[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 43 (Monday, November 1, 1999)]
[Pages 2157-2159]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Vogue Magazine Reception

October 26, 1999

    Thank you very much, Annie, Anna, Madam Secretary, ladies and 
gentlemen. First of all, you've just heard in Madeleine Albright, who 
has done a magnificent job for our country, the introduction--give her a 
hand. [Applause] She was so generous to me, it was a perfect 
illustration of Clinton's third law of politics: Always be introduced by 
someone you appointed to high office.
    It was so nice, I had to pinch myself to make sure I was still 
alive. [Laughter] Normally, you have to keel over before people say 
things like that for you. [Laughter]
    Let me say, I am so honored to have all of you here for this truly 
historic moment in the cultural history of our country. We're here to 
honor two groups of people that I think are very important to our 
present and to our future, women and photographers. [Laughter] The White 
House--some of my former photographers, as well as some of my present 
ones, are here tonight, but a lot of people in the office have almost 
made fun of me, because I'm always comparing the job of a photographer 
in Washington with the job of a reporter or a columnist. And in some 
ways, the job of the photographer is easy, because a photographer is 
rewarded just for looking to see what's there and capturing it in some 
remarkable, clear, crystal way. The poor reporters and columnists have 
to perform reverse plastic surgery on the event to get any notice 
whatever. [Laughter] But it's a really important thing.
    I want to say one thing. I'm delighted that Senator and Mrs. Leahy 
are here. Senator Leahy, some of you may know, is also a very 
accomplished photographer. And we have in the home of our cabin at Camp 
David a magnificent picture that he took in Tibet, which we treasure 
very much. So there are a lot of people here who admire you, Annie, and 
your craft.
    I also want to thank Susan Sontag for her participation in this. You 
never know how a book like this is going to do, but in terms of its 
appropriateness at this moment in our history, it strikes me that it 
could have the kind of impact that James Agee and Walker Evans had so 
many decades ago with their magnificent book, ``Let Us Now Praise Famous 
Men,'' which captured the faces of the Depression. And for people like 
me who grew up the children of Depression-era parents in very poor 
places, it had a profound impact. And that's what I sense is possible 
here.
    This work also--you heard about our Vital Voices initiative that 
Hillary has worked so hard on, the Secretary of State has worked so hard 
to support. But Vital Voices has a lot in common with what is being 
celebrated here, because it has worked to empower women all over the 
world who are just interested in making politics what it's supposed to 
be, an instrument of solving common problems. And I have seen the power 
of this.
    Hillary and I went to Africa a couple of years ago, and we were in, 
I think it was Senegal, at the end of our trip, but we went to this 
meeting. Hillary is always getting to go to these meetings and talk to 
people about solving--[laughter]. And all of a sudden--and she said, 
``You know, I met these people the last time I was here from this little 
village, these women who were determined to end the practice of female 
genital mutilation.'' And they had a few token guys there who were 
cheering them on. It's the same thing everywhere. [Laughter] ``And they 
have come all the way to the Capital to meet you.

[[Page 2158]]

So you've got to understand this, and you've got to handle this.''
    So we go into this meeting, and there are these people just in these 
resplendent, bright, brilliant, beautiful native dresses, these women 
and their token male supporters, who were also pretty dolled up and 
pretty proud of themselves for trekking in and sticking up. [Laughter] 
But they were alive.
    I met with Irish women that Hillary had been working with for 
several years, by the time I met with them, who had been critical to the 
progress we've made in the Irish peace process. In Bosnia, when the 
Muslims and Croats and the Serbs wouldn't even talk to each other, there 
were women in groups reaching across the ethnic and religious lines to 
work for the common future of their children. And they weren't really 
anti-political. They were political in the best sense.
    One of the things that happens to all political systems and all 
movements is that people tend to acquire a vested interest in the 
perpetuation of whatever the problem is, because that's how they got 
where they are. And we all have to be willing to let it go and go on.
    And this vital voice, she just got back from Iceland. And in 
Reykjavik, they had women from central Europe, from the Baltic States, 
from Russia, from all the Scandinavian countries coming together to talk 
about common problems. This is a huge potential force in world politics. 
And I, for one, am very grateful.
    I've also seen the work that we have done since we've been here--and 
I thank you, Secretary Albright--through our AID programs. We fund now 2 
million microenterprise loans every single year, almost all of which go 
to poor village women in Latin America and Asia and Africa, who with 
just a little bit of money can change the future.
    We met a woman in Uganda in a little village who was now in the 
rabbit business, having gone up from the chicken business. We met 
another woman who had started her own restaurant in this little village. 
All these things are an important part of changing the new millennium 
for women and their daughters.
    I'm especially grateful, too, for the work that Hillary and 
Madeleine have done to try to encourage the education of young women. 
And I loved it, when we were in Africa and Uganda, they were bragging 
about the fact that they had more girls in school than other African 
countries, that they knew we wanted to hear it. They knew we cared, but 
they knew it was the right thing to do.
    And the last thing I would like to say, because no one has mentioned 
this yet--perhaps the most difficult place in the world for women today 
is still Afghanistan. And I hope that the fact that we have had two 
Afghan women here in one of our human rights events and the fact that we 
continue to push for changes in the lives of those people and to take as 
many in as we can here will someday lead to a change in that country 
because no women should have to undergo what those women have 
experienced.
    Now, we celebrate tonight Annie Leibovitz's photographs of our 
women, from coal miners to Supreme Court justices. We say that they are 
all important, that they all matter, that they are not any longer 
invisible, nor are they any longer discounted, that we know our ability 
to manage all of our other diversities in America, and we are fast 
becoming the most diverse, complicated, big democracy in the world, 
racially, ethnically, religiously, many other ways.
    Our ability to manage them all must begin with our ability to have 
genuine equal treatment, mutual respect, and equal empowerment of women 
and men. And I truly believe that the stunning gifts of this great 
artist and fine human being, who happens to be a woman, will make a 
major contribution to that end.
    I'm glad you brought your family. They're a pretty rowdy bunch. 
[Laughter] And I see where you got your spirit. And I see how you became 
so observant. It was probably necessary from time to time to be 
observant just to survive in this crowd. [Laughter] But I--I thank you, 
Annie, for doing this. I thank you for your dedication to your work. I 
thank you for showing that capturing the simple truth about people is 
the most interesting thing of all.
    Thank you very much.

[[Page 2159]]

Note: The President spoke at 7:52 p.m. in the East Room at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to photographer Annie Leibovitz; Anna 
Wintour, editor-in-chief, Vogue magazine; and author and critic Susan 
Sontag whose essay appears in ``Annie Leibovitz: Women,'' a companion 
catalog to the exhibit of the same title which opened at the Corcoran 
Gallery of Art on October 27. The transcript released by the Office of 
the Press Secretary also included the remarks of the First Lady.