went--I loved '98. I loved Limerick. You know, that was
great when we went there.
Q. Not to mention Ballybunion?
The President. Not to mention Ballybunion, yes, which I missed
because of Bosnia. You remember, in '95, I had to go see our troops off
in Germany. I think I went to Ramstein in Germany.
But in '95 it was like a dam breaking. You know, the emotion, the
feeling for peace. Keep in mind, things were much more uncertain then.
We had a good cease-fire, but we were still 3 years away from the Good
Friday accord, or 2\1/2\ years. It was the end of '95 when I went, and
then the spring of '98 was the Good Friday accord. But you know, I never
will forget being in Derry, turning on the Christmas lights in Belfast
with--who was singing there?
Q. Van Morrison.
The President. Van Morrison was singing there, and then I went to
Derry, and Phil Coulter sang ``The Town I Love So Well'' in the square
with all the people filling the square, and then that street that goes
up the hill behind it as far as you could see.
I mean, there wasn't a dry eye in the place, you know. I mean, I
just can't--and then we went to Dublin. There were over 100,000 people
in the streets in front of Trinity. We set up on the bank, you know, in
front of the Bank of Ireland building--it was just amazing; there were a
lot of interesting people--and quoted Seamus Heaney's poem, you know,
from the ``Cure of Troy,'' for which the next year I took a phrase and
made it the title of the book I put out in '96.
And when I got to Dublin, Seamus came over to the Ambassador's
residence and had handwritten out the section of the poem that I quoted.
It's what the chorus says, ``History says don't hope on this side of the
grave. But once in a lifetime the longed-for tidal wave of justice can
rise up, and hope and history rhyme. Believe in miracles and cures and
healing wells.'' I have it on the wall in my private office on the
second floor, and I look at it every day.
And so he wrote it out in his hand, and then at the end he said,
``To President Clinton: It was a fortunate wind that blew you here,''
and that line is also from the ``Cure of Troy,'' which I would have
every person involved in any of these kinds of things read.
It's only about 90 pages long, and it's a play written in the form
of a Greek tragedy so that the chorus speaks for the collective wisdom
of the people. It's a play about Philoctetes, who was a Greek warrior
with Ulysses. He had the magic bow, and whenever the Greeks have
Philoctetes in the Trojan Wars, they always won. They never lost a
battle when he was there.
And they were in a battle, and he was badly wounded. And they
thought he was certain to die. His leg was horribly wounded, and they
were afraid to carry him. And they were trying to make a quick getaway.
So they dumped him on this tiny island in the Aegean, which was just
basically rock and shrub. And he didn't die, and his leg never fully
healed. It just sort of became a stump.
And for 10 years, he was alone on the island. He became this sort of
wild feral creature, just hair everywhere and his stump leg. And
Odysseus got a message for the gods--Ulysses did--that Philoctetes was
alive and that he had to have him to win the final battle of the Trojan
War with the famous Trojan Horse.
So, he--Ulysses devised this ruse to try to con him back into the
deal. He took a very nice young man with him on a boat, and they found
this island, and he sent the young guy up to see him. And he had some
line he put on him about--he figured out there was something wrong; this
didn't make sense; this guy appears after 10 years.
So finally Ulysses kind of fessed up, went up and said, ``I left
you. I shouldn't have. I'm sorry, but we need you. Will you come?'' And
[[Page 2710]]
he forgives him, and he comes. He gets his magic bow, and he limps down
to the boat, and they go off, and they win the Trojan War.
So, it's a story about how this guy is living alone on this God-
forsaken rock while his leg never heals, and yet somehow what happened
to him over those 10 years, he just gives it up. And he goes on. And
when he is leaving, as he is pulling out of the--you know, away from the
island, the three of them in the boat--Philoctetes looks back at the
island and says, ``It was a fortunate wind that blew me here.''
But he somehow, in that 10 years, just purged his soul. I mean, it's
really--all the things Seamus ever wrote for the peace process in
Northern Ireland and for people struggling with tribal wars in Africa or
any of these conflicts, or people that are still mad at each other--you
know, when I got to Washington, there were Members of Congress still mad
at each other over things that happened in the 1970's, literally, still
mad. And you know, there were times when I felt like a pinata in
somebody else's ballgame.
