[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 24 (Monday, June 19, 2000)]
[Pages 1352-1354]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks Honoring Senator Christopher J. Dodd

June 12, 2000

    Thank you very much, Rosa. I want to thank you and Stan for your 
friendship, and I want to thank you for being graceful enough not to say 
that in 1980, when Chris Dodd got elected, I became the youngest ex-
Governor in the history of America. [Laughter]
    I want to thank Chris and Jackie for trusting me to get up here at 
the podium tonight. And Senator Daschle and Senator Lieberman, thank you 
for what you said and for your friendship. Boy, ol' Bob Dole was great, 
wasn't he? [Laughter] He owes me a lot, Bob Dole does. [Laughter] I 
mean, if it weren't for me, he'd be just like all us gray-haired 50-
year-olds, he'd have to pay for his Viagra. [Laughter] We've had a lot 
of fun, Senator Dole and I have, in the last 3\1/2\ years. And we had a 
little fun before. But I appreciate his coming tonight.
    And I want to thank Father Fluet for his prayer and his remarks, 
quoting that wonderful chapter from Matthew. It so captures the 
political philosophy of Chris Dodd. He did ask me, he said, ``You know, 
Mr. President, they say I only have 3 minutes, and I need more than 3 
minutes. Can I have more than 3 minutes?'' I said, ``You're Chris Dodd's 
priest. If I could do it, I'd make you a cardinal''. I said, ``Take 
whatever you want.'' [Laughter]
    It's an amazing crowd of people here tonight and not all of them 
want to be Vice President. [Laughter] But a lot do. I just want to say, 
this really says something about Chris Dodd. In addition to Senator 
Lieberman and Senator Daschle and Representative DeLauro here, we either 
have now, or we have had--because some of them had to leave and go 
vote--listen to this: Senator Lautenberg from New Jersey; Senator Reed 
from Rhode Island; Senator Reid from Nevada; Senator Akaka from Hawaii; 
Senator Wellstone from Minnesota; Representatives Larson, Maloney, and 
Gejdenson, obviously from Connecticut; Representative Pelosi from 
California, who just came in; Representative Chet Edwards from Texas; 
Representative Sherrod Brown from Ohio. Those are just the ones I saw.
    Now, what does that tell you? They want Chris Dodd's contributor 
list. [Laughter]
    I want to say a couple of things very briefly. First, I would like 
to associate myself with every good thing that's been said about Chris 
Dodd tonight. I want to thank, on behalf of myself and Hillary, Chris 
and Jackie, for being such good friends, for the private time we've 
spent together--time playing golf, time just having dinner, time talking 
about our family, our friends, our dreams.
    I want to thank Chris Dodd for making it possible for the first bill 
I signed as President, over 7 years ago now, to be the family

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and medical leave law. He introduced me tonight to the woman who, with 
her child, inspired that law in his mind and heart. I like a person who 
believes politics is about flesh and blood, people and how they live, 
their hopes, their dreams, what they try to make of themselves and their 
children.
    And you may remember that the Democrats had passed that law in the 
previous administration, and it had been vetoed. And I promised and made 
it an issue in the '92 campaign. I said, ``I want to sign this bill. I 
want it to be the first bill I sign.'' And I listened to all that 
whining about how, you know, this is going to be a terrible burden on 
small business, and we were going to bankrupt the economy, and how awful 
it would be.
    And 7\1/2\ years later, and 22-plus million jobs later, we've set 
records for small business formation in every year, and over 20 million 
of our fellow citizens--over 20 million--have been able to take a little 
time off when a baby was born or a parent was sick, thanks to the fact 
that Chris Dodd didn't give up in the face of a veto, an opposition, and 
all that rhetoric. It changed America.
    And I believe that one of the things we ought to be doing with our 
prosperity now is building on the work he did with the child care tax 
credit and the family and medical leave law, because the idea behind it 
is a very simple but powerful one, which is that we ought not to ever 
ask an American to choose between succeeding at work and succeeding at 
the most important work of all in life, raising your children. Thank 
you, Chris, for giving us that--[inaudible].
    I want to thank Secretary Daley and Secretary Richardson for coming. 
I don't know if they want to be Vice President or if they just want 
Chris to take care of them after the next election. [Laughter] But they 
love you, too.
    I want to thank you for agreeing to become chairman of the 
Democratic Party after the Republicans won the Congress in '94, and 
everyone said we were dead, that we, generically, and me, specifically, 
and you didn't believe it. And you went around and gave hope and cheer 
and energy and fight and courage to people when all the pundits said we 
were history. I thank you for that. A lot of good things have happened 
in this country in the last 4 years because of what you did.
    And lastly, I think someone ought to remark more explicitly on one 
of the reasons for your remarkable blend of quality. You are to the very 
core of your being--and notwithstanding the fact that you know more 
about Latin America than anybody in the Congress--completely, 
irrevocably, Irish. [Laughter] Now, as an apostate Irish Protestant, 
whose people come from Fermanagh, just across the Republic's border into 
Northern Ireland, it has been my great good fortune to involve the 
United States in the Irish peace process.
    You will never know how many times along--[applause]--thank you. You 
will never know how many times along the way, including sometimes 
calling me from the west of Ireland, where he has a place, at all hours 
of the day or night, Chris Dodd and I have talked about Ireland--all the 
things we have said in good times and sometimes the unprintable things 
we said in the difficult times; how many times I've called him just to 
sort of check, just to make sure I had it right, that I wasn't 
misreading the tea leaves and the incredible, emotional complexity of 
Irish politics.
    I say that because any Irish person with any sense knows that the 
only things that count in life are affairs of the heart and that if 
you're blessed by God with a pretty good mind, it's only supposed to be 
used to have a better understanding of the human heart and what counts.
    So for all your gifts, my friend, for all the things you've learned 
in life with its ups and downs, the thing which brings you to this night 
with your optimism intact, with your energy still high, with your 
wonderful wife, and this legion of friends, is that in the very best 
sense you were faithful to the idea of the Irish. You have followed your 
heart, and the world is a better place, and your friends are all richer. 
We love you very much, and we thank you.

 Note:  The President spoke at approximately 10 p.m. in the Ballroom at 
the Mayflower Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Representative Rosa 
L. DeLauro, who introduced the President; Representative DeLauro's 
husband, Stan; Senator Dodd's wife, Jackie Marie Clegg; former Senator

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Bob Dole; and Father Gregoir Fluet, who gave the invocation. The 
evening's program was entitled, ``A Salute to 25 Years of Service--An 
Anniversary Gala Honoring Senator Christopher J. Dodd.''