"Thank you, come again!"
Posted on 03/29/2007 4:16:30 PM PDT by yoe
While on a whirlwind fundraising visit to California that reportedly raised $10 million for her presidential campaign last weekend, New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton sat down with the Asian American media for a brief conversation that touched on relations between the United States and India.
"I am very encouraged by the closer ties between the United States and India," Clinton told India-West. "I had a wonderful trip there with my daughter in 1996, and I went to India to demonstrate the strong desire of the Clinton administration to increase ties between our countries. I am encouraged at how much progress has been made."
At an early morning media roundtable Mar. 25 at the Fairmont Hotel, Clinton defended her choice to support the recent nuclear deal between the world's two largest democracies, but suggested her choice was made partly with politics in mind.
"I supported the U.S.-India nuclear agreement in the Congress, after Congress got the chance to review it and make some changes," she said.
"I will continue to support that particular deal," she said, "but more than that, it's important to deepen our relationship. It's important for the United States to get back to working with other countries. The last six years we have not done as much of that as we need to.
"We can have government-to-government agreements, but we also need people-to-people relationships. We need to get back to having our universities, our nongovernmental organizations, our foundations, our businesses, our sports teams, our labor unions, all forming partnerships with their counterparts in India," she told India-West.
Since her first visit to the country in 1996, Clinton has made several trips, including one in 2005 when she met with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress leader Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi. The previous year, Forbes magazine had listed both women as two of the world's most powerful females - Gandhi came in third and Clinton fifth.
Clinton's decision to arrange this Asian-American-media-only event was in response to an incident in February in which two prominent Chinese American outlets were barred from one of her fundraisers in the city when they arrived too late for the Secret Service's cutoff time. She began her remarks with an apology and said, "I have worked closely with the broad, diverse community that is represented by the [Asian American Pacific Islander community] and I am thrilled to have strong support in New York that we'll be able to translate into strong support for my campaign nationally."
Stressing that she had worked closely on a number of issues important to Asian Americans, she said, "Obviously, we are all concerned with economic opportunities, good jobs, good incomes, fair and safe working conditions, education - particularly access to higher education - health care, and the disparity that distinguishes one group from another."
Clinton said she is a strong supporter of immigration reform, and is seeking to "reunify families by bringing back the V visa program," which allows spouses and minor children of green card holders to live in the United States with them while their immigration paperwork is pending.
She also supports the Development, Relief, and Education for Minors Act, or DREAM Act, which would enable students who are the children of non-citizens to pursue higher education without residency restrictions. "The DREAM Act is a very important part of what America should offer as a part of the American dream," she said, adding that she has also supported health care programs for immigrant children and pregnant women.
In a comment especially relevant to South Asians who had faced harassment and discrimination since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Clinton said, "I have also worked with members of the AAPI community to deal with hate crimes and racial profiling and discrimination.
"All are problems which still, unfortunately, affect too many people. After 9/11, as many of you know, there was an unfortunate increase in such actions. I have worked with a number of groups to speak out against that and to make it clear that we would not tolerate any such discriminatory treatment and actions."
Clinton has roped in one of the Indian American community's most high-profile names for help with her election campaign - hotelier Sant Singh Chatwal, who has been a friend of the Clintons' since 1991, was one of the co-chairs of a Mar. 18 event that raised over $1 million for her presidential campaign.
Chatwal - owner of the Hampshire Hotels and Resorts and Bombay Palace chains -said he was impressed by the Clintons' awareness of and interest in India that went back to before Bill Clinton was elected president.
"The Republicans didn't give a damn about India," Chatwal told India-West from New York Mar. 26. "I realized that the last American president who had visited India till then was Jimmy Carter ... I wanted to build a relationship with them, and I wanted to be able to help them in case they ever did visit India. They delivered on that promise."
Chatwal, who was himself profiled in a June 2006 issue of Forbes, has lent Clinton the use of his private jet, a $40 million Falcon, and has accompanied her twice to India.
He has also founded a political action committee he calls Indian Americans for Hillary 2008.
His goal is to consolidate individual contributions and regroup prominent members of the community across the country to provide Clinton with a united front to the road to the White House, said a spokesperson.
Chatwal, who made international headlines in February 2006 when he bankrolled a multimillion-dollar wedding for his son, hotelier-turned-actor Vikram Chatwal, knows how to throw a party: among the events Chatwal is organizing for Clinton this summer will be a black tie gala June 25 in New York City, with an expected turnout of over 1,000 Indian Americans; and a glittering Bollywood bash in August that will attract some of the Mumbai film industry's brightest stars.
I bet that joke about Ghandi brought the house down.
The speech went well, until Clintoon was overheard asking "now can we get some Slurpees to go?"
Did she contact Sanjaya?
Nice to know the Sioux and Navajos can count on being represented by Herself, the Cold and Joyless.
Oh. They are talking about the RICH Indians.
"Thank you, come again!"
It wasn't Native American "Indians", it was India Indians.
The New York Democrat made the remark at a fund-raiser Saturday. During an event here for Senate candidate Nancy Farmer, Clinton introduced a quote from Gandhi by saying, "He ran a gas station down in St. Louis."
Hillary lives in Chappaqua N.Y. Chappaqua is an Indian word, meaning "Land of Seperate Bedrooms."
That whole "Sacred Cow" thing, uh,,,, you know
Hillary Clinton's antics remind me of the movie "The Producers". She is like the Zero Mostel character who sells 100% of the profits to his musical to dozens and dozens of gullible little old ladies. In this case it is Hillary selling out the nation's interests to multiple foreign powers.
How are the Chinese Commies going to react when the hear that Hillary is taking $$ from India - their enemy?
I still hate the old cow...
Ugly white woman in Sari speaks with forked tongue.
lol..Love the sig line too.
I will do my part to dissuade a few but I live in the Europe of America : Massachusetts where all elections are a foregone conclusion.
The Chinese are salivating at the prospect of a female head of the US armed forces.
Speaking as someone who has gotten to know his Indian neighbors/coworkers/girlfriends quite well, it has always seemed to me that Indians are conservatives of the heart and liberals of the brain, at least among the Hindus and Sikhs.
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