So you know, when I read this--I remember I read it one night in the
Presidential guest residence in Cairo. I had been carrying it around
with me, and you know, my body clock was all messed up, and I couldn't
sleep. So Hillary went to sleep, and I just sat up and read it. And I
thought, ``Wow, this is really--I wish I could just get everybody to
read this.''
Q. Cairo was--[inaudible].
The President. Well, whenever--one of the times I was in Cairo. The
one thing about me, I have a reputation for having a good memory, but
it's totally shot. I literally--I remember things that we did now, and I
can't remember what year we did them. And if I'm going to write my
memoirs, I'm going to have to get all these young people that work for
me to come in and sort of fill in the blanks.
So much has happened in such a compressed way. On a deal like this,
you know, maybe I get 3 hours of sleep a night. I just can't remember
things, or I remember things, but I don't remember exactly when they
happened.
Q. Why did an Irish playwright write a Greek tragedy?
The President. I think that he believed that it was a simple, clear
way to capture some timeless wisdom that would speak to Ireland and
maybe to others in the same position.
It's really an astonishing work, you know, because if you read it--
if you didn't know anything about it, you would think, ``Is this some
play of Aeschylus I missed when I was in Greek Literature 101 or
something?''
Northern Ireland/Middle East
Q. Before you leave office, do you think that there will be a sense
of permanency--[inaudible]?
The President. That's what I was trying to say in the beginning. I
think that it's creeping in. And I think that the psychological impact
of this visit, more than anything else, was designed to help create
that. But I think there will be rough spots along the road. I think
there will be arguments back and forth.
Q. Do you think there will be--[inaudible]?
The President. No, I think they will still have arguments. I just
don't think they will ever let it slip the tracks.
Q. Do you think that the policing and decommissioning--[inaudible]--
have some kind of common ground--[inaudible]?
The President. I think they're moving on them. Whether they will be
resolved or not, I don't know. But the main thing is, I think every time
you do something that really builds confidence and mutual trust, at
least if they think--both sides think that they want to make it, you
know, then it's--you increase the likelihood of success one way or the
other. And the time deadlines don't matter so much.
I'm more concerned about, you know, giving that sense again to the
Middle East. We had that sense for a while, and then Rabin got killed,
and then we had those two terrible terrorist incidents, and the whole
Middle East rallied around the Israelis at Sharm al-Sheikh, totally
unprecedented, never happened before.
And then there was this sense of possibility again. And then, even
with all the difficulties they had with the Netanyahu government, the
differences of opinion wound up producing the Wye accords. It was 9 days
and nights, and it was sort of like the last person standing won the
argument, but it was--they did it. There was a sense of it. That's what
they need again. They need a sense that, you know, the direction is
right, and it's going to work.
Q. [Inaudible]--some Israelis suggest that you will go back there
and give it one more shot.
The President. I don't want to comment on that either. I don't want
to comment on that
[[Page 2711]]
or North Korea, because all these things are very delicate. The less I
say, the better it is for them and for whatever I can do and for the
next President.
Q. Were you surprised by Prime Minister Barak's resignation--
[inaudible]?
The President. Well, sort of, but you know it's--it's all been
written about. Everybody knows kind of what's going on. I think
he decided that he wanted to bring some finality
to it. He wanted to have some deadline, some election, whether either
his course will be ratified or something will happen. I think it was--
it's a bold move. We will have to see how it works.
Q. [Inaudible]--mentioned that Jim Baker being back on the scene--
remembered that he was the one that uttered that you were working on
``Gulliver's Travels'' in 1996, regarding your work in Northern Ireland.
Do you think he owes you an apology for that statement?
The President. I don't know. I don't make judgments about--I think
when it comes to apologies, you ought to save your judgments for
yourself--to whom should you apologize, and let other people make those
decisions. I think that, look, nobody is right about everything. He is
an immensely talented man. And I think the course is right, now. And I
think the fact that I'm leaving the scene is not--won't be significant.
