My hotel room, eh?
Actual AP caption: FormerPresident Bill Clinton gets a hug from an admirer while autographing copies of his book 'My Life' in Toronto on Thursday August 5, 2004. (AP Photo/CP,Frank Gunn)
Posted on 08/06/2004 3:21:29 PM PDT by Libloather
Clinton praises Canada as a 21st-century model
CTV.ca News Staff
Canada is a good model for where the world needs to go in the 21st century, says former U.S. President Bill Clinton.
"Canada has proved you can be a model of multiculturalism. That people can get together, work together, live together, across religious, ethnic and racial lines," he told Canada AM's Seamus O'Regan in an interview broadcast Friday.
"You can assimilate new immigrants without losing the fundamental character of your country. You can be a very old fashioned, family-oriented, work-oriented country without discriminating against gays.
"You can be an aggressive country willing to send your military around the world in the defence of freedom and to stop genocide without, in effect, ridiculing the United Nations but instead supporting it."
Clinton, in Toronto to promote his biography My Life, mostly supported the decision by his old golfing buddy, former prime minister Jean Chretien, to not send troops to Iraq.
"I'm not sure I agreed entirely with the Canadian position that they would only go to Iraq if the whole UN voted for it," he said, noting there wasn't unanimous support for urgently-needed interventions in Kosovo and Bosnia.
"In Iraq, I thought the Canadians were right to say that the United States had no business attacking Iraq until at least the United Nations inspectors had at least finished the weapons inspections," he said.
Clinton described chief inspector Hans Blix as a "highly regarded man, no toady for (now-deposed Iraq dictator) Saddam Hussein, just pleading for a few more weeks to finish the job."
For the U.S. to decide when the inspectors were finished was wrong, he said.
"Now, if they had finished the work and Hans Blix had said, 'well, I can't tell you whether he's got weapons or not because the man will not co-operate,' then I would have supported an attack even if some members of the Security Council, for other reasons, didn't endorse it."
However, Clinton questioned the whole strategy of focusing on Iraq, noting there was wide support for the invasion of Afghanistan and toppling of the al Qaeda-supporting Taliban. But there are only 15,000 U.S. troops there to support Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and hunt for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his top aides.
"Every time we get a new piece of information about the al Qaeda ... it comes from the Pakistanis. Now, clearly, al Qaeda and bin Laden are bigger security problems than Iraq."
In terms of priorities, he described Iraq as a "three, four, five, six security problem," yet there were 130,000 U.S. troops there.
His friend Belinda
The relationship between Clinton and Belinda Stronach -- the former Magna CEO, Conservative Party leadership hopeful and new Conservative MP for Newmarket-Aurora -- has been the object of tabloid speculation.
"She's a friend of mine. Her father (Frank Stronach) is a friend of mine. They have supported my foundation work in AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean," Clinton said.
"But during the time she was running she didn't talk to me. And I think she didn't do it partly because of my long friendship with Prime Minister Chretien and partly because it was her own career -- you know, what do I know about Canadian politics," he said with a shrug.
Bill and Hillary
The Clintons have known each other since 1971. They've stayed married through scandals small (Gennifer Flowers) and large (Monica Lewinsky).
O'Regan asked about what Clinton thought about the "naysayers and the gossip hounds who say this is a marriage of convenience which has more to do with her future than it does with a loving marriage."
Clinton chuckled cynically and said, "she might have had a better future if she'd bagged me."
More seriously, he said after helping friends with their marriages, "I've become convinced that nobody knows very much about anybody else's marriage, even when our best friends share it with you and try and get you involved in some way."
No one among those who really know him and Hillary "believes for a minute that we had an arranged marriage," he said.
"We've fought the same battles, we believe the same things, and we've had a very interesting life together."
When they started going together, "I actually was reluctant when we started going together to ask her to marry me because I thought her political potential was equal to or greater than mine," he said.
"If she called me today and said 'I never want to see you again,' I'd still support her in everything she ever did. She's an amazing human being -- a wonderful woman, a wonderful wife, a wonderful mother and an unbelievable senator."
Why he's liked
Thousands turned up at a Toronto bookstore Thursday hoping to get their copy of his book signed. The excitement of people who managed to get close to the two-term president was palpable.
Asked why people still reacted to him that way after almost four years out of office, Clinton said: "I'm not sure ... I think it's because people around the world thought I wanted a common future with them, that I was pulling for them as well as the American people, and that I saw the 21st Century as an era of co-operation not conflict.
"I think they may have approved of my policies at home and the things I tried to do around the world. They might be interested in the story of my life, my country and our common story over the last 50 years. There may be a lot of reasons, but it's very moving to me."
Good. Move to Canada then, Bill, and save us from seeing your bulbous nose ever again.
And take your shrieking wife with you.
You did nothing after the first hit on the Towers in 93!! Get over it!!
Hey billy blythe STFU.
I swear, it's harder and harder to tell a_hole clinton from a_hole carter.
Multiculturalism is a huge hit in Canada. They like it so much the French Canadians are trying to get their own country to have even MORE multiculturalism! Whee!
I lived in Canada from 1983-1986. Leaving office has not left Bill Clinton any less FOS than he was before.
can I barf now?
I don't want him over here :P
That 2/3's of my countrymen seem to have lost their minds makes no difference to me.
Sure Bill, other countries can be a model of multiculturism just like Canada - if they completely sell all their values and their national soul away to cultures who want to destroy their way of life.
"Canada has proved you can be a model of multiculturalism"
Big frickin' deal. They also don't have any jobs so the Canucks are coming to Michigan taking what few jobs we have. On top of that, they are so used to socialism that they are completely unproductive and high maintenance (at least the ones I have to work with). They also have the attitude that they are better than we are because they are socialists like the Euro-pukes.
One of the unproductive Canadians I work with had the audacity to say to me recently that she can't believe they (she and her deadbeat husband) can't get socialized medicine here. Everytime I think of her I want to kick her --- all the way back to Toronto.
Yeah Bill. I guess dodging ashtrays flung at you by Hillary would be interesting.
Why can't he just shut up?
I'm having difficulty trying to hold my puke.
Actual AP caption: FormerPresident Bill Clinton gets a hug from an admirer while autographing copies of his book 'My Life' in Toronto on Thursday August 5, 2004. (AP Photo/CP,Frank Gunn)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.