Bill Clinton
US politician, 42nd President of the United States; husband of Hillary Clinton.
The last time I checked, the Constitution said, 'of the people, by the people and for the people.' That's what the Declaration of Independence says.
There's never a perfect bipartisan bill in the eyes of a partisan.
"I think it's very interesting that all the conservative Republicans who now say I didn't do enough claimed that I was too obsessed with Bin Laden. All of President Bush's neo-cons thought I was too obsessed with Bin Laden. They had no meetings on Bin Laden for nine months after I left office. All the right-wingers who now say I didn't do enough, said I did too much—same people."
Let me tell you what the facts are. Now, we had a hard time getting those facts into these debates, because they're so inconvenient for the other side. And I admire that about the Republicans: The evidence does not faze them. … They are not bothered at all by the facts. And you've got to kind of give it to them. … They know what they're for.
When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans, it was assumed that the Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly. That is, when we set up this country, abuse of people by Government was a big problem. So if you read the Constitution, it's rooted in the desire to limit the ability of — Government's ability to mess with you, because that was a huge problem. It can still be a huge problem. But it assumed that people would basically be raised in coherent families, in coherent communities, and they would work for the common good, as well as for the individual welfare.
Strength and wisdom are not opposing values.
We need a steady stream of cash. The American people have been uncommonly generous.
A hundred years from tonight, another American President will stand in this place and report on the State of the Union. He—or she—(applause)—he or she will look back on a 21st century shaped in so many ways by the decisions we make here and now. So let it be said of us then that we were thinking not only of our time, but of their time; that we reached as high as our ideals; that we put aside our divisions and found a new hour of healing and hopefulness; that we joined together to serve and strengthen the land we love.
Abigail, do you favor the United States Army abolishing the affirmative action program that produced Colin Powell? Yes or no? Yes or no?