[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 37 (Monday, September 18, 2000)]
[Pages 2042-2044]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Reception for Hillary Clinton in New York City

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.

[[Page 2043]]

    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 1992, 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.
    So we have these big challenges. We also, as Americans, have not 
fully recognized the extent to which we are interdependent with the rest 
of the world. We should be doing more to develop the capacities of 
Indians within India and other peoples around the world and building 
trading and other ties with people and working with people more. That's 
why I came up here and spent 3 days last week at the Millennium Summit 
of the United Nations, meeting with leaders from all over the world, 
doing my best to try to create the impression that America does not wish 
to dominate the world but to work with it so that we can all win 
together.
    There is a very interesting book out today called ``Non Zero,'' by 
an American writer named Robert Wright. But it might have had some roots 
in Oriental philosophy. The basic argument of the book, the ``Non Zero'' 
book, is that as societies grow more advanced and complex, people 
inevitably grow more interdependent, both within nations and across 
national boundaries.
    And therefore, notwithstanding the terrible things that happened in 
the 20th century and the World Wars and the oppression of the 
dictatorships, the world essentially has continued to grow more 
interdependent, which means that wisdom dictates that we look for more 
and more human interaction where everyone wins, which are not, in the 
parlance of game theories, zero-sum solutions, but win-win solutions, 
where we look for non-zero solutions.
    The reason that I think it is important for Hillary to be in the 
Senate is that for 30 years, staring with the welfare of children and 
their families, with the need for people to balance work and 
childrearing with the understanding that the most important work of any 
society is raising children well, she has spent a lifetime looking for 
solutions in which everyone comes out better.

[[Page 2044]]

    Now, the book is not naive, and neither am I. There is a race for 
President. One person will win, and one person will lose. There's a race 
for this Senate seat. One will win, and one will lose. But we should 
vote for the person who will make us all win more, who realizes that we 
all do better when we help each other and when everyone has a chance. 
And for all the advances in this country, we can't yet say that is the 
truth.
    One of the things that upsets me from time to time is when some of 
our critics--and I say it because, regrettably, she's inherited most of 
my enemies--[laughter]--and probably, maybe she's made one or two on her 
own, but not many--[laughter]--they'll say, ``Well, she wouldn't be up 
here running for the Senate if she weren't the First Lady.'' The truth 
is that if she hadn't been married to me and spent 30 years trying to 
help other people and do things for other people, she might have been 
doing this 20 years ago.
    So I want you to understand that, yes, I'm biased, but New York 
could not pick a person who is better suited for the genuine challenges 
that our State, our Nation, and our world face in the new millennium 
than Hillary. And I thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 7:43 p.m. at a private residence. In his 
remarks, he referred to reception hosts Sant and Daman Chatwal; and John 
A. Catsimatidis, former president, U.S. Greek Orthodox Archdiocesan 
Council, and his wife, Margo.