Dear Bill, I love you. Love, Claire
3:02 a.m. || Friday, Dec. 06, 2002
Dear Bill:
Please come back! We'll be nicer this time around, promise!
xoxo.
Claire
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[The following quotes are selected portions of a speech Mr. Bill "My man" Clinton made for the DLC. You can see it hee-ah.]
"Our policy was simple. We wanted economic growth for everybody. We had almost 8 million people moved out of poverty as compared to 70,000 in the Reagan recovery; 100 times as many. We also had more millionaires and billionaires than ever before. Every time I see one of my Republican friends, I always remind them that they did better under us too. We are an equal opportunity prosperity people, we Democrats.
A guy came up to me at a multiple sclerosis banquet the other night. The guy was twice as big as me and he said, I'm a Republican and I voted against you twice. Then he said, I'd sure like to have you back now. It was funny."
"Another thing I would say is sort of heresy. I would like to see the DLC initiate a dialogue with conservatives all across America who aren't interested in the politics of personal destruction. Most conservatives are conservative in theory but operationally progressive if they know and understand what the issue is and they don't feel like it's a threat to their values. And I think we ought to have conversations, not screaming matches on radio and television talk shows, conversations about why the Brady Bill is not a threat to the right of people to go hunting, about why being pro choice is not the same thing as thinking there ought to be more abortions in America, about why being for basic civil rights for gay people is in the best American tradition and doesn't have anything to do with somebody's religious or personal convictions. We ought to talk and, and we ought to listen. Look, the agents of change lose when there's no dialogue. When people are screaming at each other and they're mad and they're scared, we lose. When people are talking and listening and thinking, we win. And I think we ought to reach out and have a genuine organized, disciplined dialogue."
"The last point I want to make is we've got to be strong. When we look weak in a time where people feel insecure, we lose. When people feel uncertain, they'd rather have somebody who's strong and wrong than somebody, who's weak and right. When I went in to Bosnia or Kosovo, and some Republican leader criticized me, if I had run ads in his state against him, the Republicans would have shut down the operations of the Senate until we stopped. What was done to Tom Daschle was unconscionable, but our refusal to stand up and defend him in a disciplined way was worse. We should not demonize them. That's not who we are. Are we comfortable with that? But we should defend ourselves. You just remember that when people are insecure, they'd rather have somebody who's strong and wrong than somebody who's weak and right.
Finally, a word about the basic things. We win with vision, values and ideas. What should our vision of the 21st century be? A global community of people committed to people and prosperity, freedom and security. What's the basic value? Our differences are interesting but in an interdependent world, our common humanity matters more. Everybody counts, everybody deserves a chance, everybody has got a responsible role to play; we all do better when we work together. What's the strategy? Just what I said: a security strategy; a positive strategy to make a world with more friends and fewer enemies; institutional cooperation through the U.N., the World Trade Organization, and I believe, cooperation against climate change, for a comprehensive nuclear test ban, for a biological weapons convention. I'm even satisfied that the criminal court presents no threat to our soldiers.
So, I'm for all that and I don't think you can just ask people to cooperate when it suits you. There were times when the World Trade Organization issued decisions I thought were nuts. But I thought we were better off in than out. If people only cooperated when it suited them, there would be no marriages. There were would be no sports teams. There would be no successful business partnerships. There would be no nothing. We live in an interdependent world. In the '90s, we got the benefits of it. On September the 11th, it hit us right upside the head. In both cases, the same forces were at work: open borders, easy travel, access to information and technology, what's the difference? The downside happens in an interdependent world when people don't have shared values, shared benefits, and shared responsibilities. That's the world we've got to make.
To do it, we have to keep making America better. That's our job. I think you ought to be optimistic. And I think you ought to be strong. Of course it is hard. Machiavelli said there is nothing so difficult in human affairs as to change the established order of things. The people who have fought throughout history for peace and progress have had a hard time. It cost Lincoln his life. FDR, destroyed his health. Gandhi, President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, all killed. Sadat and Rabin died in the Middle East, killed by their own people, who were against the kind of progress and peace they sought to achieve. Mandela spent 27 years in jail because he thought the majority ought to have something to say about how the people of South Africa lived and ordered their affairs. Look, this is hard.
Martin Luther King said the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice. The people, who want to be the benders toward justice have the harder burden. You chose to be Democrats. Nobody made you. You made this decision. And most of us are still here because we like being here. So we lost a couple of elections. Big deal. Compared to the sacrifices others have made to be agents of constructive change, so what? So I say, take a deep breath. Decide what you believe. Rear back and go on.
Thank you very much."
AMEN.
C