I just don't think they will let it go.
Q. Do you think Hillary will take up where you left off in
Washington?
The President. Well, she will be
a Senator, not President, but I think that she will be passionately
interested in the Irish question. And she is kind of like me--although,
unlike me, she has no Irish relatives. Her people are English and Welsh,
but she is very familiar with Great Britain. She made all my trips
there, and I think she will be a very positive force.
And of course, we've got that huge Irish crowd in New York. They
were the people that really introduced me to the Irish issues--the New
York Irish and Bruce Morrison from New Haven, who had been a friend of
Hillary's and mine since we went to
law school together, and the late Paul O'Dwyer and his son--Niall
O'Dowd, that whole crowd.
Q. [Inaudible]--the Irish Echo.
The President. The Irish Echo, yes. They were there at the
beginning, my first meeting in 1991. We had that little meeting, you
know. And I thought, you know, it makes a lot of sense to me. I will do
something on this. I will pander to her. I don't mind. I will give her the pander. Hey, I'm
leaving. I'll pander. [Laughter]
President's Travel/Foreign Policy
Q. What was your favorite trip outside of Ireland?
The President. I don't know. I loved so many of them. I loved that
trip to India. I loved my trip to China. I loved the--the Africa trip
was amazing. There was a Guinean woman--you were standing there on the
street today; you were there with me--when we were walking down, you
know, on Portobello Road. Did you see that woman come up to me and say,
Aproba, aproba, aproba? That's the Guinean word for welcome. I said,
``Were you there?'' She said, ``I was there. I was there in the
square.'' It was so touching. It was wonderful.
I think it's really important that the United States have a sort of
21st century view of what really counts in the world. I think that
Africa has to count for us. I think that Latin America has to count for
us.
I think President-elect Bush, I think,
will be very, very good in Latin America. One of the things that I
noticed about him that I liked, during all the years when I fought the
Republicans in Congress and in California over immigration issues, he
never got over there with them. And it's probably the only issue on
which Texas Republicans are more liberal or less conservative than
California Republicans. And it's because of the whole history and
culture of the Rio Grande Valley, which I love very much. I went down
there 30 years ago, and I've always loved it. I think I was the first
President in 50 years, almost, to go down there as President. And I have
been three times to the Rio Grande Valley. And you can't understand how
Texans feel about immigration if you've never spent any time in the Rio
Grande Valley and understand how it works for them. It's a whole
different deal.
And he will be very comfortable. He will
be good with Mexico. And I think it will lead him to an interest in not
only in the big countries of South America but, I would hope, the small
countries of Central America, too. But I expect he will be quite
successful in building on the outreach we've done in the Latin American
countries.
It's going to be important. That's the point I was trying to make
today in my speech at
[[Page 2712]]
Warwick. As the world becomes more interdependent, pursuing our
interests involves more than great power politics.
It's like in the Middle East. Now, I think pursuing our interests
involves having a good relationship with the Saudis and, insofar as we
can, the other oil producers, except for Iraq, where I just don't
think--I think they're still unreconstructed.
But it also involves caring about the Palestinians. Life is more
than money and power. And ideas are power, and emotions are power. I
have tried to reconcile the legitimate desires of both the Israelis and
the Palestinians. We didn't succeed yet, but we--I think that in the
end, if we want Israel to be fully secure and at peace in the Middle
East, the Palestinian question has to be resolved in a way that enables
them, actually, not only to live but to actually start, you know, having
a successful economy and a functioning society.
I've got to go. It's been interesting.
I can't really say I had a favorite trip because all of them, you
know, I can remember too many things about them all.
Thank you.
Note: The President spoke at 2:55 p.m. e.s.t aboard Air Force One en
route from the United Kingdom to Andrews Air Force Base, MD. In his
remarks, he referred to Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Prime
Minister John Major of the United Kingdom; First Minister David Trimble
of Northern Ireland; musicians Van Morrison and Phil Coulter; former
Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu of Israel; and Niall O'Dowd,
publisher, The Irish Voice.